Together with collaborators, I’m engaged in several long-term research projects to expand my abilities as a dancer and explore the possibilities of improvisational dance in general.
Dynamic Partnering
At the 2016 Seattle Festival of Dance Improvisation, I shared some lovely dances with Brianna López, a dance artist now based in New York. A decade later, watching clips of her solo improvisations, I was completely spellbound by her loose, free, incredibly kinetic movements. What I was seeing was the result of five years of investigation into the interplay of speed and softness in improvisational dance, which led to a training system that she terms the naftali method. It felt like watching fire, or turbulence.
Even more inspiring, I saw something I could relate to from my years in martial arts: I saw energy moving around her body. I felt that this quick, light, almost chaotic flow of energy must somehow be related to what I’ve been working on with Synthesis, a complementary harnessing of energy to the grounded and organized form that comes most natural to me.
A conversation almost immediately became an invitation to visit and then, effortlessly, an ongoing collaboration. A key question we’ve been asking is, what happens when the naftali method and contact improvisation come together? Our initial efforts have been very exciting, with a fast, light, almost trancelike connection emerging that appears agnostic to whether or not we are actually in contact. In thinking of a word to describes the feeling of this mode of dancing, we came up with splash. There’s much more to research, and we’re both excited to think of the possibility of teaching this in the not-too-distant future.
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