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SOUND BODY - IES (2022 - 23)

Collaboration with: Juan Betancurth, performed by Romany Dear

Musical interventions  by: Alicia Matthews, Jose Marulanda, Daniel Nueman and Victoria Keddie. 

Video Documentation: Movement Research at the Judson Church” and videographer Makenna Finch. 

 

Sound Bodies, is solo performance (work in progress) that explores the syntax of sound-bod-ies, experimenting with the execution of movement between body and object. Employing movement scores around the exploration of pleasure to explore how sound can be seen through the body, and what is the place of pleasure that we place and - or move ourselves from? Inspired by the 'School of things' and the idea of reducing “things to matter” in order to directly engage in its being, perception and realness is the philosophical or conceptual base of this exploration. This project explores the experience of being in touch with / and / or being touched by, playing with the moments of contact between body and object, or between the moving and the static and the material and the ephermal. Exploring the closeness of entangled beings and things (be)coming both together and apart. The work takes the form of a solo dance/ movement performance that explores the idea of  “sound-bod-ies'. The project is a collaborative process between visual artist Juan Betancurth and performing artist Romany Dear where we collectively investigate the relational possibilities between objects and the body, experimenting with both the frictions and the fictions that are created from this syntax. The object in this case, is a bell-mask that proposes the role of both instrument and instructor. The dancer/performer enters into a relationship in which the decisions and desires for how to move or how to be moved are mutually cared for. Exploring practices used in BDSM to communicate and explore the duality within consent. Who is directing, who is giving and who is receiving ? Are we seeing sound or are we hearing movement? What is the experience of pleasure and where do we place ourselves within or outside of that?  Using improvisational dance techniques and movement scores, the work develops a sound composition by exploring the intimate, tactile and sensorial relationship to and with the object. The dancer uses other resources that also have the potential to be received as sounds, such as stillness, the rustling of clothes, blowing, shaking and breathing. 

This work was most recently presented at: El Dorado Museo, Bogota, Colombia in August 2023, and The Judson Church, Movement Research Centre, New York, in September 2023.

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