“A lot of my body’s power comes from its knowledge as an archive and the trust I hold in that. This can tie back into my interest in sharing images that are authentic recallings of personal history and stories shared by others, and in interacting with decision making in a way I aim to make parallel with patterns I see as recurring in private. Movement serves as a way both for me to take in and process information as well as to communicate. In creating work, I’m interested in pedestrian tasks as sources for movement, which is a tool I started using with the aim of providing the experience of observing authentic decision making in time, in addition and sometimes in contrast to the experience of watching/viewing ‘performance’ as a separate mode.”

“Authenticity and self-acceptance give my body power. When I make choices that feel like me, create art that resonates with my experiences and curiosities, and do the work that supports my passions and values, I am powerful. As I reclaim the things I have given up in acts of self-betrayal I become more confident and less concerned with how I am perceived and how my art is perceived. There is so much power in this. When I let go and let myself do my thing, unburdened by memory, past, and expectations, my voice becomes powerful. Creating this piece is a process that is living, malleable, ever changing, and discovering. How does moving together help us find understanding, eliminate fear, and see one another more openly? Can moving together make place, make a home?”

“The power of dance for all ages is the understanding of one’s body and in one's own specific way. I believe it is critical to viewing the world around you. The power of dance for me is my own spiritual expression or connection I have with the world. To me the intimate setting created within dance increases the opportunity for understanding—negotiating and listening to space with one another and space around you hopefully creating a more empathetic approach to the world itself. In making work for me, it is the unknown journey of the dancers in the room with me that help reveals what the work is or where it needs to go. I strive to strip away the un-needed or “fake” emotion so that the movement speaks to the meaning of the work, open for each viewer to have their own experience with the dance.”

“I feel the most powerful when I’m able to truly express all my feelings and hardships on the dance floor. Whether it’s in front of people or not, once I can obtain the feeling of being able to get off the thoughts in my head, I feel lighter. Like the weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I’ve been trying to discover my identity within Afro-Caribbean forms, hip hop, krump, and popping styles. I grab bits and pieces of each of these styles that influence me and put it into my own variations.”

“What do I draw from my body to make performance? Everything. My everyday observations, thoughts, history, experiences in and out of the studio influence me. How I think. How I move. It’s all connected; it cannot be separated.”

“I choose to walk in my power as opposed to talk about it.”

PR: “My body feels its most powerful when it is in motion, when I have a strong image or message in my brain propelling my movement. I feel I can funnel my inner workings into or out of movement as a way of making my brain and body feel strong and powerful. The explorations Eva and I delved into required high amounts of communication to ensure we both felt safe and comfortable. It was delightful to discover the ways moving together changed and the trust we built to move in and out of the chair; it was vulnerable for both of us, which undoubtedly tightened our bond.”

ER: “I have been a dancer for a long time. I may not look like other dancers or other people, but what I draw from being a dancer for so long is confidence and belief in myself that I can do what I want. Also, Piper has inspired me. Her presence, creative ideas, caring nature, and personality. I don’t think that I would be able to do any of the movement out of my chair without her.”

KDS: “When I started studying flamenco, at age 38, I was hooked in my first class. The power of the music took me over, and the dance movements were such a fine and sophisticated expression of the power of the music. But it was not my body that called me to dance: it was the emotion in my heart. My piece for Choreographers’ Evening explores what the audience sees when they view a finished dance versus what the dancer goes through to bring the finished dance to the audience. The pain and exhaustion of being a dancer, especially an aging dancer, are not something we want to bring to the stage with us when we dance.”

ST: “I’m inspired and empowered through movement, and it is my juiciest vocabulary to share messages with others. I believe that all our life experiences are written in our bodies on a cellular level. I use dance to wrest these gems to the surface for mining and exploration. And as a woman over age 50, I have experienced the phenomenon of becoming gradually invisible to the world and find this fascinating. My piece for Choreographers’ Evening literally strips away all traditional norms of stage beauty and my usual performance aesthetic, in search of what lies behind the greasepaint.  It also grapples with the fact that I am still here and dancing, and even thriving, despite the degeneration that inevitably comes to all with aging.”   

“My body feels powerful when I feel seen. Other things that give my body power include improvised dance, moving from my pelvis, large earrings, home cooked meals, and other commonplace objects. For Choreographers’ Evening, I added objects to construct a makeshift altar. For Mexican-heritage people, the altar is a site of self-expression that can exist in the everyday. We are in a bit of a maelstrom of discourse surrounding Latinx populations, one in which we are often discussed as a monolith. In this solo, I’m interested in offering a counter-narrative through the individuality of a singular Chicana character.”

“Years ago, when I was studying Graham and Horton techniques, teachers would say to me at times, ‘Julie don’t muscle the movement.’ It was easy to do because I was very strong at that stage. It took time, training, and maturity to internalize and change what and where I found my initiative in moving. Certainly, experience and emotion play their parts. So that equates the same for me in creating and performing dance. Discovering and continuing to explore those realms is all part of this colorful and courageous journey. For this piece, what has been discovered in the 11-year time period is how we, Aneka McMullen and I now rest in the complexity of the statement U Don’t C ME and how we approach individually and together as we perform it now.”

“I am not so much interested in accumulating power in my body, and when I perform conventional types of power or control, it’s usually in order to expose the fragility, contingency, or desperation that’s inherent in them. I think it’s important for bodies that carry a significant amount of privilege to practice changing our typical relationship to power—and especially what it’s like to relinquish it. I have also been researching how the desires that feel most personal are often scripted for us, and how contemporary capitalism gives us the illusion of choice. This has led me to question my assumptions about power and to focus on how bodies affect each other in mutually responsive (though not at all equal) ways.”