MARATHON OF INTIMACIES

(AN ONGOING SERIES OF CHOREOGRAPHIES IN CONVERSATION.)

Performed at CHAPTER ARTS CENTRE 2020, RISE FESTIVAL 2021

Film Sharing for: SURF THE WAVE, CHINESE ARTS NOW

Dancing- often alone in a studio or elsewhere sometimes seems a refuge, an escape from life. 

Yet is also a way to become wholly cellular, including the real as well as the imaginary.

Perceptual actions germinate in a bed of thoughts and feelings foraged from life.

When I imagine dancing talking with someone else. 

I wonder how “otherness” can become one another, each other. 

A touch which includes resonance and dissonance. 

This is how I imagined a series of dances entitled Marathon of Intimacies: a habitat of “otherness” and one another-ness: of the recognition which comes with being ‘stranger’ .

Marathon is a word associated with endurance and winning

Intimacy is overused in describing performance

These two words marathon and intimacy don’t fit together

All the intimacies that have been part of our lives, could they be with us while we're dancing?

Conversation/Choreography One:

Created and performed by Anushiye Yarnell and Jo Fong

Jo:

“For me, this film with Anushiye emerged from our walking in parks and talking about race. White rooms, family, shame, power, being heard, justice, presence… in these last months I’ve been searching, looking everywhere around every corner for how my nearly 50 year old body can be a part of the conversation. In 2020, I’ve been practicing saying the truth and with Anushiye I felt I was able to learn to speak the truth. 

The strategy at the moment is small, safe, hyper-local and with purpose. 

And the question I’m holding closely is, “What is unburdened arts practice for women of colour?”

Anushiye: 

 “Getting what you need... it’s not necessarily what you think you need.

There is a kind of recognition, arriving at the beginning again, which involves not knowing. 

I’m interested in being in the margins- the margins within myself and in life.

This is something that I’m sharing and treasuring with Jo

Our margins meet as a gentle micro riptide. Going out coming in. 

Shedding shame, 

We are both getting what we want from it.

Resonance and difference. 

The complexity, sensuality and movements of consent.

Non destinational care without compromise - a kind of survival.”