School for Contemporary Dance and Thought | 25 Main Street | Northampton, MA ~
This emerging work imagines dance as the organizing principle in a liturgy (a ritualized public ceremony) designed to stir societal stuck places. The work seeks to reconcile the relationship between the expressive body, imagination, faith, liberation, and aesthetic impulse.
- What does dance do (not in service to some other discipline, but in and of itself)?
- What if there was an religious order comprised of dance practitioners called to enact powerful rituals that dance alone can enact?
- Do such dances shift the space between realms and between people?
- Can contemporary dance practice effect such shifts in ways indigenous dances have?
- How might existing religious ritual provide a point of reference?
- If faith is an act of the imagination, how might artistic practice parallel faith practices?
- Can such a practice support the movement toward liberation?
In this trio, a third iteration of a section of the emerging project, liturgy|order|bridge (working title) will be performed as part of the SCDT’s Riff Talks: Tipping Utopia on November 30th.