with Angeliki Avgitidou and Laura Gonzalez

Upon discussion, the word ‘Utopia’ to describe my direction was questioned due to its political connotations, and how it perhaps doesn’t come across as convincing enough. However, other characteristics surrounding my interest in this word seem to be more effective points of entry: non-space, evading representation, perception and liminality, and catalyzing events to which I cannot control the outcome. I’m interested in generating a landscape where I lead collaborators towards something unknowable, towards rifts within, and the production of, imagination: Utopia as ‘non-place’, not necessarily ‘good-place’, which could open up to any possibility, any flows that come from perceptive, or perspective, shifts.

I’m thinking about how these shifts could become a methodology, and/or how sensuous experiences could become the material of this work. I’m still mostly working alone, and I also put out an open call to collaborators, to which Laura and Angeliki gave me good feedback. Some questions I’m still tackling are: Is this endeavor personal or collective? If collective, how do I plan to lead the group? (remembering that when collaborators respond to an open call, they’re looking for something too) and perhaps I might consider a committed group of collaborators.

In response to the archival video and text score I provided before the meeting, Laura questioned how these elements might be integrated. This also made me return to Angeliki’s question surrounding documentation, and how the documentation of my process could become its own form. She also pointed out that I might be careful with departures into other media, and make sure that what I do is useful for me in deepening my own practice. Whatever I end of producing through this exploratory process (video, text, sound, performance), I want to make sure that it is still in some way ‘dancing’, or comes from this place of shared sensuous experiences framed by choreography.