Channeling Palms, 2019
Site Responsive Performance Tiznit, Morrocco
I wore your top and knew that I would find you here. The best version of you. When I reached the water’s edge, I cracked my heart open, as I had learned from the palm stems, and shared it with you. Everyday my legs and feet look more like yours. I slip my foot into the sand and feel yours with mine. As I catch up to you, I promise to accept the changes in full and honor them. Not Just for my well-being, but for yours, and for all our ours.
The ocean’s power is so strong it forces us to break the patterns that only yield harm. Your power tousled your soul and ate you up. It was the fastest force I had ever seen. Somehow you saved a bit of that power for me. You, me, and the ocean; we will change the patterns and make space for so much love.
My very first art form was dance. I lived and breathed movement from my earliest memory to age sixteen. At sixteen the structure in which I was moving wasn’t working for me anymore and I lost my way. In January of 2019, just after my thirty-second birthday, I felt that my practice lacked direction and was compelled to travel to Morocco with Slow Research Lab to reinvigorate my thinking. I thought my process there would be to create something with materials and my hands, but when I arrived at the Tiznit Oasis I began to dance again. I searched for materials by studying the way that they related to my body. I let the materials guide me to the movements that I needed to make, to access the feelings that I needed to feel, and the insight that I need to receive. The poem, written in the middle of the movement process, expresses the insight that came with the work.
