Friday, July 8, 2011

The Dislocation Express - V-Blog #2: Cristina Carrasquillo

Cristina Carrasquillo, a member of the Dandelion Dancetheater ensemble is the central figure in Act I of The Dislocation Express. 

 In rehearsal we call this Act "Circles" and it was originally inspired by CORE's piece Ice/Car/Cage. CORE was a collaborative performance group made up of artists that have had a huge influence on my work. Ice/Car/Cage was created by Jules Beckman, Jess Curtis and Keith Hennessy and involved a car driving in circles in a parking lot for a half hour--with performers dancing, playing, and going through all sorts of physical risk-taking around it.

I saw this piece in a San Francisco parking lot in 2000 and it blew me away. I've been haunted by it ever since and wanted to make a response to it.  I had an image of Cristina going in circles for a long time, and we started there, and then a complete piece grew from this impulse--very different from Ice/Car/Cage,  but linked in my mind.

I'm moved by Cristina's focus, stamina and risk-taking in this piece. Cristina came to Dandelion through her connection with AXIS Dance Company, and so her presence in this joint work points to a sharing of resources between our companies and the kind of communality that I think is needed to survive as an artist or ensemble these days.




Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_qZ2s8ADSw

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