Rachel DeForrest Repinz

Practice-as-Research: Modal, Sensorial, and Image-Based Approaches to an Improvisational Practice

WHAT DOES IT FEEL LIKE?

I can pass on my craftsmanship to somebody but I can't pass on my intuition? It's personal isn't it? -Navigating the Unknown by Christopher Bannerman, Joshua Sofar, + Jane Watt (32)

WORLD-MAKING

All photos from my personal archive, 2022-2023.

REFERENCE IMAGES

WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE?

WHAT DOES IT CONNECT TO?

CONSIDERING SENSES BEYOND SIGHT/SOUND + HOW THEY MIGHT MANIFEST IN THIS WORLD 

(sometimes, this does not emerge until the practice).

SETTING SPACE/FINDING PLACE

CREATING/DISCOVERING/RE-DISCOVERING THE WORLD IN WHICH THE PRACTICE LIVES.

CURATING/FINDING SOUND

WEEK OF JUNE 19 2023

NOTE: THIS PRACTICE IS ORGANIZED INTO 3 SECTIONS THAT CANNOT BE SEPARATED.

Becoming a dancer as a relearning of embodiment is a process of deep knowing through sensations experienced as material and immaterial becomings. -Field Guide for Choreography as Research by Carol Brown

MERIÁN SOTO's MODAL PRACTICE + SOLO IMPROVISATIONAL PRACTICE (ADESOLA AKINLEYE's CHOREO-THINKING)

Before I found the words, hiking the horizontal was a physical gesture -Hiking the Horizontal by Liz Lerman (xi)

IMPROVISATION

VIDEO DOCUMENTATION

ATTENTION TO SENSE: TOUCH, TASTE, SMELL, HEAR, SEE

WORK-IN-PROGRESS

SHOWINGS/SHARINGS

Move to explore what is there -A widening field by Miranda Tufnell + Chris Crickmay (128)

EMERGING QUESTION: WHAT ROLE DOES TIME PLAY IN THE CREATIVE PROCESS? WHAT IF CAPITALIST PRESSURES DID NOT EXIST? 

PERFORMANCE-BASED SHOWINGS

HOME-WARMING AT THE KRAINE THEATER

NYC, MARCH 2023

SHARING

REJECTING FINALITY/PERFECTION IN PERFORMANCE.

WRITTEN MANIFESTATIONS

(PUBLICATIONS, ESSAYS, JOURNALS, ETC.)

Navigating the Unknown by Christopher Bannerman, Joshua Sofaer, Jane Watt leads me toward ideas about intuition and indigenous ways of thinking about intuition/"groundedness."

 

 

Movement and arrangement, embodiment and encounter. What happens when you curate from this position? -Assembling a Praxis: Choreographic Thinking and Curatorial Agency by Lauren O'Neal (13)

Merian Soto’s Statement on Modal Practice/Modes! informs the improvisational practice.

 

RELATED SCHOLARSHIP

Disability Aesthetics by Tobin Siebers points to ways in which disability adds value (or, transforms value) in visual art forms. 

HOW DOES MOMENTUM MANIFEST IN MY DISABLED DANCING BODY THROUGH THIS PRACTICE?

Hiking the Horizontal by Liz Lerman points to ways in which dance can be enhanced through the engagement of other forms.

The goal is not to make up a dance! It is to use the problems choreographing raises... to ask myself where I stand on the notion I am exploring  -Play by Dr. Adesola Akinleye

Practice as research emerges through both intellectual and corporeal labor -Field Guide for Choreography as Research by Carol Brown

PRACTICE-AS-RESEARCH TOWARDS A DISABILITY AESTHETIC

IMPROVISATION AS METHODOLOGY!

RESEARCH + METHODOLOGY +

THEORY

Kia whakatōmuri te haere whakamua: I walk backwards into the future with my eyes fixed on my past. This whakataukī or ‘proverb’ speaks to Māori perspectives of time, where the past, the present and the future are viewed as intertwined -Kia whakatōmuri te haere whakamua: ‘I walk backwards into the future with my eyes fixed on my past’ by Lesley Rameka

 

SENSORIAL APPROACHES TO ACCESS THROUGH CREATIVE PROCESS...

HOW DOES THIS PRACTICE UNCOVER AN EMBODIED DISABILITY AESTHETIC?

CURATORIAL AGENCY WITHIN THE (A) DISABLED DANCING BODY...

CHOREO-THINKING (FROM PLAY BY ADESOLA AKINLEYE)