Wild Beast Dance | Tammy Carrasco

Artist Statement

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As a maker and critical thinker of dance, I prioritize movement and the implications of the body in creative process. Everyone, from viewer to performer, has the human experience and body in common. With the body as the site of movement, dancers carry inherent meanings in their bodies that form inevitable aspects of performance. I invest in the exploration of formality in dance as it interfaces with post-modern values, and invite meaning to arise out of the relationship between these two ideologies as it interfaces with the individuals in action.

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I aim to interrogate how meaning in dance can emerge out of a rigorous practice of the movement. I pursue creative processes that allow the internal logics and content of the dance to unfold, to emerge in creative process. I recognize dance is an ephemeral art form that can be interpreted in as many ways as there are viewers. The concept of multiple meanings and ephemerality in dance are aspects of the form that both inspire and confound me. Critically analyzing movement and the order in which it occurs means I attend to nuance and organizational structures as a method of making meaning in dance.

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 In rehearsals, my collaborators and I experiment with various compositional and improvisational strategies to discover new ways of creating, viewing, and structuring movement material. I remain curious about when I utilize, or subvert, choreographic conventions, and am observant of my own habits as a maker as something to embrace and challenge. I aim to create dances that make the human-ness of the performers visible, and always return to the nuances of the individual artists in the room. I emphasize collaboration with dancers as well as with artists from other disciplines. Many of my dances are ruminations on assumed roles of spectatorship, asking viewers to engage intellectually with the work and actively identify traces of meaning with a sense of empowerment and authorship. 

 

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