TEETH
Jessie Young
[2022 Research]
Through Teeth I am investigating questions of artistic self-sufficiency and interdependence. Together as a cast this artistic community is constructing a sort of “group thought” – a shared approach to how we come together and who we are when we come together.
The performers of Teeth construct the landscape that they are moving inside of. They simultaneously navigate channels of movement together and also create those channels. The lighting for the work is being developed by Shana Crawford, and interwoven in the movement is also the navigation of lighting structures that open and collapse the geography of the space. The sound landscape is being devised and performed live by ALEXA GRAE. The movement explores undulations, body waves and different scales of those movements. I am inspired by the image of a river delta and specifically the dam removal at the Elwha River in Port Angeles Washington (my hometown). Over ten years I have watched the coastline and mouth of the Elwha shift and change alongside this removal. These changes remind me of a group–how just bringing a group of people together in a room creates infinitely more possibilities than my solitary mind can imagine.
The work moves inside of a question - what becomes possible when we dance/move together? What does the movement study of a body wave look like when dispersed amongst 6+ performers? How can light interact with movement in a way that creates shifting landscapes? It would be fitting to think of this work as an emergence of group thought. My role inside of all this is to listen, to facilitate and direct the overall trajectory and development of the work. But it is necessarily being made by us all.
