Dance As/And Land Reclamation was a lecture-performance-video screening that culminated my research for the Dance Research Fellowship at NYPL’s Jerome Robbins Dance Division for 2022’s theme on dance and ecology.
This concept was borrowed and repurposed from Art as Land Reclamation, an idea circulated by sculptors Robert Smithson and Robert Morris in the 1970s, who disagreed about the efficacy and ethics of reclaiming an ecologically devastated site through building an artwork.
In researching this idea, I looked to the archives of Simone Forti and her career of making work in conversation with the natural world. As a case study in such reparative practices, I studied the movement of coastal erosion in and around Rockaway Beach.
The movement studies and choreography that appear live and in video were created with and performed in collaboration with Julia Antinozzi, Ayano Elson, Leah Fournier, Amelia Heintzelman, Emily Kessler, and Leah Samuels.
The performance images taken at Library of the Performing Arts on January 27th, 2023 are by Jonathan Blanc.
