First. Let's talk about dance.

Hello, friends and strangers.  For my first blog post I would like to share with you a dance I created.  It was first performed the summer of 2007 in Chapel Hill, NC, and went on to be performed again in 2008 at my alma mater UNC Asheville, and then in 2009 at the NC Dance Alliance Choreographer's Showcase.  This recording is the 2008 performance.  This is the most popular piece I've created amongst audiences, dancers and non-dancers alike.

The process:  I have a surprisingly vivid memory of when I conceived of this dance.  It was my freshman year of college and I was talking with one of my closest friends about choreography, and I had this idea about seeing the back of a body from the audience's perspective.  The movements would be subtle isolations accenting the musculature of the body.  The isolations would also serve the purpose of creating an optical illusion.  The body would not be one individual, but (spoiler alert) multiple bodies moving seemingly as one.  The idea sat on the back burner of my mind until the summer after my freshman year when I was creating a dance review with some friends and was listening to The Blow.  Their song "True Affection" has the perfect rhythms for the movement quality, and the lyrics made me think to create the abstract narrative of a man and a woman being next to one another with very little contact.

I hope you enjoy.