Solo Performance | Would_She (2016)
Creation + Performance: Lins Derry
Music: AGF, Biosphere, David Bowie, Childish Gambino, Djemba Djemba, The Beatles, and Frederic Chopin
2016 PERFORMANCES
Dec. 7 | Seoul International Choreography Festival - South Korea (excerpt)
Nov. 29 | i-Dance Festival - Hong Kong
Jul. 16 | Beijing Dance Festival - China
May 6-7 | Joe Goode Annex, San Francisco - US (premiere)
Nov. 21, 2015 | Derida Dance Center - Bulgaria (preview)
All images on this page are by Yvonne M. Portra
Description
In Linsdans' creation Would_She, Lins Derry communicates her search for vitality using dance, video, and dramatic performance. Pursuing multiple pathways towards this vitality as reflected in the different sections of Would_She, Lins reveals how solitude, consumption, absurdity, and suffering all hold the way. In this, Would_She becomes a multi-layered portrayal of what we actually do to feel most alive in our lives.
*Would_She was in-part incubated at the Derida Dance Center Residency Program in Sofia, Bulgaria with financial support from the Sofia Municipality, the Zellerbach Family Foundation, and Linsdans donors. Would_She’s 2016 Asian tour was supported by American Dance Abroad and Kickstarter backers.
Creative Insights
When I began making Would_She, I was focused on the theme of risk-taking. Reflecting on my own life, I realized that the risks I took were mostly driven from my desire to feel extremely alive. This led to the secondary theme of vitality. Below are descriptions of the four different sections of Would_She and how they each relate to the themes of risk-taking and vitality:
Atomica
1. Atomica is the first section. Set against a musical arrangement that weaves opera, electronic undertones, and David Bowie, the solo opens with my feet fastened to the floor with gestures flying and crumbling at top. From here, I enter the dark space, where I take my first risk, abandonment to the unknown.
Consumable Dances
2. The second section is titled Consumable Dances and deals provocatively with the less admirable ways we seek to feel alive － consumption, sex, violence, and power. Using electronic beats and rap music, I use excessive repetition, vulgar movement, and explicit gestures as a way of really accessing the bigger-than-life sensations we often chase as a means of feeling our vitality.
Rocky Raccoon
3. In the third section, I sing into a yellow lightbulb Rocky Raccoon (The Beatles). I chose this song because Rocky Raccoon took the biggest risk he could take － he bet his life on a duel and heartbreakingly lost.
Nowhere Else
4. For the final section, Nowhere Else, I research the more subtle ways we sense our vitality via the routes of neutrality and suffering. This section opens with a video set to the nostalgic, bittersweet notes of Frederic Chopin. In it, I share selfies of private moments, some candid, others tearful. In the dance that follows, I use balletic vocabulary as an entry point into the soberness and acceptance felt when reflecting on life and death.