Internal Landscapes

Abstract: The psychological and anthropological findings in my work combine my extensive research into the writings of Carl Gustav Jung and his disciples. In my movement research, I took my findings beyond mere dance productions into movement art filled with running colors. Major findings explore my work in analyzing archetypes, the shadow, psychological projection and the liminal space that is found in my artistic work as well as my praxis. The poems, photos and drawings reflect my own artistic expression that existed alongside the production of the Ollom Art Festival in August of 2013. The philosophy of Nietzsche was examined in his aphorisms that I then analyzed in power dynamics between men in my newest work Prisoner of My Projection. One of my artistic goals was to go beyond traditional queer models of man to man relationships on stage but find imperfection, love and longing as the central premise for movement research in my work. Artist Statement I live in the ''holes'' between narrative arches. Over years of choreographing movement art, I have found tableaux vivants of movement art that have surpassed definitions of ''dance'' and definitions of ''theatre.'' Though there is a definition of narrative in my work and there are characters that interact, there are holes of ambiguity that are left on purpose by me. It is in those holes that the mystery can be revealed. It is similar to the Japanese art world view or aesthetic called wabi-sabi. The aesthetic is sometimes described as one of beauty that is ''imperfect, impermanent and incomplete.'' Characteristics of the wabi-sabi aesthetic include asymmetry, asperity (roughness or irregularity). This parallels my deep commitment to texture in my work. Texture informs my lack of man-made uniform structures, but rather creations that we find in the forest, woods, or ocean floor; texture that invokes age, experience and interrelationship. I have a deep respect for the forms found in nature, the ocean or the dirt in the ground that form the personifications in the human forms in my work. This is a deep commitment on my part to the stories of ''the Other'': the marginalized, the demonized and the repressed in our current societal structures. There is a reverence for diverse forms of being which translate to diverse forms of sexual pairings as well as gender manifestations. Diverse body types, diverse ages, and diverse levels of technical ability are encouraged in my work. This cornucopia of diversity fill my work with a texture that informs the vision of the viewer. Seeing juxtaposed images leaves the audience member to not be able to embrace the gender binary in human culture, but find new insight into diverse ways of being. This is a direct attack on Judaeo-Christian forms of body identities which encourage body shame and sexual shame. Consciously attacking shame in our society, nudity is often used to free up the genital region as an area of inquiry into the order of expression in the whole body. This is in direct rebellion to the aesthetics of ballet whether classical or neoclassical or contemporary. It is in turn a definition of movement art that looks to the artist to let archetypal energies be released instead of holding the body in a defined shape of what the choreographer or director should direct the object to look like. The beauty is found in the ''imperfection'' and the ''texture.'' Coming from a background of having a BFA in Ballet from Texas Christian University, I analyze the body as a vessel and a means for artistic revelation. Analysis in the studio can take the anatomy of the body to be the map by which inquiry begins, but realizing that many students and humans are ''locked'' in paradigms of held theory, for example, Judaeo-Christian body shame surrounding sexual expression from the genitals, I looked into my own autobiographical body of work to find my own issues of shame, fear, trauma, anxiety and d