Wandering (still)

Wandering (still) is a dual-screen, 16 mm film transferred to digital. Premiered at the Orange County Museum of Art as part of the California Biennial, 2010

The impetus for this work was two photographs of a dance piece called Die Wanderung, by Mary Wigman (originally spelled Wiegmann), 1925. These black and white images captured moments of her 13-person dance company performing outdoors. I took those two images, placed them side-by-side (mimicked here by the split screen) and performed the role of each body in the photo, magically transporting from one screen to another. In performing each woman, I studied the way she was positioned and imagined habitual elements to her individual way of moving. I then embodied those elements as I moved through each position. This was done 13 times in the film. In conjunction with the film, 13 live performances, entitled Wandering (detail) occurred in the gallery. Much like the film, where the bodies’ positions in space served as structure for the movement, each improvisation was an investigation of the physical attributes of each woman, inscribing a fictional narrative of her own individual movement habits in a tangible way.

Watch the film here

Click here to read a review by Carol Cheh