CURRENT AND RECENT
April 23, 2022
National Water Dance is a catalyst that encourages ongoing engagement between dance and the environment. As a creative collaborator with NWD and Elm City Dance Collective, I co-led a team of performing artists in the city of New Haven to bring awareness to water issues along the Long Island Sound at Long Wharf. Co-directors are Kellie Ann Lynch and Lindsey Bauer, with Thabisa Rich, Alexis Robbins, Wes Yarbor, Lina Herrera Alvarez, Earl Ali-Randall, Melly Testa, Claire Cody, Lynn Peterson, and Diana Fonicello. Read this beautiful article about the performance by Al Larriva-Latt. Photo by Chris Randall.
In March 2020, everything stopped and the world held its breath. Cut off from community dance spaces, like many other dancers, I danced alone in my home. I used social media apps such as Instagram and Zoom to connect with the world, to see and to be seen. Kellie Ann Lynch of Elm City Dance Collective imagined a project through which we could create small thoughtful dance poems, and share them with each other and the world. A series of four haiku-inspired dances unfolded. I relished the opportunity to create with my cameras, light, and movement.
February, 2021
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premiere February, 2019
In the project of light / time / space / dust, ritual actions were established in the first rehearsal, and they continued in the work through the final performance. Is it a paradox that I attempted to disrupt habitual behavior (a behavior that people repeat) through the practice of ritual behavior (prescribed, repeated behaviors) ? In fact, I found that through ritual practices such as CDP and our self-designed routines involving the altar, music box, and candle, we were able to mark the beginning and ending of a time during which we practiced directing intense focus towards identifying and disrupting habit, and replacing it with compassionate mindfulness and creativity. These rituals celebrated community, being together, and holding space for individuals. Simultaneously, they rejected the notions of competition, hierarchical roleplay, and merit.
collaborators: Matthew Jason, Mayeline Peña, Emma Bokhour, Rachel Brimmer, Alice Gendron, Tim Shay, Sea Thomas, Hazel Kalderon, Mariya Germash. Photo by Derek Fowles
LIGHT TO DUST
February-April, 2019
light to dust is an exhibition of archival photographic images on display at the Kahn Liberal Arts Institute in Northampton, MA. The images have emerged from improvised collaborations between dancers and photographers, and feature archival photos from the process of making this work, as well as selections from Nikki Lee's portfolio, featuring dance artists from across the region.
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collaborators: Danielle Davidson, Shura Baryshnikov, Allie James, Dale O'Reilly, Haruka Tamura, Andy Russ, Mayeline Peña, Emma Bokhour, Rachel Brimmer, Alice Gendron, Tim Shay, Sea Thomas, Hazel Kalderon, Mariya Germash
TransBody V and TransBody VI
I'm sorry I have run out of storage space for new images on my website, so I can't post a photo of this amazing project. :( But please check out this awesome summary by Lucy Gellman at the Greater New Haven Arts Council
Wednesdays 5:00PM, April 5 - May 10 2023
Contemplative Dance Practice (CDP) is an hour-long community practice that combines meditation and movement, created by Barbara Dilley.
Bring a blanket, yoga mat, and your own cushions to be comfortable on the ground. When you arrive, arrange your cushions around the edges of the space. This is generally a non-verbal practice, please become familiar with the following score before you arrive (or don't, and feel the wonder of it all!)
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• 20 minutes—Sitting Meditation
ding, ding, ding, ding (bell)
• 20 minutes—Personal Awareness Practice (could be considered personal warm up; you are listening to your body and letting the body lead. You could be near your cushion or anywhere in the space; writing and singing are also possible. You could bring an instrument and play it too.
ding
• 20 minutes—Open Space (sense of community; short bow to enter and to exit the space; it's practice not performance)
ding
• a few final moments of sitting
ding, ding, ding, ding....group bow
THE END
the above language was adapted from the preliminary instructions I received from Nancy Stark Smith before joining her CDP sangha in Florence, MA. For more details and more of my own ideas, please visit this page.
YOU ARE NOT HERE: FOREVER PRESENT TENSE
May, 2018
This work cannot be played back on-demand. Rather, it demands a particular investment of attention of the performers and the viewers, it is a vehicle for transformation that never travels the same route twice. I am revealing the perceptive experience of the performers to the audience, valuing the integrity of the process and trusting that it emerges in the product.
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collaborators: Anna M. Maynard, Sarah Lass, Em Papineau, Madison Palffy, Robyn Coady. Photo by nikki lee
WAY BACK
December, 2017
Through making way back, I connected choreographic choices to the root-level essential roles of perception and somatic intelligence as sources of creative impulse. Through challenges and triumphs, I employed inspiration and sensory awareness in choreographic choice-making. way back became a durational project that forced me to bring new approaches to reframing the continually developing palette of gestural vocabulary and environment. I began without a specific notion of what I might make. I followed the inspiration to make videos. I related my movement research practice to the videos. I allowed the gestural vocabulary and the video/sound score to develop as independent elements. The screens eventually became a medium through which the dance and the video could interact. The sparkling red shoes were a vessel for literary and psychic metaphors that I absorbed while reading on topics of women’s spirituality, making dance, trauma, and somatic experiencing. photo by nikki lee
VIDEO WORK
I have been a dancer and photographer for over two decades.
Video work feels like a natural extension of these practices,
an exciting way to explore my creativity.
1 in 6
Choreographed by Morgan George, a junior at Salve Regina University. Morgan and i collaborated to translate her vision for this work on the stage to a video format, in response to the constraints of the COVID-19 pandemic.
MELT
a contemplative journey through light, movement, and sound