“To give someone your weight but not let them move you” was the initial non-functional thought that seeded this piece. A duet focusing on intimacy, apprehension of touch, and in turn the physical form of trust is what bloomed through this residency. Based in pedestrian gestures and a technical application of form, the language of ordinariness is recognizable and grounding to this everyday world. How intimacy is not just negotiated in weight-bearing, but also through the nearness of another...

This co-mentoring program gave me something extremely vital to any creative process; hindsight and perspective. Paired with an extraordinary writer/painter/artist from Oregon, I received daily feedback that was poetically charged, visually and worldly thoughtful, and was so unexpected, I didn’t know I needed it.

I was left pondering many questions: How to exist in the same space when collaboratively creating via Zoom? How to negotiate a different type of holding, or a way of suspension? How to dance an absent body into existence? How much weight can we endure in any particular position, point in space, or moment in time? When are you helplessly being moved and when can it be seen as collaboration instead of an assertion of control? What is the difference? How do we bear the weight of others differently in public vs private spaces? How do these ways of embodying the space around others program our thoughts for future interactions? 

All of these questions have and will be so fruitful as I continue in this creative process. I am so grateful I was able to participate in this program and am looking forward to joining a future edition of Play with Matches.

—Marlaina