bodycity

bodyc­ity is a demo­c­ra­tic dance. A col­lec­tion of bod­ies. In motion and in still­ness. Still­ness and motion. Motion even when things seem utterly still.

bodyc­ity decon­structs dance, in a way – strip­ping away it’s mask of exclu­siv­ity, its trap­pings of tech­nique, its under­pin­nings of achievement.

bodyc­ity is all lowercase.

bodyc­ity has been used, reap­pro­pri­ated, cred­ited and invoked by oth­ers – but it only has its true own­ers in those who nur­ture the democ­racy. Who under­stand that it can­not be under­stood, and must instead be flex­i­ble, mal­leable, sweaty, pen­sive and and and con­nected to the Earth, and each other.

bodyc­ity is a gath­er­ing, a lay­ing on of hands. It is a nick­name, and that is OK.

bodyc­ity is Avatar. Avatar is soooo bodyc­ity. Have you seen that movie? They get it, those Na’vii. They con­nect to each other and the Earth, and together move to trans­form even death. Except for Sigour­ney Weaver’s character.

And any­way bodyc­ity is weird, and it’s hard, and it needs to be tended to like a child.

And bodyc­ity is WOMEN. Really, in the truest and deep­est sense, it is. Because we women have cul­ti­vated, and cut, and sewn and per­formed. And put our WOMAN-NESS out there → and we’ve called it bodycity.

And so to define it is hard – but don’t worry. When you see it, you will know that some­thing was real.
~Madeline

bodyc­ity is a col­lec­tion of women, of friends and artists. We are together mov­ing using our bod­ies, mak­ing things, cre­at­ing dance. We are inspired by our city. We cel­e­brate it’s every bit, a piece of trash, a beau­ti­ful tree, the moun­tains, the bars, the young folks, the old, the work­ers. We share each other. We are unafraid, we like weird. We don’t shy from awk­ward or ugly, but look at it again and find it’s essen­tial beauty—we like human­ness. We don’t take our­selves seri­ously, but revel also in our seri­ous­ness and com­mit­ment to explo­ration. We are a bit of a conundrum.

We embrace our indi­vid­u­al­ity but eas­ily fold into each other’s direc­tion, pic­ture that changes, mov­ing land­scape. We are real. We are so real­is­tic, we project real­ness. We explore. We are unafraid and also full of fear, but we look at it—we are utterly human. We look for lead­ers and fol­low­ers, we are both. We try not to think about things too hard, just live in them—the body does the think­ing. The mind has the idea, the body does the think­ing. We are collected—we have a lan­guage, we share com­mon­al­ity. We share the city. We per­form. We care. We care a lot.
~Lake

bodyc­ity is an open and col­lab­o­ra­tive dance troupe devel­op­ing chore­o­gra­phies and par­tic­i­pa­tory move­ment work­shops for the last 5 years in the LA area. Ded­i­cated to organic expres­sion play­ing itself out in rela­tion to unique or inspir­ing spaces in uncon­ven­tional venues. Bodyc­ity cel­e­brates the body impulse. As a dance democ­racy, our chore­o­graphic devel­op­ment is spawned from col­lec­tive brain­storm­ing to cre­ate a rudi­men­tary struc­ture upon which each dancer/choreographer is allowed to invoke kinds of move­ment or parts of what even­tu­ally becomes the total­ity of the dance. Part of chore­o­graph­ing is mov­ing, it is also teach­ing, lis­ten­ing, adapt­ing to one anoth­ers’ visions. Because of its open­ness as well as its shift­ing mem­ber­ship, bodyc­ity is a con­tin­u­ally mor­ph­ing and shift­ing organ­ism, each piece a unique expres­sion of a col­lec­tive impulse.
~Ali Hyman

a way of con­tex­tu­al­iz­ing bod­ies mov­ing through, or still in a city. We are fond of nat­ural places, of cre­at­ing a lan­guage of dance as a way to look at the world. To inspire in oth­ers a sense of pos­si­bil­ity in their bod­ies. Dance is one word for a prac­tice of look­ing. We are a col­lec­tive, non hier­ar­chi­cal, cre­at­ing dia­log each time with eachother and the loca­tions (sites) where we move….we look for the fan­tas­tic, the laugh­able, the hilar­i­ous, the absurd… bring other humans to notice what is already there, engage­ment with, laugh­ter, then joy and won­der. 6 women with a strong his­tory, a lan­guage, grow­ing together and apart—with a thread of the cen­tral­ity of the body in inter­act­ing with this city, with a river, a steep hill, a stair­case. How do we adapt? Homol­o­gous struc­tures and relat­ing through under­stand­ing how we all always chore­o­graph, have choreographed—in the signs of a city
~katie

body city is vine­gar kisses. We are archae­ol­o­gists of the inside. We are friendly people/ladies. We are always prob­ing and throw­ing piles up into the air. We are silly. We are the straight man in an epic com­edy. We are firestarters. We are toe-breakers and menders of old clothes. We are the cel­e­bra­tion and the cel­e­brants. bodyc­ity is a road trip. bodyc­ity is a non group group. We are a col­lec­tion of fan­tasy. We are inter­ested in what’s real. We bor­row, we steal, we bow to other body gods. It is not what we had in mind. It’s some­times inten­tional. We use the tools we have and invent the rest. we give big hugs to the out­side. We invite in nature. We nur­ture the itch. bodyc­ity is a pleas­ant argu­ment. bodyc­ity is the dis­cus­sion that hap­pens again — or did it not hap­pen ever? bodyc­ity is a project. it’s a rea­son to spend time. It is the fire in the mid­dle of our week. It is a lovely lit­tle bounc­ing ball. bodyc­ity is an ode to this time. bodyc­ity likes space. bodyc­ity is breath­ing.
~cristina

bodyc­ity is:

a dance democ­racy
a nav­i­ga­tional exper­i­ment
a col­lec­tion of vol­un­tary particles

At its best, bodyc­ity is a per­for­mance troupe that chal­lenges an accepted notion of “dance”. We are a col­lec­tive of artists from var­ied dis­ci­plines who have agreed to come together, in a physically-mentally-psychically ded­i­cated fash­ion, in order to bet­ter explore the bound­aries of our con­tex­tual ter­rain. We are women, aca­d­e­mics, labor­ers, cura­tors, edu­ca­tors, trans­la­tors, and stu­dents. We are con­cerned for our col­lec­tive future and have a vested inter­est in expand­ing how we come to under­stand each other and our roles in build­ing what comes next. We are actively build­ing what comes next.
We are the archi­tects of our inten­tions.
~mea­gan yellott

Come and build cities with Fritz Haeg, Jac­into Asti­azarán and bodycity!

Build­ing Cities Video Project
Sat­ur­day, Dec. 12th
11:30-2pm
Eagle Rock Cen­ter for the Arts
2225 COLORADO BLVD. LOS ANGELES CA 90041

Prac­tic­ing Mov­ing with Fritz Haeg, bodyc­ity and Jac­into Asti­azarán.  We will build bodyc­i­ties and Jac­into will shoot and cut together a video.  Expect a full spec­trum of expe­ri­ence.  The rules are sim­ple, come in com­fort­able clothes and have a con­ver­sa­tion, build the foun­da­tion, add on, start/stop.  One per­son starts, finds a posi­tion, another responds with another posi­tion, then another, then other, until we have a mass of bod­ies qui­etly strik­ing poses, or cities, together… All humans are welcome.

The video will be screened at the clos­ing event of Prac­tic­ing Mov­ing at the Eagle Rock Cen­ter for the Arts on Decem­ber 19th, 7-10pm

Visit Fritz Haeg’s web­site for more infor­ma­tion about Prac­tic­ing Moving:

http://www.fritzhaeg.com/schoolhouse/projects/practicing-moving.html
http://www.fritzhaeg.com/webvideo/practicing-moving-lan.mov

bodyc­ity has been work­ing on a very spe­cial dance. We are hon­ored to par­tic­i­pate in another Sharon’s Farm (remem­ber edgecity?), but this time we will be danc­ing in a mag­i­cal amphithe­ater in the back yard of two esteemed patrons of the arts. Yes, they took their awe­some Altadena back­yard slope and exca­vated it into a mossy amphithe­ater. Every crook and cranny is sprung with plant life. Lizards dance amongst the rocks and ter­ra­cotta masks wink at you. It is an intox­i­cat­ing place, espe­cially if you bring a bot­tle of wine. Pic­nic with us this Sat­ur­day for an evening of orig­i­nal plays and our hum­ble plant dance:

Prom Night Pro­duc­tions Presents

SHARON’S FARM

An Open Air Evening of New The­ater, Dance & Music. It’s FREE!
WHEN: 8 PM, Sat­ur­day August 1
WHERE: FOLLY BOWL, www.paintedsurfaces.net
1601 E. Loma Alta Dr., Altadena, CA 91001

BRING seat cush­ions, a pic­nic & bev­er­age of your choice & your sweater
ARRIVE between 7 & 7:30 PM to ensure a seat and enjoy your pic­nic!
DIRECTIONS: 134 Free­way to Pasadena, Exit Lake Ave.
Go North 2.7 miles, Right on Alta Dena Dr.
Go .8 mile, Left on Porter. Entrance is at Porter & Loma Alta, Street Park­ing (rain cancels)

In Order of Play­ing & Artists/Performers:

“Nina” writ­ten and directed by Hank Bunker
with Barry Sher­man, Mike Wiles, Joe Sikora and Kad­ina de Elejalde

“House of Mir­a­cles” writ­ten and directed by Guy Zim­mer­man
with Cor­ryn Cum­mins, Gre­gory Littman and Gray Palmer

“Dance The Plant Like,” a Dance Per­for­mance by bodyc­ity
with Lake Sharp, Made­line Baugh, Alexis Hyman and Jen­nifer Lehman

“Teeth” writ­ten and directed by Wes­ley Walker
with Gill Gayle, Andrew Hop­per and Lisa Littman

“Hid­den Hills” writ­ten and directed by Sharon Yablon
with Kim Debus, Niamh McCor­mally and Christo­pher Kelley

MUSICIANS:
Andrew Pask/saxophones & clar­inets
Steuart Liebig/contrabass gui­tars
Stephen Rowe/guitar & vocals

Did we men­tion that the musi­cians are com­pos­ing music espe­cially for us?

So cool! Hope to see you there!

Don’t worry, we won’t hurt you. But this col­lab­o­ra­tion is big. Not big, like a had a pretty big sand­wich today. Big, like a moun­tain cov­ered in old growth for­est and inhab­ited by an aged gnome who knows all, grants wishes and visu­al­izes vis­ceral images beyond your wildest dreams.

LIGHT + bodyc­ity = l o v e and there’s plenty to go around. Put that together with Bil­ly­goat and you’ve got a hap­pen­ing too big to miss.

Today! Thurs­day, May 14 from 8:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. it comes true. Bil­ly­goat, LIGHT and bodyc­ity fill the space at the down­town arts walk at 410 Spring Street.

We want you and you want this.