Relay > Living things shine on was an artistic practice stream that started in late 2011. The project came out of my absolute joy in reading Mei-Mei Bersenbrugge’s collaborative poem Concordance with artist Kiki Smith. Through these earlier phases of RELAY, I investigated the facets of meaning in the phrase dance poetry, learning by doing. Absorbing the language through memorization; finding transductions of tones and phrases into movement; and watching the images of the live aspect grow in imagination and space. I come to know the poem, to embody it, through speaking, singing, drawing, writing, wordplay, conversation, exegesing. Shows at the Garage, SF in July 2012, then through Showbox LA at Bootleg Theater, in August. Some writing encounters in between.
Though a solo project, I was pushing the term to its limit, as I was attempting a kind of collaboration in which I access inspiration, feedback, and dramaturgical counsel from the brilliant artists in my midst. Collaborative solo? So far: Language, song, and poetry skills from Jessika Kenney; artistic counsel from Violet Harloand James Kidd; Relay social experiments and expansion actions with Matt Shyka, Brianna Skellie, Mara Poliak, Sarah Pritchard, Gretchen Till, Harold Burns, and Beth; sound with Kadet; writing encounters: Eleni Stecopoulos, Mara Poliak, Amber DiPietra, and Jen Hofer. There were dream projects to compose longer conversations with certain thinkers, and there have been some invitations that fell before they were picked up. This is all the rhythm of what Relay was becoming.
This piece for a time being intersected with some fascinations in my studies is Chinese cosmology, particularly around the nature of the elements of the trigrams, the bagua, and personal and intimate understanding of the energetics of fire’s language (Summer), from the perspective of the meridians, sex and yin essence (sexual organs). Unclear how these aspects mutually embed over time.
