When I Do This

When I Do This is an intimate, sound-generating object-performance that research violence, surveillance and desire of a restrained body. A woman’s hips tied with rope and connected to a bell that signals her undulations. Dancer and objects co-author the choreography through chain reactions of small-scale instruments suspended by rope, embedded in fabric and attached to the body creating a visual and sonic web. Each creak and clang a signal, an affirmation, a warning, a celebration, an oppression; magnifying every movement inside of the caged situation. Sensual and guttural it calls the self into recognition, along with the systems that have dictated its limits. In girlhood, I remember being told to be seen but not heard, to hold back in fear of shame or inevitable abuse. Collective AFAB bodies has been categorized, creaturized, and controlled. When I Do This confronts these inheritances, testing thresholds of volume and silence, asking where my voice begins, how far is too far, and how I might recognize myself beyond the barriers that have confined me.

Concept, Choreography, Performance, Costume: Melissa Younker

Live Sound Mixing: Scott Lippitt