Dancing Around The World Documentary short
Everything in life moves. The human body is designed to move and engage with the environment through movement. Throughout a lifetime of choreographing, teaching, and dancing I have learned how beneficial dance is to human development. Dance sharpens the senses, enhances social intelligence, challenges the body and mind and consequently reinvigorates our cognitive, physical and social development.
From April 2015 until April 2016 videographer Enki Andrews and I embarked on a journey of a lifetime. We traveled around the world starting in Chicago with a project I developed entitled "Dancing Around The World". During the travels I gave dance workshops, created site-specific dances, we interviewed people and observed and Enki documented human motion as well as collected information about what moves us as humans. The importance of this project was not only that I wanted to deeply understand why I create dances but also how it matters in everyday lives of people and in some cases how it even saves our lives in profound ways.
The project involved collaborating with dance communities in cities around the world to create site-specific dances with local dancers, filming them, interviewing artists about why they dance. Throughout the process we also edited and created short movies with my collaborator Enki Andrews to take our global community with us around the world.
Throughout the journey I taught local dancers from each city a movement process, in addition we engaged with US Embassies as well as German Embassies, exchanged with cultural institutions, Galleries, Dance Companies, Theater Companies and museums around the world. Our intention with this project is to create self-awareness & community via kinetic empathy by harnessing the inherent benefits of public site specific performances. We have visited 20 countries including Colombia, Peru, Chile, El Salvador, Honduras, Finland, Germany, Turkey, Italy, France, Tunis, Kenya, Madagascar, India, Japan, Philippines, Taiwan and Australia. We finished the project in May of 2016 with a public performance in Washington, DC as well as Reston, Virginia.
For more information visit ny2dance.com