Annenberg Beach House Artist in Residence

Last week I started my 3 month artistic residency at the Annenberg Beach House at Santa Monica, with some inspiring interactions with the house visitors. I worked in two locations of the facility, in the water splashes and at the pool. It was a relatively intimate experience while I was interacting with one individual at a time or maximum two.

I would approach people, introduce my self as the artist in residency, and would ask them for help to create my movement piece. The task was to imagine a dance in the space, and then to share their thoughts with me. After asking the question, I would give them time to think about it, and I would come back to hear their answers.

When I first asked for help, most of the visitors were apologetic, saying that they were not going to be helpful because of their lack of training and expertise in dancing, but little after they open their eyes and their harts, start observing the space, and ideas would come to them.

Their answers were all wonderful, coherent, naturally connected to concerns of their personal stage in life and personal preferences. Through out their answers I was getting a lot of information about those people, and we were sharing a moment of unexpected connection through out their fantasies. Their suggestions were very different from one person to the other, and would involve specific colors in the costumes, the historical and social connotations of the building and how they should inform my dance piece, space organization, styles of music, recommendations about the floor, and about the general concept that should tight together the whole piece. They were all very passionate about the ideas they found for me. It was very obvious that they enjoyed participating in the process of imagining a dance. Those visitors helped me see some movement pieces in the space that I would have never imagined by myself. The experience was not only very fun, but it was like a bridge to effectively connect with strangers with a level of honesty that truly surprised me.