a mend (2024) is a work for 6 dancers. The creative process for a mend began from a point of exploration in and around seen and unseen connections and energetic exchanges that occur when ‘in relationship with’–a phrase and in fact an experience that encompasses so many possibilities and variations in how we are linked to one another. Taking the inquiry a step further, we began to investigate disruptions in these exchanges and the ripples that follow. a mend invites the dancers to explore what mending a rupture feels like, invites the audience to consider what repair might look like, and how these exchanges or entanglements continue to live in our bodies. I would like to thank the cast for their creative contributions to the development of this new work.
images: Tom Daly
the time it takes (2022/2023) is a trio that began with the exploration of movement vocabulary that emphasized a juxtaposition of qualities. What started out as mini embodiment puzzles to challenge familiar movement patterning developed into investigations of levels of awareness of these patterns, the limitations they can carry with them, and how we might disrupt them. This piece explores awareness, perception, and limitations. The work develops as individual and collective paths diverge and converge, highlighting the time it takes to find support in ourselves and one another as we make our way to the next part of our journey.
images: Tom Daly
(un)furl (2021) was the first piece that I choreographed after the pandemic. The piece for 6 dancers began with them isolated in individual pools of light. As the dancers’ movements expanded and contracted they began to take up more and more space, gradually forming a community moving through a shared environment. In this piece, the dancers navigate individual and collective moments that reveal subtle shifts between internal and external impulses as they furl and unfurl in relation to themselves, one another, and the spaces they are moving through. This work was a reflection of what I was experiencing as we navigated returning to shared physical spaces and what that felt like following the isolation of the pandemic.
traces (2020) is a screendance seeking resonance between its various threads—dancers, landscape, camera, musical composition. In this film, I wanted to investigate the textures of bodies, landscape, and sound in relationship with the camera all as active participants with equal weight. I sought to weave the landscape, the movement of the dancers and the camera, the actuality sound of the location, and the music composition to present distinct, resonant voices. Questions I held while making this film were: What connects us to a place? To one another? What do we take with us and what traces do we leave behind? Dance Artists: Katharine Birdsall, Ellen Crooks, Katie Baer Schetlick. Composer: Jordan Perry.
traces premiered in January 2021, as an official international selection in the Espoo Digi Dance International Festival in Espoo, Finland. traces was also screened as an official selection at the Midwest RAD Fest in Kalamazoo, MI (March 2021).
traces (trailer)
traces (full film)
indelible (2019) is a piece for 9 dancers that developed out of a desire to explore how a moment, a shared experience, a connection can leave strong traces. This work is exploring how these impressions stay with us and continue to reverberate, shift, and manifest within and through us in different ways.
images: Tom Daly
[ I ]nquiry II (April 2019) was performed as a part of the ACCelerate festival, programmed by Virginia Tech’s Institute for Creativity, Arts, and Technology, at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History’s Flag Hall, in Washington, D.C. This work is inspired by 21st century perceptions, constructions, and manifestations of Self within online and physical spaces. A multidisciplinary collaboration between Choreographer Kim Brooks Mata, Media Designer Mona Kasra, Composer Leah Reid, this mixed-media performance integrates dance and media to explore notions of identity, self-representation, and self-presentation in our hyper-mediated networked existence. This piece integrated live dance, with live video feed, live projection mapping, and live music manipulation.
Creative Team: Kim Brooks Mata (Choreographer), Mona Kasra (Media/Projection Design), Leah Reid (Composer), Maelisa Singer (Costume Design). Dancers: Bryce Cuthriell, Amy Dalrymple, Carolyn Diamond, Deanna Lewis, Ridhi Sahani, Gabrielle Struckell. Design Team: Andrew Carluccio, Dallas Simms.
images: Stuart Mauck
threadbare (2018) is based upon themes of construction and deconstruction. For this piece, Brooks Mata worked with award-winning composer and sound artist Juan Carlos Vasquez (graduate student at UVA), cellist and improviser Kevin Davis, and a cast of four student dancers. Beginning with generative explorations of concepts such as permeate, threshold, and threadbare, this work was created collaboratively with artistic input from the dancers, composer, and cellist. The piece challenged the dancers to actively orient themselves within a layered sonic, conceptual, movement-filled environment that continued to shift and change in varying degrees.
images: Jack Looney
dwell (2018) was inspired by an article in which photographer Gregory Crewdson discusses his interest in making work that fuels one’s “…search for meaning, search for home, search for connections.” Through this film I sought to explore what it means to belong, to reside, to feel at home. Are these concepts tied to our individual bodies, other people, places, objects, a combination? Through a half-remembered dream of place, space, and relationship dwell blurs the line between concrete and elusive spaces and relationships investigating our desire to linger alongside our search for belonging.
dwell premiered in July 2018, in Cape Charles, VA as a part of the two week intensive Experimental Film Virginia (now Films That Move). dwell has been screened at Gibney Dance: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center, New York, NY (July 2018), the Greensboro Dance Film Festival, Greensboro, NC (Nov. 2018), the Utah Dance Film Festival, Orem, UT (Feb. 2019), the ScreenDance Festival, in Stockholm, Sweden (April 2019), at ADF’s Movies by Movers Festival, Durham, NC (June 2020), and at Red Rock Screendance Film Festival, St. George, UT (June 2021).
dwell (full film)
clearing (2017) is a screendance exploring the concepts of place, belonging, and memory. What makes us feel at home in our bodies, in a space? What do we carry with us, who do we carry with us? How do we hold on to what we want to keep and let go of or ‘clear’ what prevents us from moving on? In a seemingly empty space, three dancers are intertwined with one another in past and present coming together in the clearing.
clearing premiered in August 2017, in Cape Charles, VA as a part of the two week intensive Experimental Film Virginia (now Films That Move). For this work, I had the pleasure of working with incredibly talented dancers from Balletto Teatro di Torino (Ballet Theatre of Turin), a professional contemporary dance company based in Turin, Italy. clearing has been screened at Gibney Dance: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center, New York, NY (July 2017), the Utah Dance Film Festival (Feb. 2018), the Midwest Regional Alternative Dance (RAD) Fest in Kalamazoo, Michigan (March 2018), and the Screen.Dance Festival in Perth, Scotland (May 2019).
clearing (full film)
Content (2016) is a piece for 7 dancers that explores aspects of community in relation to navigating commonalities and differences within a group while maintaining a sense of individual selfhood.
images: Jack Looney
[ I ]nquiry I (2016), is a 30-minute work that resulted from a multidisciplinary collaboration between myself as choreographer; Digital Media Designer, Mona Kasra; Composer, Kristina Warren; and Costume Designer, Debra Bergsma Otte (Montclair State University). Made possible through the support of an Arts Enhancement grant and the Arts Endowment through the Office of the Provost and Vice Provost of the Arts, the mixed media performance was inspired by 21st Century perceptions, constructions and manifestations of Self within online and physical spaces. The piece integrated dance and digital media to explore notions of identity, self-representation, and self-presentation in our hyper-mediated networked existence. Along with our students (7 dancers and 3 digital media designers), we modeled a cross-disciplinary, collaborative, creative practice, aiming to further influence one another’s artistic contributions and discovering new perspectives and methods for inquiry. We strove to bring together seemingly disparate disciplines to deepen individual and communal perspectives regarding the perception, construction and projection of Self in the networked age.
images: Jack Looney and Mona Kasra (hover for credits)
Gradient (2015) was a piece for 9 dancers that explored the idea of expectations – individual and communal – and the concept of belonging/not belonging. Through repetition and exposure of habits and obsessions in the form of quirky gestures I played with the idea of being stuck trying to progress without actually getting anywhere. Within this environment the dancers experience multiple waves of actions, narratives, and relationships that consume them with varying levels of intensity and varying degrees of cognizance.
images: Tom Daly
Fractals (2014) started with a phrase that I generated from the image of skipping stones, the idea of skimming the surface, and the ripple effect of disturbing an expanse of water with a tiny stone. As the piece developed I began to explore the idea of “feminine” – perceived, constructed, projected, adopted, felt. I was interested in creating simple gestures and phrases that explored these ideas through repetition and manipulation of material that developed into expansive, full-bodied movement that was meant to fill the viewers visual field and immerse them in an environment of multiple bodies and multiple voices in motion. This concept was reinforced and amplified by the lighting design by colleague, Lee Kennedy. Indulging in the texture and structure of the Max Richter score, the subtle movement in combination with the music, imbue the piece with a sense of unspoken understanding or commonality that connects this community of dancers.
images: Jack Looney
Experimental Short (2013) is a very short film that was the result of an experiment between co-director Marta Renzi and I. We found the location and directed the dancers’ exploration of this non-traditional performance space. I served as the cinematographer and edited this short film playing with sync sound as the soundtrack and inspiration in the editing process. This short was created as a part of a two-week dance for camera intensive with the Harbor for the Arts Experimental Film Festival in Cape Charles, VA.
There… (2013) is a short film that was the result of experimenting with filming in multiple locations. It was the final project from a two-week long dance for camera intensive with the Harbor for the Arts Experimental Film Festival in Cape Charles, VA.
Forming (2013) was a site-specific work created in collaboration with the Fralin Art Museum and inspired by the Jean Arp sculpture on exhibit in front of the museum. The work was created with eight student dancers from the University of Virginia Dance Program who performed the work. I provided the students with several set movement phrases in addition to incorporating sections in the performance where they were given the freedom to interpret the movement in relation to the site and incorporate their personal interpretations of the sculpture serving as our subject matter. The piece was performed in front of the museum as a part of the museum’s Final Friday series.
Forming (excerpts)
Liminal State (Part 1) (2013) is a dance for camera piece set on six dancers that is the result of a collaboration between myself and composer Kristina Warren. Shot in- and outdoors, the work explores my and Warren’s mutual interest in notions of interpersonal relationships, exteriority vs. interiority, and foreground vs. background.
Liminal State (Part 2) (2013) was part of a diptych in combination with Liminal State (Part 1). In this piece I continued to explore the same themes of interpersonal relationships, exteriority vs. interiority, and foreground vs. background, but with the added challenge of exploring these through the integration of video projections and live dance on stage. In the Fall Experimental Dance Concert, Liminal State (Part 1) opened the show and Liminal State (Part 2), closed the first Act. I worked closely with our Technical Director and Lighting Designer to get the set as I had envisioned, including two large panels of fabric for the video projections, one of which was backlit at various points throughout the piece. Kristina Warren created a second original composition for this part of the work (Part 2).
images: Jack Looney
Shatter Proof (2012) was a piece choreographed on eight dancers, explored the idea of loss and memory and how the two influence one another. Investigating aspects of anger, frustration, denial, distancing, etc. through the medium of movement led to questions – How does memory play into the loss of someone we are close to? How might the loss of someone close to us impact or alter our subjective, imperfect memories? How might the creation of a work around these themes enable the choreographer and/or the participants to process such a loss?
images: Jack Looney
Minutes (2012) is a multi-site dance for camera work that explores contemporary perceptions of presence, proximity and communication through dance performance and the use of collaboration technology. The work was filmed in TelePresence conference rooms at the University of Virginia and through editing combined footage from cameras brought into the spaces, as well as, video captured by the TelePresence system itself. Michael Rasbury, Associate Professor of Sound Design in UVA’s Department of Drama, used sounds and voices recorded on location during and outside of rehearsals to create an original soundtrack for the work. This film was made possible by the generous support of a 4VA Arts Grant.
Minutes (full film)
(en)during reverie (2012) was choreographed on six dancers and explored the concept of temporality and how we experience time in relation to others. I explored the idea of losing one’s sense of time, being suspended, ‘going with the flow,’ finding comfort in routines and familiarity, while acknowledging a desire to break from these rhythms in order to explore new territory.
images: Jack Looney
Enter Play (2011) was the first piece I choreographed as the Head and Artistic Director of the UVA Dance Program. Set on 12 dancers, this work was inspired by observations of my two young boys who were 18 months and 3 & ½ years old at the time of its creation. I wanted to try and capture a bit of their energy and passion in a piece that embraced movement, community and play. I incorporated lots of running in the piece and made the cross-overs visible to the audience behind the scrim as they ran from one side of the stage to the next. It was a playful, exuberant work that was commissioned and set on the Charlottesville Ballet for their spring 2015 mainstage performance.
images: Michael Bailey
featured image above: Jack Looney
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