Artist’s Statement
Not an end but a new beginning
I have quite a few works but I don’t want to talk about them individually
but instead about why I choose to dance and make dances. I have been dancing
for as long as I can remember. Not dancing would be similar to not breathing.
I like process, not just my own, but also others. I like the time spent in
rehearsals and in movement class. It sustains me when I enter a studio. I
leave every thing else at the door.
I make work that reflects my history. I find an idea that I am interested
in and try and learn everything there is to know about it. I research a subject
as if I am writing a research paper, but instead of writing a paper I create
a dance. I often look at what is next to the idea instead of the idea itself.
I choose a process or a game that best fits the idea in order to create movement.
It’s different with each dance.
The ideas come from my family history, cell phones, Dr. Seuss, and musical
theatre. Often my dances are commenting on these ideas and how they have affected
my life, or many people’s lives. I believe you can say things in dances
you could never get away with in words. Dancing is how I have gotten through
a world that is so heavily dependent on words. But words are so often misunderstood
and mixed up or spelled wrong for me. But my dancing body always seems to
say what I ask it to or it informs me what it is thinking.
For me a dance “lives” not necessarily on the stage but in the
interactions between me and the dancers I have asked to work with me. Just
the fact that they are willing to spend the time to come and play my dance
making games is an honor. At some point you have to let go of the dance and
let the dancers hold the dance up. They are the ones on the stage. I try my
best to create a rehearsal space that is healthy and useful for both the dancers,
who are my friends, and myself. I hope they leave feeling that I value their
time and ideas.
All I want is to dance and help. It is impossible to change the whole world.
But with hard work and planning it is possible to make change in this world.
I believe dance is the gift I was given as my vehicle for change.
“I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary
ingredient in living. It’s a way of looking at life thought the wrong
end of a telescope. Which is what I do, and that enables you to laugh at life’s
realities.” –Dr. Seuss
“Public art hence becomes a vehicle of connection, a means to realize
and recognize the common, a medium for people to gather together to reflect
on the very idea of being together.” – Randy Martin
Patricia Brooks Cope