KRISSY HARRIS​

I am fascinated by the dancing body’s capacity for resilience, fluidity, and expansiveness. I wonder: How do we keep going? What do we source from? I find that my choreographic process is driven by the motivation to  harness responses to these questions. My choreography is further informed by the navigation of my own trans/nonbinary identity, and my current navigation of transition. I consider the in-between, the grey area, the chaos, the transgression, and of course, the ecstatic joy, that accompanies Queerness. 

 

Anchored by research in gender studies, Queer theory, and rock and roll history, my projects grapple with questions of the internal/external navigation of identity. The body's shifting emotional landscape, and shifting internal sensibility, is abstracted through movement, sound and design. Within my choreography, femininity is engaged with as action, energy, and a qualitative force.

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My dances are episodic and full of quirk and character. They are cinematic in structure, progressing with a non-linear narrative. The movement is highly physical, plays with chaos, and challenges endurance. We jump, run, fall, fail, sweat, and mammothly take up the space. The group forms of my work access non-hierarchical unison movement and exchanges of leadership. I am excited by disruption, general physics concepts, somatic memory, and stark interruption as elements for my choreography and production design. 

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As a choreographer my aesthetic is informed by my training history in classical, contemporary, and postmodern dance traditions. With the complex history of these forms in mind, I seek out ways to keep my process responsive and accountable. I bring in my awarenesses for the ways in which power dynamics function in group spaces. I reflect on the various forms of power that I will inherently hold coming into any dance space. The overall health and well-being of artists in my work is intentionally centered, as is critical reflection on my facilitation. 

 

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