Though I create dances, I don’t consider myself to be a choreographer or a dancemaker. Making dances is never really my goal. My dances are more of a byproduct – an artifact, a momentary crystallization – in a larger process of inquiry.
I am continually in awe of what it is to be human – a trillion tiny cells working in concert to create this miraculous form of strength and fragility – in constant flux between thinking and feeling, knowing and uncertainty, isolation and connection. Yet, as unique and individual as our lives may seem, they all share a much larger story, rooted in our relationships, lived experiences, and shared spaces. This place of shared space is where my work begins.
My dances find their way into existence through a process of unfolding, initiated by a point of inquiry, and informed by the experiences of myself and my collaborators. We then follow whatever presents itself, in pursuit of discovering, of unearthing, of instigating movement rather than dictating it – of arriving at a new place of understanding through the creative process rather than manifesting a predetermined idea. And it is this new understanding, or the process of finding it, that becomes the dance.
jen graham 