Hearty thanks to my friend Gerry Gomez Pearlberg of the Global Swarming Honeybees blog for introducing me to the work of Brooklyn-based video artist Julia Oldham whose "playful anthromorphization" of invertebrates seems to me to have produced some mighty fresh dance. Check out Oldham's videos and drawings here, and also visit her blog, Bee Sting Brose.
A few excerpts from Oldham's Artist's Statement:
I always have been a lover of bugs. My earliest memories are of exploring the woods, overturning rocks to find worms, grubs, and slugs.
I create narratives through movement during my performance, and in the editing process punctuate those movements with sound. The translation from English to Insect always undermines and shifts the story I wish to tell, and illustrates the awkward and tenuous relationship between artist and nature.
My work...is a meditation on the fantasy that humans and invertebrates have a shared set of experiences, accessible through rhythms, patterns, gestures and a relationship with the environment.
2 comments:
Interesting! It looks like she's had dance training but I don't see that reflected in her CV. Thanks for sharing!
You're welcome!
If Oldham hasn't had any dance training, then her work attests to the power of close observation and empathy. A body is a body is a body, and through her attentiveness, she's bringing us similarly close to the essence of nature.
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