BODY AND SOUL: Cory Nakasue: embracing complexity

Cory Nakasue

A woman with long, dark-brown hair and brown eyes sits at a desk in front of a computer and looks at the camera from the corner of her eye. A bright orange couch is in the background.

Nakasue in a performance still from Reframed, directed by Brent Felker (2011)

A woman with long, dark-brown hair stands on the grass, at the side of a barn holding the side of her head with one hand and reaching for the sky with the other. It’s like we’re spying on her from behind a tree. A shadow covers half of the barn and her head. The rest of the frame is in sunlight.

Cory Nakasue sees complexity all around us and within us--from the cosmic realm above to the most intimate spaces below here on planet Earth. Self-described as "a theater artist, writer, and astrologer whose work includes choreography, dramaturgy, and video," Nakasue likely inhabits far more than even those multiple identities and roles. In this talk for Body and Soul, she shares thoughts about how our tendency to avoid complexity denies us the pleasure of engaging with what's real.

Listen to this episode of Body and Soul here.

To learn more about Cory Nakasue, scroll down.

The Cosmic Event of the Body (Cosmic Doghouse Press, 2023)

A white book sits on a red rug. On the cover of the book is a bright red circle radiating black tendrils. The title of the book is at the top. The author’s name is at the bottom.

Bio: Cory Nakasue is a theater artist, writer, and astrologer whose work includes choreography, dramaturgy, and video. Her original dance and theater pieces have been presented internationally, and she is currently in dramaturgical process with Elisabeth Motley and Aynsley Vandenbroucke. She is a published poet and dance critic whose first chapbook, The Cosmic Event of Body, is coming out in March 2023. She’s the astrologer-in-residence at The Poetry Barn, Chronogram Magazine, Opus 40, and The Cosmic Dispatch, a weekly radio show/podcast. She holds MA degrees in Choreography and Performance Studies from Middlesex University, London, with additional graduate work in theater from CalArts. She’s been a movement educator and somatic therapist under the moniker Body Intelligence for the past 20 years. Her obsessions include narrative medicine, expanded eroticisms, and the cultivation of metaphor as an embodied sense. www.corynakasue.com and www.astrologybycory.com

CollectiveDWNM launches "Write Open" series

Collective for Dance Writing and New Media

presents

Write Open

an ongoing series of workshops and open mics 

covering the spectrum of writing about dance in the digital age

Our first workshop, Embodied Text, will be facilitated by dance writer Cory Nakasue and co-sponsored by Columbia University’s CoLab organization. Ms. Nakasue, associate editor at The Dance Enthusiast, offers movement and theater improvisation exercises for people interested in writing about dance.

Wednesday, November 28 (6pm-8pm)

Barnard Hall, Room 404
Barnard College

Broadway at 117th Street, Manhattan

(#1 to 116th Street)

Enter the gate on the west side of Broadway at 117th Street. Barnard Hall is straight ahead.

Limited to 20 participants
RSVP required: collectivedwnm@gmail.com

Admission: by donation but free to registered members of CollectiveDWNM

Future Write Open workshops will be offered by David Parker, Eva Yaa Asantewaa and other facilitators. And watch for Write Open open mic events, coming in 2013!

Cory Nakasue is an associate editor at The Dance Enthusiast, and former reporter for Dance Channel TV. She has contributed writing to Buzzine and The Dance Theater Workshop blog, and has served as an advisor, adjudicator, and moderator for Dancenow/NYC, Murray Spalding, London Arts Board, and London Contemporary Dance Center. She has spent over 10 years dancing professionally in Los Angeles and London, England, working with artists that include Rebecca Bobele, Stephanie Gilliland, and Mark Murphy. She choreographs for film, video, live arts events and installations and is the co-artistic director of SPINE, an art collective based in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. She owns and operates Body Intelligence, a service that provides movement education and therapy for groups and individuals. As a part of this service she offers community classes in Pilates, yoga, and dance conditioning in her Brooklyn studio. Her live projects and dance films have been screened and produced internationally. She completed her postgraduate studies in theater, choreography, and contemporary performance practices at California Institute of the Arts and Middlesex University.

Collective for Dance Writing and New Media forms Executive Committee

Collective for Dance Writing and New Media has formed an Executive Committee:

Aaron Mattocks
Cory Nakasue 
Eva Yaa Asantewaa

See their profiles on the CDWNM Web site, and keep in touch with us. We have some great things coming up!

And just what are we trying to sustain?

Dance writing--whatever that is or we believe it to be--must change or die. And the dance world must turn its vast reserves of creativity towards effective public education, persuasion and marketing.

A recent town hall meeting, convened by Dance/NYC and drawing together some new- and old-media types, addressed these two issues and more. I would have been there, but I am still in Europe and currently in direct touch only with roiling issues of volcanic behavior, aviation policy and British politics.

That dance needs to step up its efforts to engage the strangely estranged American public is something I've been railing about for a long time. But the other matter--the survival of dance writing--seems unimaginable unless we start talking about what we mean when we talk about writing on dance, because different people mean and want quite different things. We also have to talk about values--what matters most in dance and in the way it is considered, assessed and reported.

Before I left for London and Paris, I heard that dance artists Christine Jowers and Cory Nakasue--both writers for Jowers's Dance-Enthusiast.com--would be attending and blogging about the town hall meeting. I'm happy to link back to their thoughtful reports in the hope that this will continue to stimulate fresh and energized discussion.

Please feel free to offer your own thoughts here and on Dance-Enthusiast.com, particularly if you attended this event.

Thanks!


Christine and Cory Comment--Solutions for Sustainable Dance Writing A Town Hall Meeting at the Joyce SoHo