Symmetry Study #14: (re)Presentation - 5 minute excerpt

Symmetry Study #14: (re)Presentation - 5 minute excerpt from Jess Curtis/Gravity on Vimeo.

Study #14 of the THE SYMMETRY PROJECT
by Jess Curtis and Maria Francesca Scaroni

The Symmetry Project is a journey through perception. Two naked bodies interact through a highly structured improvisational score, constricted in a specific physical practice; that of moving symmetrically, relative to themselves or to each other. In this space of temporary “habitus”, the two bodies are constantly tuning, reformulating the perception of the self and of the other.
In the sharing of a central axis, spine, mouth, genitals, face, and anus reveal their interconnectedness and centrality in embodied experience. Limbs entangle and intertwine creating an inter-corporeal kaleidoscope of flesh. A kind of über-intimacy develops, going far beyond sexuality into a kind of communal biology, a symbiotic sensory field. Blending, merging, and then again differentiating, the two become “unfinished entities” – as Pierre Bourdieau refers to the body - improvising new habits, “perceiving the possible”.
Exploring and manipulating our perception, they reveal the body’s awkwardness, its monstrosity, its potential failure and finiteness, they create space for the possibility of the unknown, the wondrous, the ecstatic, the infinite.
Collaborating with composer/contrabassist Klaus Janek, video artist Regina Teichs, installation artist Ricarda Mieth and photographer Sven Hagolani in a variety of presentational contexts, including photo and video media, “live art” performance installations in galleries, internet, public sites and performance in theatrical contexts, Curtis and Scaroni investigate homologous movement as a lens whose distortion, and or focus, yields insight into a variety of physical, aesthetic, social, and ethical realities.

PRESS

"..deeply thoughtful, entrancingly beautiful simplicity.......up close [...] is where this symbiotic ritual ought to be experienced. See it now if you can." - Rachel Howard, SF Chronicle

"Should you go and see it? Yes. Symmetry is brainy, sensuous, and asks important questions." - Rita Felciano, SF Bay Guardian

"The pair take the body at its most basic and vulnerable — naked — and transform its homely and altogether familiar form into abstractions both known and weirdly beautiful. As the dancers move, their bodies resemble pulsing, heroically fragile inkblot drawings in motion." –Ann Murphy, The Contra Costa Times

"Does nudity, as much as it liberates physically, wrap us in an emotional shroud? Where does intimacy end and exhibitionism begin?... any dance that raises such questions must be taken seriously."
- Allan Ulrich, Voice of Dance