Singing While Dancing Through Music

As an interdisciplinary art maker, I often get asked how I go about making so many kinds of art. To me, I look at my art as a series of ideas that I explore through different mediums. For example, I am working on a group choreographic work that is working through how anxiety is understood and perceived through other peoples' bodies. I am also exploring that in music composition. And, I have painted this experience many times throughout my life. I also have many poems that are on various scraps of paper, written through song lyrics or typed and saved on my computer, that all relate to how I process this everyday experience of anxiety in my life.

I think a good analogy of my creative process would be the layers in a canyon. If you picture a side of rocky landscape in a canyon, it is a vertical layering of colors, textures and shapes. But it is still one piece of land. I often form one creative idea in my head, and then explore the same idea in multiple facets. It allows me to dive deeper into my creativity, and it pushes me to make my work more meaningful. All of my interdisciplinary work is built upon previous work that I have done.

This has most interestingly shown up in my most recent solo choreographic research. While in the studio last week, I started saying words as I completed movement. That then turned into singing as I was moving, revisiting a few strands of words over and over.

What does this mean? Maybe I am finding that I can best communicate my thoughts by using several mediums: language, voice, physical movement and music. And maybe, this combination will make a new canyon of itself.