This is raw.

It's stripped down.

You can hear us breathing.

You can hear the murmurs in the audience.

And it feels so alive.

It feels like everyone is breathing the same oxygen.

We're standing within.

British Artist Nicola Turner Site Responsive Installation.

The Fabric of Undoing.

It's comprised of compressed tendrils of horse hair and sheep oil.

The artist refers to the material as dead matter.

However, it has this vitality that really insists on a kind of afterlife and therefore makes the materials primed for this choreographic collaboration.

The name of our piece is ephemeral, soulless, and passing.

It came about because Taylor and I were both really intrigued by the idea of something being momentary and it's going to disapparate.

And we had actually started with a working title which was tethered to you, ephemerally.

Because I really liked the idea of it not being a fully realized piece, it being sort of like a glimpse into a relationship.

I think the most unexpected part of this process for me was the relationship that I built with the work.

This is the first sort of site specific installation sort of collaboration that I've been a part of, and you really end up taking on this relationship with with the art and with the way it moves with us.

And I think that sort of caught me off guard because I'm so used to two pieces and and shapes being scenery or props things that we interact with rather than things that we are moving with and becoming one with.

When we first met Nicola at her gallery opening here at Carvalho, we were speaking about ideas around the piece and what could be interesting, what she thought could exist in the space.

And one of the things we asked her was Can we interact with the sculptures?

You know, are they are they mobile?

Can we touch them?

And she said, Yes, absolutely, yes.

The three kind of floating sculptures in the space have wheels on them.

So she said, we can move them around if we want.

And the big installation sculpture behind me, she said, you know, we have free rein to attach and climb on.

It's very exciting.

Ticket to climb up on there and just give it a big hug.

It feels like it's hugging me back.

Growing up as a professional dancer with New York City Ballet.

I became very accustomed to a 30 minute call like a warning before the show starts.

You know, that gust of wind is the curtain comes up and very much sort of perfecting my mold in order to facilitate the image of the greater company.

This feels the complete opposite end of the spectrum.

This is raw.

It's stripped down.

It's you can hear us breathing.

You can hear the murmurs in the audience, and it feels so alive.

It feels like everyone is breathing the same oxygen.

And actually, I said that it was tailor me and the installation, but it feels very much like there's four of us, you know, it's almost like an onion.

And you have the outer layer of the audience and then you have the installation and then you have Taylor and then you have myself.

It feels very different.

A lot more intimate for sure.

When it comes to presenting yourself in a certain way, I feel like I almost have to put on a different hat or just switch out my perspective in the way that I typically perform, which is very outward.

You know, we're taught to bring as much as we can to our performances at the theater.

This is a little more intimate.

So there's an essence of reining things.

And in my mind I have to almost look past or beyond or through.

They spend multiple rehearsals moving the works around, and it never quite felt fully intersectional until there's this one moment in the choreography where Alec encloses Taylor within the three forms.

And for anyone viewing that moment in the dance, you can feel your throat close in your chest, close in.

And it says so much about the dynamic between the dancers and what the sculptures can be.

Often times you don't really know what you're trying to say until you've said it.

And there was this moment where we finished the piece and we both looked at each other and we knew that we had expressed or created what we wanted people to feel.

And what resonates with me is just right now more than ever, we need these experiences that bring us all together and make us all understand the things that connect us and the experiences that connect us.

And so we really wanted the north light of the piece to be.

Everyone can understand what we're saying about love and loss and evolution, and it doesn't have to be spoon fed.

So I think that we really hit that perfect balance of ambiguity, but also articulation.