Celia Rowlson-Corridor will current her model of the story of Sisyphus, SISSY, the place the mythological Greek king pushes a large boulder up a hill in bodily perpetuity, at Baryshnikov Arts Heart in NYC in late April. Rowlson-Corridor turns the story on its head when she reimagines all of it from a girls’s perspective, which has a very poignant utility presently, or possibly at all times. Dance Informa linked with Rowlson-Corridor to debate her multi-disciplinary strategy, the results of parenting on artwork, and the bravery of navigating the inventive course of as a feminine creator.
It’s so typically that we affiliate artists with only one self-discipline, however you actually are an interdisciplinary artist, and this work comprises not solely dance but additionally makes use of actors and, at one level, even features a movie portion! Are you able to speak about what first propelled you from one kind to many, movie being the primary departure from dance?
“I bought my BFA in Dance and Choreography. I assumed I might have my very own dance firm, and that’s what I got here as much as New York to do. After I was requested to choreograph a music video, it was an intro to bop on movie. And fairly merely, it was a love-at-first-sight second. I simply poured myself into it. However actually every part I had gained at college and in my very own apply was…the right way to work. It was a direct transference. I’m a really visible particular person, and so movie lends itself properly to how I naturally take into consideration issues. If you’re choreographing for movie, you might be choreographing for a really totally different beast, and should perceive what the digicam is seeing. It was fairly a straightforward transition, as a result of the digicam itself is sort of a dance companion. And to me, movie is choreography. It felt like probably the most pure transition ever.”
During the last decade or so, we’ve seen dance change into extra built-in into mainstream media by way of movie, TV and social media. Your new work, SISSY, combines dance, theater and, at one level, additionally comprises a movie component. In some methods, this strategy is the reverse of dance making its means into these disciplines in that these disciplines are actually making their means right into a dance efficiency. Was that intentional, or an natural outgrowth of your physique of labor so far?
“As soon as I gave beginning to my son a pair years in the past, I began serious about time in a really totally different means and the way I needed to get actually intentional. Individuals stated, ‘When are you going again to work?’ I’m not going again. I’m shifting ahead into one thing. I’m a brand new particular person. I’ve a brand new life. That is all totally different. I need to return to the theater, however for me, it’s ahead as a result of I haven’t completed it in 20 years. For the previous 20 years, after I consider one thing I need to make, I consider it in a movie model. In my movie work, I’ve at all times mixed dancers and actors collectively. It’s simply the right alchemy for me. How am I going to do it in theater? What’s enjoyable about that is I haven’t completed it but, so I get to seek out out in a pair weeks after we go into the rehearsal.”
The unique story of Sisyphus, in its easiest model, is of a person condemned to push a large boulder up a hill solely to have it roll down and start the duty once more, eternally. You’ve reimagined it from a feminine perspective, which feels becoming given the infinite, relentless efforts girls make to realize a good footing on this planet. And when girls change into moms, the burden of that boulder will increase. How a lot of the present pertains to you turning into a mom?
“It’s actually what the present is about. I turned a mom concurrently with my father falling very sick, and I used to be caught between being a brand new mom, making an attempt to be an artist and making an attempt to be the perfect daughter doable. I used to be at capability in a means I didn’t even know was doable. The sweetness is that in having my son, a brand new particular person with an unbelievable quantity of capability arrived. The present is about all these Sisyphean duties of being an artist, a performer, a mom and a daughter. The one factor in our management is our strategy to it (management), and this present actually is taking all that on. I believe that can be what’s vital as a mom and as an artist, to be exploring these areas as a result of I didn’t actually develop up seeing tales explored on this means. Actually, the one factor I do know is to make good work, make truthful work, and don’t neglect to have enjoyable. As a result of I do assume pleasure is such a needed component proper now.”
Celia Rowlson-Corridor’s SISSY will probably be offered at Baryshnikov Arts Heart from April 24-26. For tickets and extra data, go to baryshnikovarts.org/efficiency/sissy.
By Emily Sarkissian of Dance Informa.
