In this episode, Megan and Chetna talk about:
- What dance means to Megan, a way to relate to the world, to space and other bodies, and self-express beyond what people assume
- How in her body and Asian identity, she’s explored her physical strength through movement practices
- Breaking through walls of expectation through exploring movement through the body
- Going beyond the rigid way of what “dance” is commonly looked at within performance, production or a certain body type
- Megan’s emphasis on individual bodies and the histories, modalities and passions that each individual has, as opposed to doing it a certain way
- Contact improvisation as a way to connect to one’s own body and other bodies
- The importance of deep listening and asking for communication, making invitation in contact improv dance
- Deep listening with living and inanimate objects is part of Megan’s practice
- A way to develop this deep listening, even today, is noticing how your body interacts with the space and objects around you, noticing what it’s like to send your energy into an object, whether it’s your laptop or phone, or the trees outside, the seat your in
- Taking movement classes and contact improv help with this deep listening of your body and your surroundings
- The intimacy of deep listening with dance, to oneself- into me I see- and those in shared space
- Megan’s practice of building intimacy with her collaborators by prioritizing relationships full of respect, generosity, gratitude, trust in her dance-making
- Megan’s “Gathering Pieces of Piece” project being a culmination of her contemplations in her life thus far about the liminal space of being mixed Chinese and Irish
- Her tattoo with half of the Chinese symbol for “peace” being a mark of her identity
- The ways we mark our identities with tattoos, how we dress, our rituals and routines, etc.
- The experience of liminality that Chetna has experienced as a third culture kid; one being between a beautiful artist retreat with folks feeling comfortable being naked at her lake swimming together, and living at home with her South Asian parents
- Contact improv being a way to meet the primal need of platonic and attuned touch
- The importance of moving the body as a way for expression and creation
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