Blood, Sea
Your helical heart is everywhere
Your blood is the transport system of your needs
Your vessels draw you toward and away
Blood, Sea is an improvised ensemble dance drawing inspiration from our evolution from the ocean to land, our ontogenetic journey from the amniotic sea of the womb to adulthood, and polarities within our lives and bodies, such as affinity and aversion, or blood and cerebrospinal fluid, which arise in the front and back of our bodies, respectively, and are the heaviest and lightest fluids.
The title is drawn from the writing of Italo Calvino. His short story "Blood, Sea" refers to the balance of salinity in our blood and in the ocean from which we humans evolved: “Bathed by the primordial wave which continues to flow in the arteries, our blood in fact has a chemical composition analogous to that of the sea of our origins.” As we evolved into terrestrial beings, we brought the sea inside of us onto land.
Bindler began the creation process in collaboration with Masri and students from Drexel University through the Ellen Forman Memorial Award. She further developed the work with the performers listed above over an eight month rehearsal process during which they explored all of the organs and systems that contain or are impacted by blood, such as the endocrine and immune systems, and the liver, spleen, heart, etc.
The Case for Invagination
Invagination is a fold, a concavity, a feminist reimagining of space, not necessarily correlated with the anatomical vagina.
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The body is not a bunch of separate parts, but one thing that has infinite folds. Through this process of invagination we make ourselves. This performance is a practice of Bindler swelling herself up, cleaving, folding, complexifying, as we do in our embryonic development.
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In this second version of The Case for Invagination, Bindler deepens her investigation of a monologue that she created for her knee scar, which now dialogues with her more recently acquired neck scar and her belly button about the meaning of life, and questions about whether they are invaginations (nouns) or if they have been invaginated (verb).
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Why invaginate??
–Feels good.
–Try something new?
–Your cells will love it!
–Intussuscept the patriarchy.
I Think Not
Choreographed by Deborah Hay, adapted and performed by Nicole Bindler, is an intimate solo performed in the round.
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Bindler learned the dance in Findhorn Scotland in 2011 as a part of Hay’s Solo Performance Commissioning Project where 20 international performers were coached by Hay on their performance of the dance over 12 days. Bindler committed to practicing the performance of the dance daily for three months before showing it publicly. Through the daily practice Binder adapted the dance, which has become infused with her own choices and aesthetics. Bindler performed this solo in New York, Philly, Washington DC, Austin, and Mexico City in 2012. Now, over seven years later she is re-staging this work with new design elements including voice therapy techniques she's practicing everyday to address vocal fold paralysis. She's interested in re-inhabiting this dance at a new time with a new body, and layering material from the health conditions and challenges she currently faces in recognition of the ways the body changes, and one's orientation to choreography and our mentors shifts over time.
The Dance Apocalypse
Nicole Bindler & Gabrielle Revlock
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We are two choreographers creating dances for you and with you. Currently we are working on a new video project, Chicken Fight and touring our solo versions of The Dance Apocalypse and the 2011 A.W.A.R.D Show! sensation, I made this for you. We're also offering periodic CardioCreativity and Clitoral Embodiment classes in Philadelphia. We'd love to meet you so come to a class, performance or send us an email.
WOMEN
Evening length work created in collaboration with Diyar Dance Theater
WOMEN is a hybrid dabke/western contemporary dance that explores the parallels between the conquest of Palestinian land and Palestinian women's bodies. The dancers create a map of Palestine with stones on the stage and on the geography of their bodies. They perform quotidian tasks, such as braiding hair to the sounds of war outside their window. They dance to the music and the sounds of the streets in their hometown, Bethlehem. This piece is an ode to the women of Palestine told by three women who grieve the loss of their land and the sea they cannot visit.