Bird bones (2022-Present)
Bird bones is a trilogy of relational choreographic work that moves through questions regarding disability, external structures, and internal structures.
Image description: Krista extends her left leg forward, tilts forward, and flexes her foot on a raised grey fountain edge and grips her crutches on either side of the fountain edge while Lu extends their right arm out to the side with Sugandha’s cotton sensory textiles draped over their shoulders and right arm in the sunlight. They are both surrounded by green grass, bushes, and purple flowers, and there are golden and green autumn trees lining the background. Photo credit: Maddie Barkocy
Image description: Ella (standing) and Lu (sitting) hold one of Sugandha’s sensory textiles in a stretched, tense position by the outer strands of thread, and sunlight floods through the interwoven strips of cotton. Golden and green trees and green and brown bushes glisten in the background. Photo credit: Maddie Barkocy
Image description: Michelle holds the end of a chain of cotton wrist stockinettes that they tied together and brings the thumb hole toward Kiera’s pointer finger, which is extended outward toward Michelle, and Krista holds the far end of the stockinette chain in her right hand while reaching and looking upward toward the sun with her left hand and elbow bent. Kiera wears one of Sugandha’s sensory textiles wrapped around their neck and left shoulder and holds a scarf-like textile in their right hand, which loops downward beside a grey fountain edge. Photo credit: Maddie Barkocy
Image description: Kiera plays accordion and sings while Ella extends one leg and two arms in opposition in front of a large, wooden, nest-like sculpture. They are surrounded by scratchy star thistle plants and dirt. Photo credit: Benjamin Cheney
Image description: Kiera's joints sit in themselves in a bird-like perch and Ella rolls her back over green and purple hand weights on a wooden dance deck. Photo: Benjamin Cheney
The first piece (entitled Bird bones/"You need some impact in there" and created at The Croft Residency with Ella Dawn W-S in July 2022) attended to bird movements on Waganakising Odawa land and water, bird sounds, bird-made structures (like nests), and the bodily structures of birds in relation to the human-made wooden dance deck, nest-like wooden sculptures made by Benjamin Cheney, trees, and our own disabled and nondisabled bodily structures. Collaborative diasporic cooking, baking, and eating practices were embedded in our process, and we made cherry noodle kugel (with gluten-free noodles we made by hand), potato kugel, and zucchini bread for audience members at the outdoor public performance. We saved our leftover strained pasta water in jars, which we offered to audience members so that we could water surrounding plants together.
Image description: Kiera and Ella squat and perch next to each other on a wooden dock in the moments before they dive synchronously into a calm lake during the live performance of Bird bones/40th Annual Loon Count on Saturday, July 15, 2023. They both face away from the camera toward a floating dock in the distance, thick grey clouds above them, and lush hills across slightly rippled water. Kiera and Ella's reflections wiggle on the water below the stationary dock. Photo credit: Ciarra Fragale
The second piece, Bird bones/40th Annual Loon Count, unfolded on Wabanaki land and water at Bearnstow with Ella Dawn W-S in July 2023. [I am reaching my porous bones toward the dense, heavy bones of the loon. We are letting the structures of the lake inform the structures of our bodies, and we are letting the structures of our bodies inform the structures of the lake. We are dancing in disabled relation to the loon, the water, the metal stationary dock, and the wooden and metal floating dock. We are wading into the Mad, disabled artistry and knowledge of the loons.] For the public performance, we made a gluten-free, dairy-free blueberry French toast casserole and potato kugel, shared it with audience members, and then journeyed to the lake together for the water-based, rock-based, and dock-based portions of the performance.
The third and final part of the trilogy, Bird bones/Sparrow songs, unfolded on Paggank/”Nut Island” (colonially known as Governors Island) in October 2024 in collaboration with Sugandha Gupta, Michelle Mantione, Krista Miranda, Ella Dawn W-S, and Lu Yim as part of the NYC Bird Alliance Artist in Residence (AiR) Program. Partly an elegy to Charlotte, a stunned White-throated Sparrow I encountered after a window collision in Manhattan and brought to Wild Bird Fund in October 2022, this piece finds kinship with birds whose daily flight and ancestral migration dances have been interrupted by deadly, disabling structures and artificial lighting. For the public performance, I served home-cooked gluten-free casarecce with garlic, home-grown scallions, olive oil, broccoli, spinach, and zucchini and home-baked gluten-free Sicilian ricotta cookies with chocolate chips, cinnamon, and orange zest. Beginning by christening the space with a Sicilian folk song, Michelle, Krista, Ella, Lu, and I danced in disabled relation to birds, the ground, the beautiful sensory textiles that Sugandha made from five years of my accumulated wrist stockinettes, the built structures surrounding us, our mobility aids, and each other.