Below is a short video of excerpts from our premiere in November 2013.
And this is from our first rehearsal…still the heart of the piece for me. The score was just “mouth”.
Mouth began as an embodied exploration of the functional and figurative possibilities of human mouths. Through improvisation, set material, and performance, we have experienced our mouths as much more than the part of the anatomy that eats, speaks and kisses. We have been inspired by Tere O’Connor’s discussion of “everything-ness” before and throughout the making of Bigmouth Strikes Again. There are no no’s. Everything is worth trying and anything is possible. Along the way we found some 80’s melodrama (The Smiths) and something(s) to wear (by designer Jmy James Kidd) .
An embodied and cognitive study of the mouth as
- an anatomical structure
- the first extremity to grasp in the infant
- a significant part of facial and verbal expression
- sound and word maker
- the beginning of the digestive system
- the location of our sense of taste
- a tool
- a place where tension is commonly held
Continua influencing the creation of the work as a whole:
- human/animal
- feral/hyper-civilized
- performative/pedestrian
Use the creation and each performance of the work as a laboratory where we embody
- the particular questions that emerge during our research rather than making a dance about or inspired by what we have already concluded.
- questions that arise throughout our process, allowing an aesthetic to emerge that neither rejects, nor is in the service of, more commonly held values in dance such as beauty, virtuosity, effortlessness and grace.
