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JoAnna Shaw
- Jun 5, 2017
- 3 min
Dancing at the Edge of Cruelty
In 2005 we collaborated with a brilliant video artist, Janet Biggs, who taught us a great deal about creating imagery by stripping away anything that is not essential. Janet is a video artist an equestrian. She rides large Dutch Warm Bloods and has some serious equestrian credibility. Janet has a 7” scar on her arm from a serious riding accident that, like many equine accidents, happened in an instant. She knows just how dangerous riding can be, and just how cruel some equine
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JoAnna Shaw
- Jun 5, 2017
- 4 min
Task-ness and Choreography
I love to watch dancers who comfortably inhabit their own bodies with no protective layers or pretense. They are completely present and are able to inhabit movement with uncomplicated directness. Working with horses the ego gets stripped away and we are left with simple tasks. I have come to define choreography in terms of tasks – simple jobs with clear objectives. The notion of dancing as task became very clear to me during the fall of 2007. At 7:00am every Monday morning th
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JoAnna Shaw
- Jun 5, 2017
- 4 min
Never Rehearse in Order
In March 2004 The Equus Projects spent a month as Guest Artists in the Dance Department at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia. We were commissioned to create a work for dancers and horses using local horses and equestrians and a cast of 16 VCU dancers. One section of the 50-minute work was a double duet for two dancers and an equestrian and her horse. The piece was set to the Prelude for the Bach Unaccompanied Cello Suite No1 in G Major. The Prelude from B
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JoAnna Shaw
- Jun 5, 2017
- 4 min
Choreographic Scores with Babies
In my choreographic journey with dancers and horses, the most challenging and fascinating interactions are with rider-less horses or horses at liberty. Those interactions might take place is a pasture with a herd of horses or in an enclosed space or round pen with a single animal. Using improvisational techniques such as imitation or sponging, by shaping negative space between my body and the horse and using tactile cueing, I can engineer a structured interaction with a will
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JoAnna Shaw
- Jun 5, 2017
- 1 min
Dangerous Dancing
I am interested in dangerous dancing. Not the kind that causes bodily harm or presents the audience with dancers pushing the limits of human exertion within inches of total exhaustion. I am interested in the kind of in dangerous dancing that an improviser wrestles with when working with a pre-determined outcome, when outcomes are paramount but the journey to arrive at that end point is being determined as the dance progresses. There is quite a bit of rigor in assembling a cho
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