These excerpts are from an evening-length one hour piece that you can see in its entirety at vimeo.com/341443179
"Ordinary Devotions," created and performed by award-winning choreographer Linda Austin, is a meditation-in-action on the ordinary/extraordinary life of the aging body and a tactile and tender apprehension of the world to hand. An intimate drama of gesture and sensation unfolds alongside a bracingly unorthodox use of objects: e.g. a white vinyl tarp, a twig, stones, a lamp worn on the body, cassette tapes, and multiple spools of thread. Throughout, task-like activity yields to poetically and emotionally-charged movement, text, and image—evoking vulnerability and hints of mortality. Beauty, humor, a bit of rebellious “orneriness”, and awkwardness all find their place in the precarious world of this dance, itself situated within a larger world apprehensive about its own survival.
Choreography, visual design, and performance: Linda Austin
Sound design | Music Composition: Juniana Lanning
Video: Kelly Rauer
Lighting design: Jeff Forbes
Many thanks to the support of the Ucross Foundation Residency Program in the development of this work.
Performed March 2019 at Performance Works NW, Portland, OR
