Field Notes

Happy National Poetry Month from Stance on Dance!

BY JUSTINE HIGHSMITH; ILLUSTRATION BY CAMILLE TAFT

touch. ground. open.

 

floor duets they witness

apart, foot by inch

 

humming body, still

roaring teeth in bone-white jaw

compression of a thousand, maybe

two thousand more

eons of skin on dirt

place hands here.

hurried feet, plummet stare

bleeds wide the chest cavity

break apart quiet distance

 

now the voice speaks clearly: {000000}                                        find evidence for what is not seen.

~~

collide, the center speaks for a point

.

leap———————————>  leapt

consider falling now.

collide > <

~~

spatial sections unite under:

  1. we, almost if a pin pierces
  2. gaps inside or outside
  3. breath of the nape reflecting
  4. deep wells
  5. fist down, mapped doorway                           & steps approach us in the dark feeling.

 

1. edges

2. roped

3. conflict

4. ______

 

one. In

wander a space to fall into

 

you                carving cloud placards               ellipses

drop                                                           ladder

or, words are raised

crystalized

ash ash ash ash ash ash ash ash ash ash

quickening            sand,

floor chimes a century, feral guide               the air

is tending alone

Field Notes

Justine Highsmith is a choreographer, sound artist, and poet living in Portland, OR. Her work explores emergent meaning through group integration, and what our bodies excavate in a space.

Camille Taft is a seventeen-year-old dancer living in Longmont, CO, who has trained throughout her life in primarily ballet and modern dance. With both her parents as visual artists, she has always appreciated the excitement that comes from a collaboration of mixed media, and was thus overjoyed to have the opportunity to work with Stance on Dance.