How to See in the Dark (a.k.a. Ecosystems, Cycles, Insecurity)

May 12, 2025

BY ANNE BARTLETT AND JESSICA PERINO, Co-artistic directors of 20MOONS

Photos by Mariah Richstone

Note: This article was first published in Stance on Dance’s spring/summer 2025 print issue. To learn more, visit stanceondance.com/print-publication.

We utilized a structure from our creative process for this article: within a spatial container we took turns moving/speaking and witnessing each other. We were tasked with sharing “our perspective on creating a contemporary dance ecosystem in a small mountain town.” For context, we’re currently working on a show called How to See in the Dark, which explores the boundaryless relationship between earth and body, and how tuning into this interbeing can serve as a guiding force.

Round one: Jessica

Okay, this is how I’m feeling now (standing, arms and legs rotated in, a deeply furrowed face). Well, after a little laughter, it would be a little more like this. Just after the contraction and inward rotation, I got a little sense of satisfaction. I feel like it would be more like this (palms opening outward, chest lifted, eyes and mouth smiling as she lifts her face).

I keep getting hung up on that word: “ecosystem.” It feels like the life cycle: Things come in (fingers moving, gathering, arms open wide) from the external world: the universe; the solar system; the planet; the continent; country; state; county; town; the room we find ourselves in. Things come in that feed and nurture us. We digest it through movement…and a lot of meetings! It gets turned into practice, metabolized into the cells and tissues of the company, and expressed through all different shapes and forms of our shows and offerings. The hope is that those are received like rain falling (sprinkling and dropping through spine, torso, arms and hands to the floor) onto the ground. Then…sprouts! From seeds, the tendrils come back up to nourish us again (one palm anchored and rooted, the other curling upward).

But there are so many other things involved in that system (a sudden whole body spreading, arms extending sharply outward in several directions). Like, where does grant writing live? Where does fundraising fit into that? Where do spread-sheeting budgets fit into that? Where does scheduling fit in?

All those beautiful terrible things exist in the orb of 20MOONS. It’s an ecosystem, not a perfect system. (On her back now, arms cross and intertwine with each other, the space between them shrinking and growing.) It’s not just one thing untouched by any other things. We are part of this world that contains all the things.

Round one: Anne

(Sits on her knees, exhales, and moves her hair out of the way. She slices to clear the slate.) I want to presence the insecurity that this particular process at this particular time is bringing up. I look back at when we wrote an article for Stance on Dance in 2016, (puts her fingertips together, her eyes closed) and I think about where we were then. If I feel back into that time, it felt a little bit hopeful, like things were opening with possibilities, like we could really go places.

It’s not like I’ve forgotten the rockiness, the multiple times in a process when we felt like, “Can we do this? Can we make this show? Where are we? What is this? What are we doing?” which is its own version of insecurity. I haven’t forgotten any of those things, but I am feeling this particular insecurity right now.

Part of it is my body: the pain and the limitation that I feel, and the lack of strength that has come because of the pain. Then I start to feel insecure (her right arm peels her heart open to the sun, then curls back into her chest). It’s that old story: “Maybe I’m all washed up. Dance is only something for the young. You outgrow it. You get too old for it.” There are two parts of me: one that believes, and one that fights that story.

(Lies on her left side, bends and crosses her arms and legs.) And then there’s the insecurity of the world. It feels particularly insecure and chaotic. It has for some time, but this is more like (sits up and waves arms across her whole body). And then 20MOONS feels like, “Where are our people? Who’s gonna show up, and how are they gonna show up?” Right now, I feel like we’re in a smaller, more contracted place. I don’t feel connected to the ecosystem of Durango the way I did in 2016 when we had collaborators, were part of a conversation, and relevant in this community of other artists doing cool stuff. I feel less connected, less part of the ecosystem right now. Being asked to talk about what it’s like to make a contemporary dance ecosystem here makes me think, “You’re asking the wrong person! I don’t know because I feel like I haven’t done that.” That’s the insecurity part that I want to put on the table (sitting on knees, leaning forward, face down, arms extended out to the sides).

Round two: Jessica

(Enters the space and assumes the shape that Anne had ended with.)

Me too, ditto. Everything you said. Yep.

That’s where I was, too, after reading the 2016 article. I also felt like we were in an opening phase then, and now I feel we’re at the end of a cycle. It’s a more contractive place, which sometimes feels like completion (arms extended, palms up, moving together), and other times feels like it could eventually be a portal into another opening (hands reaching forward from her chest, fanning outward, tracing a horizontal hourglass shape). That’s where we are right now in the lifespan of our company. We started from a seed that opened, reached out, gathered nutrients, and had exchanges with the ecosystem. Now we’re here at a more contracted place.

What’s important about this time for us? (Hands swirling, rotating in front of her body, like candle smoke, or mist.) What do we do with it? It’s a choice point.

(One hand covering the other, containing something in a small space.) We’re reseeding/receding! We’re the dark seed again underground (folding into child’s pose). So much seems possible from here, while it also feels like nothing is possible.

It feels isolating, cold, and dark. There’s not a lot of contact with the outside world. Sometimes it feels (torso sinking back and down) like a dormancy, which is part of the life cycle: seeds can be dormant in the ground for a long time. I don’t know if they have consciousness, (sitting upright now, front body open, right arm stretching to the sky and left downward on the diagonal) if they are aware that there’s so much potential out there, that they could reach out in all directions to give and receive and become part of something larger again.

What does it take to wake the seed? Does it want to wake up? Does it need to? Will it reveal itself in its own timing and design, inevitably? Or will it disintegrate and become part of everything else? (She wipes her hands across the floor, sweeping outwards and away.)

Right now, we’re just this seed in the ground. But we’re still generative, even in this place. There’s a lot going on (hands cupped)! Why does it feel harder now? Maybe it isn’t. Because, like you said, it wasn’t easy before. We started here.

Round two: Anne

(Moves into a seed shape making “hhhmmm” sounds, in stillness, seemingly scanning for what her form contains.) I totally trust the cycles of nature. I can 100 percent accept that is the way of things. I frequently tell people, when they’re lost, to look to the plants: They’re not fighting any part of that cycle. They’re not saying, “Wait, I’m not ready to wake up yet. I want to stay asleep longer.” They’re saying, “It’s time to let go of the seeds, let them fall in other places, and trust that some will survive and others will not. It’s time to let this part collapse, go back into the soil, be dormant, just rest, and wait.” They’re trusting the soil will ultimately yield the right conditions again for growth. I can totally get behind that…for plants!

(Sits tall on knees again with a long, solid spine.) In my own experience, I’m not trusting in that. My fear of death comes up. And I’m not trusting it in the human sphere because I just don’t trust humans to abide by natural cycles and rhythms. As a species we’ve tried to override all that. As a human among humans, I have a fear of not being allowed to be part of the natural cycles. Humans separate all the time, among ourselves, and between us and the natural world. I get caught up sensing that separation and I forget the trust.

So, how do I bring that back to 20MOONS? Why do I keep coming back? Why do I want to keep nurturing and protecting this seed even if it goes into a dormant phase and has to regather its strength? Why do I want to make sure it doesn’t just decompose and become part of other things, energetically?

Hmm… (Back to child’s pose, hands come together in a receiving gesture. I can feel the curiosity land in them lightly.)

Maybe it’s because of telling this story. Because 20MOONS feels like a way to remind people of this story of the cycles, and the wisdom of belonging to the cycles. It feels like a way to keep trying to remind humans of this bigger order of things. It feels to me like it’s our responsibility, if we see it, to contribute to that understanding (slides, rises, and stands swiftly, clearly).

Round three: Jessica

(She enters). As we know, art becomes life. We’re creating a show about finding our way through the darkness, and things feel very murky right now. No surprise! I’m curious about how much of the murkiness is coming from the project we’re creating. Every time we make something, we see it everywhere in our lives. Why would it be different this time?

So, what’s inside this murkiness? Resistance, judgment: “We should be so much more, so much bigger by now. We were opening; we should have continued opening. We had so many connections; we should have more now. Everything should be bigger and better because that was the trajectory.”

(Lies on her back, covers her eyes.) Instead it’s murky. It’s damp, cold, and uncomfortable. It’s tight, uncertain, and dark.

What’s right about darkness? (Waits, listens.)

It’s allowing us to go in and ask questions, to review where we’ve been, where we are now, and where we want to go.

(Eyes still closed, begins to move more freely through the space, reaching with hands and feet and spine.) What’s right about the darkness is that we can hear better. I just heard a bus go by. I hear music. Your breathing. The texture of my leg moving across the floor. I can hear rejoicing.

What’s right about the darkness is that it enhances our perceptual abilities, possibly to the point where we are even more aware than if our eyes were open and the light was shining.

Not knowing where we are or where we’re going next makes anything possible. If we can’t see the way, we can go anywhere. Okay, all I’m saying is, what’s right about being here now is that it can be the perfect place to develop the kind of perception needed to guide us from this point forward.

What’s here now? (She moves through the space, brushing the floor with her feet, twisting and turning.) It’s brighter. I feel a kind of trusting like the plants trust. Trusting that the seed will sprout if we give it the right conditions.

~~

Anne Bartlett and Jessica Perino are the co-artistic directors of 20MOONS, a contemporary dance theater company in Durango, CO. To learn more, visit 20moons.com.