Larissa Read, Contemporary Dance Artist

I am a contemporary dance artist but I am unsure of where I fit in the practice of contemporary dance. It is hard for me to call myself an artist because I don’t feel that I have enough knowledge to have my own practice. Dance is unique in the way your body is your tool, which brings with it visceral and kinesthetic feelings. These aspects bring the constant appetite to learn and is why this is a theme I choose to pursue in my work.

I constantly explore new techniques because contemporary dance is vast. This sparked interest in finding new ways to move my own body, the physicality of the body, kinesthetic awareness of body parts in relation to other body parts, and new dynamics for myself in improvisation. I am interested physically in the opposite of what comes naturally to me in an attempt to be more versatile and feed the curiosity I have for new techniques. Presence is something I am interested in recently and what it means to be present. Either in one’s body, or present in a space, or present with others, or present with your environment. It is a theme I am trying to pursue in my life and I want to reflect it in my work as a choreographer and dancer, especially in performance.

Movement qualities I gravitate towards both to inhabit and to watch are a full, confident, awareness of one’s body in space, qualities and movements that are virtuosic in nature but are intrinsically linked to show virtuosity in a more approachable nature, movement in and out of the floor, and choreography that is unpredictable but flows nicely together.

I enjoy the process of choreographing on others and will continue to pursue this interest with more curiosity, working with the idea of relationships; relationships of space or to space, of people in space, of person to person or people, how a person has a relationship with their body, or how body parts can have relationships with one another in space. This is influenced by personal feelings or experiences, the way each body brings with it individual experience to a new space because it is an embodied practice, the way movement orients bodies in space, and how these relate to themes in cultural and other aspects of my life.