ABOUT “BLOOD, SEA”

This hybrid contact improvisation/Body-Mind Centering® class explores polarities as they manifest in the blood and cerebrospinal fluid, which are the heaviest and lightest fluids in the body. In utero the blood forms in the yolk sac in the front, and the cerebrospinal fluid arises from the amniotic fluid in the back. Within these two fluids we can find opposition and balance between front/back, inner/outer, gravity/space, folding/extending, rolling/sloughing, and underdancer/overdancer. The transitions between these poles are nonlinear and take us into spiral pathways. The title is drawn from the writing of Italo Calvino. His short story Blood, Sea refers to the balance of salinity in our blood and in the ocean from which we humans evolved: “Bathed by the primordial wave which continues to flow in the arteries, our blood in fact has a chemical composition analogous to that of the sea of our origins.” As we evolved into terrestrial beings, we brought the sea inside of us onto land.

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ABOUT NICOLE BINDLER

Nicole Bindler's performance work and teaching have been presented at festivals and intensives throughout the U.S., Canada, Argentina, Europe, and in Tokyo, Beirut, Bethlehem, Mexico City, and Quito. Her dances have been supported by the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage, Leeway Foundation, Puffin Foundation, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and the Ellen Forman Memorial Award. Bindler holds a BA in Dance and Poetry from Hampshire College, a degree in Muscular Therapy from the Muscular Therapy Institute, and certificates in Embodied Anatomy Yoga, Embodied Developmental Movement and Yoga, and Practitioner of Body-Mind Centering® from the School for Body-Mind Centering®. She has been on faculty at Temple University, University of the Arts, and the University of Pennsylvania, and has guest lectured at Drexel University, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Hameline University, Arizona State University, Tempe, University of Texas, Austin, Goldsmith’s University, St Mary’s College of Maryland, Moore College of Art and Design, and Ursinus College. Her writing on dance and somatics has been published in Critical Correspondence, Contact Quarterly, Emergency Index by Ugly Duckling Presse, Jewish Currents, BMC® Currents, Curate This, Journal of Dance & Somatic Practices, Somatics Toolkit, and thINKingDANCE. She currently serves on the Earthdance Diversity, Equity, and, Inclusion Committee.

*Current Artist in Residence at Lightbox