Choreographic Projects
If you knew me, knew the real me, you would find me unlovable
Choreography: Matthew Henley
Performers: Roberto Alvarez, Colby Calhoun, Azaria Hogans, Reyna Mondragon, Martheya Nygaard, Najwa Seyedmorteza, Cylene Walker-Willis, ,
Music: Matthew Peyton Dixon
Premiere: Ohio University, 2018 (Originally titled: Title: Tidal)
This work explores the relationship between our sense of identity and the stories we surround ourselves with. I began by asking the dancers what stories give meaning to their lives. Whether these stories are found in popular media like books, tv, and songs or in more personal settings like religious or familial stories. What began to emerge was a sense of duality: being drawn to stories of what one is expected to be by friends and family, but also being drawn to stories that represent a hidden or unnamed desire or impulse. A princess and a vampire. Often this hidden or unnamed desire was withheld for fear of what others might think if only they knew. The dance attempts to represent the tension between these two sides and offer the dancers a pathway to express that which they withhold and, hopefully, experience a sense of catharsis.
For dappled things...
Choreography: Matthew Henley
Performers: Sarah Gamblin and Matthew Henley
Music: Keith Fleming
Premiere: 92nd Street Y, NYC, NY 2014
This dance asks the questions: How do temporal and spatial relationships affect the perception of causality? How do perceptions of causality, in turn, affect meaning-making? Sarah and I each generated solo material. We then choreographed the two solos to be a duet in which it appeared that all of my movement caused all of Sarah's movement. We set that aside and choreographed a second duet in which it looked like all of Sarah's material caused my material. The duets are presented back to back. What emerged for me, through the shifts in spatial and temporal relationships was a narrative about being willing to see my partner not as an object to be manipulated but as a collaborator and companion.
Beneath Change
Choreography: Matthew Henley
Performers: Alicia Orji and Matthew Henley
Music: Michael Wall
Premiere: Dance UpCLose, TWU, 2016
Beneath our differences we are all the same, beneath or similarities we are all different.
In this dance Alicia and I are performing the choreography in unison but are spatially opposed. In our attempt to be the same, I hope to draw attention to what is different in our performance. One of us is not right and the other wrong, one is not lesser than and the other greater than, but we are different. Are the differences due to different training histories, to the difference in gender, to the difference in race, to the difference in sexuality? How can one bring her or his self fully to the performance? How is the performance made more engaging when the performer brings her or his self to the stage? How can we recognize and value our differences while working toward a common goal?
Yield Study
Improvised score devised by Erika Record and Matthew Henley
Performers: Erika Record and Matthew Henley
Music: Michael Wall
Premiere: Texas Dance Improvisation Festival, SHSU, 2015
In the process of creating this score we explored what it meant to push and yield, both individually and in relationship to another body. What emerged in the process was a tendency for me to push and for Erika to yield. This often lead to rehearsal in which it looked like I was manipulating, almost abusing Erika. Some of these tendencies are still legible in the final score but we attempted to temper them, using choreographic prompts to encourage Erika to push and the encourage me to yield.