A D R I A N W O O D
Over the last 5 years, I have returned to dance and movement-centered performance in my creative practice that typically centers sound. This has looked like directing movement-based work as well as working with performers as collaborators.
In 2022, I started writing, directing, choreographing and shooting my first short film, Voroboros. It reflects on how capitalism’s impetus on self-consumption can lead to desperate circumstances. The most important part of making Voroboros was directing performers in improvised and choreographed movement sequences that drew on images of decay inspired by Butoh tradition. I worked with non-actors and non-dancers as well as practicing artists, verbally directing them through improvised movement sequences for the camera that invited them to embody processes of decay and regeneration. As much as it is an experimental short film, Voroboros also documents the physical performances generated through these participatory models. When I finished the film in 2024, I was hungry to do more collaborating with performers in movement-based works, so I made Battle Royale for the Soul of Our Country and The Exact Right Amount of Force.
Battle Royale is a participatory dance work that prompts performers in a silent-disco style mix through a range of guided improvisation, including Butoh-style visualizations of transforming into a worm. The dancers encouraged over a dozen audience members to join them in disruption by offering spare headphones on site and inviting them onstage. I directed this performance, including creation of a 1-hour dance mix with occasional voiceover prompts for improvised movement and dance, in collaboration with the Institute for Improvisational Infrastructures/Conrad Cheung.
Six months later, I followed up with The Exact Right Amount of Force, a devised movement-based performance that I conceived, directed and performed a live score for. This work was generated in part by the performers through improvisations that I guided verbally and materially, and through conversations around our personal and collective experiences of political organizing, authoritarian architecture, direct action, police violence, grief and transformation.