I could never have imagined the experience the canyon turned out to be for me. I am altered, yet I cannot adequately say just how yet. I am convinced this is the perfect place to explore perception.

Thank you Marna Bastian and Rene Westbrook for all your help in making the canyon a profound experience.

After completing my artist residency at the grand canyon, I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to do a mini-residency at the Petrified Forest National Park. (PEFO) I was able to work for several days and spend my nights sleeping in the Command Module at the park RV hookups. My final night I gave a presentation of my work in exchange for time to work there and was able to have many wonderful conversations with PEFO scientists and Interpretive Rangers.

I was interested in exploring the stomping ground of John Muir at Jasper Forest. This place was a lush and wet conifer forest about 225 million years ago. What is even more incredible is that where this forest was growing, in what is now the northern Arizona desert, was then located just north of the equator.

Thanks to Kip Woolford and Rene Westbrook for bringing me there, and to all the other PEFO folks who made my stay a wonderful experience.

When Hilary McDaniel-Douglas (Artistic Director for PIM) and I first began discussing ways to collaborate at the Grand Canyon I think neither of us really new what the work would actually be. I had never collaborated with dance in my work before. But I was interested in the idea and learned a great deal about dance from Hilary in the process. After kicking around many ideas through several meetings over four months we decided to take the approach of improvisation and rely on site specific inspiration to guide our creative decisions.

It is impossible to truly perceive the vast space of the canyon. I wanted to frame the dance to reveal that it is taking place in the imperceptible. Dancing beautifully in this video is Lauren Mendoza. She is about 15 to 18 feet above the rim. She is approximately 5295 feet from the canyon floor. The project is filmed at Shoshone Point, Grand Canyon. The Sound of Shoshone Point was capture by the EAR1 Remote Station Sextet.

Thanks to Hilary, Lauren, and Thomas for making this a wonderful collaborative experience.

For more information about Project In Motion check out their site here:

http://www.projectinmotion.com