In Phases

Film Installation for Norte Maar’s CounterPointe9
On view March-May 2022 at The Mark O’Donnell Theater at the Actors Fund Arts Center in Brooklyn, NY

For this project, I teamed up with Filipino filmmaker and visual artist Madge Reyes to create a film installation for four iPad screens, to be shown at CounterPointe9, Norte Maar’s annual festival of new work by women choreographers working with the pointe shoe and their artistic collaborators.

Throughout our collaboration, Madge and I talked and wrote at length about preparation, practice, ritual, and changes in state. And while “In Phases” is ostensibly about the life cycle of a pair of pointe shoes, it’s also, I think, about change in the form of loss or decay—about the natural end of things—and how we, in turn, change (or soften, like a pair of old pointe shoes) to accommodate it.

Direction, Concept, Cinematography: Madge Reyes
Choreography, Concept, Performance, Editing: Tiffany Mangulabnan
Music for Trailer: “Perseid Afternoon” by Carmen Q. Rothwell

Special thanks to Norte Maar / Julia K. Gleich for putting our installation together in Brooklyn, and to Dance Basics / Nesa Tanyag for giving us the space to film it in Pasig City, Philippines.