I’m in the final weeks of the creation process for The Dislocation Express, an interdisciplinary work that’s been in the making since 2008 (in terms of visioning and planning) and since February of this year (in terms of actual time in the rehearsal studio.)

A collaboration between AXIS Dance Company and Dandelion Dancetheater,  The Dislocation Express will take place around Bay Area BART stations July 24th – 30th.

We’ve been looking at the nature of place, displacement, home, wandering, location and dislocation within the context of our imaginings of hobo life and the uprooted qualities of contemporary internet/mobile culture.

As usual, I’m finding myself challenged and pushed in interesting ways through this process.

How do we bring two companies intensively together that share many values and also are used to working in very different ways?

How can we create a work in the safety of the studio that then comes alive in highly unpredictable, site-specific locations?

How can we connect to a culture (American Hobo) with a specific time and place without getting lost in our fantasies and projections about it? How can we use whatever material arises, both factual and fictional to learn more about ourselves and our relationships in the present?

How can we find artistic coherence in an ensemble of people coming from diverse performance backgrounds (dance, music, theater) and with a wide range of abilities/disabilities?

How do we make a piece that is both accessible to people with very little exposure to contemporary performance and that remains mysterious, provocative and unsettling?

As we navigate the final stage of wrestling with these and other issues, I’ll be posting video blogs created by Dandelion intern Nicole De Roza and myself, documenting our journey.

Enjoy the ride!