She’s in between worlds right now. A part of her is leaving.
But it’s not like before. She’s holding space this time. Not sweating it,
but breathing beyond her skin. She’s good. She’s even shape-shifting.
The raven. The owl. She’s unafraid of the bird’s-eye view, and unlike all those other times,she isn’t scared of the unknown. She’s present and neither timid nor bold. It feelsbeautiful, like the song of a blackbird, and frightening, like the rumble of an avalanche.-From Tanya Markul, The She Book
Pathway 
Perform in class February 4
Find a passageway. It could be a doorway, an archway, a path framed by two trees…..Place yourself on one or the other side of the “entrance”. Take a moment to be aware of the passage that is in front of or behind you. Then cross this threshold. Pause. How is this a partnership between you and the space that was offered? What did you offer in this transaction? Pass through again. Make an offering to this passage space. Will you be changed? Will the passageway be changed? Make a choreographic study from this exploration.
Post your video below: Your name, title, a few sentences “about”.
“All that you touch you change. All that you change changes you.” – Octavia Butler
Pathway – Carissa
For this piece I wanted to use dynamics to break some of my movement habits. For example, since I like to do rounded movements that flow smoothly into one another, I decided that the beginning of the piece had to have straight lines and it should have more abruptness or sharpness than I usually use. Then, as the piece goes on, I can bring in more curved things. I didn’t set a clear “threshold” between sharp/angular and curvy/smooth; instead I let the dynamics evolve gradually as I moved along the diagonal path. I ended the piece when I left the video frame, but I wonder what I would have done next if the camera could have continued to follow me.
I really like the concept of liminal spaces — transitional places that often feel energetically weird to humans devoid of context. I purposefully chose a place that I do not linger in often as the basis of charting my choreographic path–a mostly unused corner of my room I turned into a reading nook, but with all of the comforts and context of the space removed to heighten a feeling of liminality. While I based the edges of movement around a very physical path, the movements I chose were much more based on metaphorical moving between such pathways and testing those restrictions–both restrictions as visible barriers for an audience, and the invisible barriers within the dancer. Although in the piece my feet and fingers extend to test the literal edges of the space, I wanted to end the piece with a metaphysical move between passageways. Lastly, I visualized the moment of breaking through a pool’s surface, and the visual image of both nervously and excitedly shifting through a liminal space after taking a moment to linger, playing with the tension of holding breath, and breathing as a transaction between passages.