Ten Tiny Dances
i don’t wanna lose that feeling
performance and sound design - ilvs
it started off as being a piece about Virtual Reality. i went to a VR show where you experienced walking thru an ethereally lit cave as delicate choral music shifted with the landscape. the path i floated on was carved from the rock, a steep wall on one side, dark abyss on the other. at one point, curiosity got the best of me and i decided to see if the program would let me jump off the edge. i aimed myself towards darkness and pulled the trigger on the controller. i got right up to the edge and came to an abrupt halt. not be cause the program stopped me, but because i couldn’t do it. i couldn’t get myself to make the leap. logically, this felt ridiculous - i was sitting in an office chair with VR goggles on in a room with several other people sitting in the same situation, completely safe. but my brain was convinced otherwise. i continued further down into the cave some more, following the path, taking the time to rest my nerves. eventually i found the will to try again. it took a few tries, but i did finally manage to push past my natural instincts. the program only let me go just beyond the edge of the path, enough so that i could see nothing below me.
the part of me that was congratulatory for having pushed past my own innate fears was soon overtaken by the part of me that was concerned about the repercussions of numbing that built in safety feature. cool that i got past it, but i don’t think that is a fear i want to overcome necessarily. at all, actually.
Performed as part of Ten Tiny Dances in October 2019 at On the Boards.