KAREN LANGEVIN

During the quarantine imposed by the pandemic, I recorded hours of my movement improvisation practice on the terrace and basketball court next to my home of 18 years. My house in Cupey, was both a physical and spiritual oasis, where I raised my two children and lived in proximity to nature. It was a blessing to live so long in such a special place. A real luxury to be able to live there dealing with the extreme losses due to the state of the world and the shadows that where cast because of them. The elements (air, fire, earth, and water) were there anchoring, teaching, and accompanying me.

I have spent many years experimenting within my practice with philosophical concepts that interest me. In this case, my “experiments” were influenced by the work of Deborah Hay, a teacher and choreographer who greatly inspires me in my studies and creative work and with whom I participated in a residency just before the pandemic hit in January 2020. I am deeply in love with her philosophical and practical approach to dance, seen through her lens as a meticulous manipulation of time and space. As movers we have the possibility to "see" space and "perceive" time through the body to embody that manipulation. One of her questions, “what if all the cells in our body were at the service of how we see?” with which we worked extensively during the residency, has permeated my practice, and was a motor for bringing forth this work. In tandem with Hay’s influence, the collection of poems Alumbre and El Templo de Samye by Irizelma Robles made their way into my hands and heart. Her beautiful words penetrated deeply, so much so, that I felt the need to move (them). In the process of studying my previously recorded improvisations, I realized that the material was in sync with Irizelma's work even before I read her. In Alumbre, Irizelma quotes Heraclitus; “Fire lives the death of earth, and air lives the death of fire; water lives the death of air, and earth that of water” pointing to the warp and weft of life cycles; that nothing exists in isolation, everything is intertconnected. In Temple of Samye, Francisco José Ramos writes in the prologue: “Everything is there: the lotus inseparable from the mud, the pearl inseparable from the mollusk. The entire universe in all directions, just this moment, whose center is everywhere and its circumference nowhere”. Robles's words, like those of Heraclitus and Ramos, articulate what my body/mind seeks to experience in movement. PANDEMICA arises because of these congruences and inspirations, becoming a tribute to the elements, to loss and our shadows. If I’ve learned anything about our human condition during these historic times is that loss is the sister of abundance and shadow that of light, one does not exist without the other and joy is often found in that dance.

Text: Alumbre y Templo de Samye by Irizelma Roble 

Sound Score:

Gordon Hempton - Africa Desert Solitude at Bushman Fountain, Sharp Tail Lek, Olympic National Park, Desert Thunder, Raven Family, The Ocean is a Drum 
Claudia Lennear - It ain't easy
Prince Buster - Jamaican Ska
Al Green - How can you mend a broken heart

Video and editing: Karen Langevin

2021