This fall, Maria was commissioned to make a piece for Purchase Dance Company. The new work, Tremors, asks: How do we make art and how are our lives the art in times like these? Initially imagined as something purely beautiful, the piece was shaped instead by the unavoidable interruptions, both personal and global, that fracture our lives on a daily basis. Set to music by Nina Simone and Jon Batiste, with poetry by Nikki Giovanni, the work became a meditation on resilience, collective care, and the quiet, vital act of showing up for one another when the world feels unsteady.
“Twenty-four dancers plus two rehearsal assistants and I coalesced into a network of people who truly care about one another. We moved from a group of individual artists working towards a shared goal of performance to a care-network of humans who checked on one another, who shared personal stories and backgrounds with each other, who imagined together. Audiences see the performances, which are the flower we all work towards, but I often wish they could get a sense of the root-system of an artwork as well. We had four glorious performances that grew out of rehearsing together three times a week for several months. That studio time was and is the practice, the soil, the roots. I wanted to nurture and to solidify an ensemble.
The expression, articulation and symbiosis the artists offered onstage was rooted in embodied practice of those values offstage. I am proud of the process I stewarded for Tremors, and I’m proud of the dancers showcasing their humanity in performance and behind the scenes.” – Maria Bauman