3 among 2
2 among 3
1 in body 2 in spirit
Kisses and guns
Rage and run
Clunk love
Funk love
Play it for me
Lay it on me
Lay on me
Make me
Freak me
Sweat on me
Take it off
Keep that on
Leave it from
Choose this one
Author: norarainethompson
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Responding to Ishmael Houston-Jones (and Fred Holland and AJ Wilmore and Stephanie Hewett and Kris Lee) at Danspace Project
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Responding to Hana Van Der Kolk at Troy Savings Bank Music Hall
Keeping the ing
(going, crying, moaning, planning, grieving, sucking, reckoning)
Is ushered through soft white clothes and slow eye contact
Is funneled through the ghost of a saxophone player up above
Is squeezed through open spaces
Is channeled through antlers and glass -
Danspace Project Journal: Everything and Nothing
In this essay, I ask epic questions alongside reflections on a shared evening of dance by Jade Manns and Glenn Potter-Takata that premiered at Danspace Project in December, 2024. Read or listen to the article here.
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Responding to Hayley Stahl at Target Margin Theater
How do you talk without seeing? Deadpan party chats
How do you see yourself on stilts? Lift and turn and slowly scan
How do you not look me in the eye? Stand, sit, come, go
How was that? Rotating the miniscule until the subtle is choreographed -
Responding to Miguel Gutierrez at New York Live Arts
So much section and so much movement and so much nothing and so much almost the song you know from 2010 and so much step and so much routine and so much that it is a painting until so much turns them on each other but then back to so much movement and so much communal body and so much wiggling at the edges of my eyes and so much center and so much periphery (of course, super nothing, super charged with what we thought could be called nothing but it saturated with color), with a light show intermission
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Responding to Ralph Lemon at MoMA PS1 (again)
Flat splat white on yellow
Simple dimple slow slow steady steady
Fold and flipping absolutely out out out
Piped in earbuds robot and little sweat spot
No, sweat rainbow
No, exam notes
Intrinsically, it is AHHHHHHHHHHH, which is watching a dog watching a scream which is watching a scream sing, which is watching an outward force rush and gush -
Responding to Malcolm-x Betts and Nile Harris at Chocolate Factory
Citibike cruising
They gossip on mic, recommending the latest adrienne maree brown
Swinging sun and cloud across shoulders, like a bundle to run away with
Caring for one another, actually
Via baptism, putting the batteries back in, oiling up and partying down (“this is a party this is a party”)
Shooting one out like pouring one out:
for Moriah, for Judith, for equity, for Crackhead Barney
for sincerity, for irony, for the bit, for the boys, for the community, actually -
Responding to Amelia Heintzelman at PAGEANT
Torsion
Squeak squeeze
Jump quick squat
Opening for a breath
Ah, space for a breath -
Responding to Nora Alami at JACK
Speed rituals
To get mess to get clean
To get shaken to shake
To invite and offer to take take get get give give no wait -
Responding to Ralph Lemon at MoMA PS1
A slow long build
A suite of songs
Of turning around and not quite in view
Prickling tingling legs or not legs
Song song song
Mommy mommy mommy
With the forcefulness of a note child
Dress up to rant again
“This is what the funeral was like:” skipping
Christening dance stage as danceable
Contained skips and step step brushWrite something and throw bricks at it
Yell something and harmonica at it
Sing something and scream at it
Give us everything and smile at itFinalizing in the final scream
That David couldn’t stay seated forAnd about that final scream
It grew and grew past itself
Flicked and flopped and sweat and pulled up took off stripped off
Wanna go to the club to lose yourself
As if to remember you’ve never been contained so well
As if to remember why you can take on “the right to dance” and let it explode you
Fury and ecstasy I think they called that section
You/I write because they have a knack for making you feel the me could be you
NORA RAINE THOMPSON 