Kaelin Isserlin - Creative Process Blog

A video of a group of dancers rehearsing. Their movement slowly brings them down to the ground and then they slide along the ground, in a cannon of movement.

I admit that I don’t know how to write a blog and I am much more familiar with writing a poetic and angsty diary entry. In a state of exhaustion, I lean into what I know best and brace myself for any embarrassment I will feel reading this in the future.

With that I give you the creative process blog for DOOM PROJECT 4

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I believe in magic and I believe in dance.

Deep in the intimacy of the dance floor, pursing with sweat, singing skin, vibrating organs is where I feel confronted with the ecstatic horrors of living alongside the pleasure of release. I feel like I have everything I want and that scares me. This is where the dance sits.

Loss and grief has decorated my body, begging for my limbs to crawl back into my heart.

I don’t feel heroic or strong. I feel claustrophobic and have a desire to disappear. There is no desire to revisit the history of dance I know so far. And now I am looking for/chasing a way of connecting that feels cathartic. One that feels honest sharing inside a choreographic process.

I realize the dance floor is a metaphor for a manifesto of my dreams. It invites us to share our experience of music. The soundscape eliminates the voice and we become bodies in light and sound. We are allowed to be chaotic and free. We can be friends outside of the language we share. This is dance to me.

I wanted to capture this dualism of disappearing and connecting. Of internal thought and external expressions, the brain and the body. I didn't know I could find so much pain and pleasure in one thing. I want to share this one thing.

Sharing the last 6 hours with Cailin, Emily, Fred, Heddy and Jess have been some of the warmest moments of this winter. In what feels like the 2nd trimester of this work, I couldn’t have asked for a more generous, curious and motivating group of dancers.

I am reminded why I love dance. That is to be together and process, and laugh.

They have allowed me to share the shape of something that sits in my heart.

In a desire for magic, to change a sorrowful perspective into a blissful one, I would like to share a list of what I am thankful for in this creative process. This is an outline of what has influenced the time we have spent together and filled in by the feelings we have shared.

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A series of abstract and specific ‘thank you’s for DOOM PROJECT 4

Thank you dancing, for being anything I desire and bringing me to myself, and for meeting complexity so cleanly.

Thank you to the spaces that allow me to practice. Formally, The Railpath Arts Centre, IGAC, and Rising Sun School of Tai Chi Chuan, Combobreaker, The Fifth Dance, the Citadel, my bedroom, any club dancefloor.

Thank you music. Thank you Roberto for decorating this performance and my life with the fuel for my ecstasy, joy, pain, sorrow and frustration that lives in this work.

Thank you to everyone who organized the space for me to practice. I am so grateful for all the opportunities I have had to explore iterations of this work. Specifically, Rumi, The garage, STDT, Paul, the ravers, my landlord(I guess).

Thank you to my family, my grandparents, Goog, Grandma, dad, mom, for consistently turning the music back on and letting me dance ,nonstop, for hours.

Thank you ABBA, Alanis Morrisette, Charli XCX, Debby Friday.

Thank you to everyone who has lived this dance. It is a miracle that I even have ideas to share and that you have taken these into your body and lived my dream. Thank you Rachelle, Kurumi, Kayde, Caleigh, Taylor, Heddy, Fred, Marisa, Cailin, Jess, Emily, Bayley, and Eva. Thank you Sophia and Denver.

Thank you lovers. My cohabiters. My dreamers. Pooheads. Faggots.

Thank you to those dancers under the bridge and to anyone who has shared a bit of them dancing online. You remind me performance is everywhere.

Thank you Tia for your mentorship and for being excited and so kind to me. Our conversations are helping me pick apart and put back together my dreams with care.

Thank you Aeris Korper for this beautiful opportunity to try again. I am forever grateful for a platform to share intimately and abstractly.

Thank you reader, audience members past, present and future. Thank you for meeting me here in passages of text, embarking on this journey.  I hope we get to or have connected outside of this word.

Until then. Miigwetch. Shalom. Love u.

xxx

Kaelin

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PROSPECTS: an evening of dance and discussion presents

DOOM PROJECT 4: BRAIN VS BODY

Created by Kaelin Isserlin
Thursday, February 23, 2023
7:30PM | Door at 7pm
Art Gallery of Hamilton
123 King St W, Hamilton
FREE!
RSVP HERE!