Desire Motor
Unstable States: Shell(ter)
Nov 7 & 8, 8pm
Work-in-process showing, $10 tix: HERE
Kestrel Studio, 200 6th St, Brooklyn
What does it mean to attempt to prolong the life of things on the verge of decay—pressing into matter and feeling its resistance? How does a visceral exchange with forgotten or discarded materials, like eggshells—a potent symbol of transformation—prompt reflection on origins and unfolding journeys, where body and material might converge and evoke their own cycles of disintegration and renewal? This is an evolving dance, sound, and installation piece.
Directed by Beth Graczyk
Sound by Aaron Gabriel
Performed by Rachel Sigrid Freeburg, Beth Graczyk & Leah Wilks
Feel & touch
Through iterative performance research, Desire Motor aims to crack open the relationship between humans and nature, and examine it through the often dissonant lenses of scientific information, daily practices, and rituals of engagement. Enriching the process of our human bodies sensory experiences of the physical world to provide space to contemplate our role in it on a moment to moment basis and into the expanse of evolutionary time.
Listen
As we feel the breadth of the effects of the Anthropocene period, what are ways that we imagine a future where humans can continue to co-create with the natural world? Can we plasticize our imagination through sensory explorations of this physical world with our bodies? Can we imagine co-transformations both real and imagined?
Explore
Want to make a bio-based material at home? Not know where to start? Want to slow down, listen to your body in and with nature? Contact us, or come to a workshop!
Project History
Since 2016, Desire Motor research project has manifested 6 of 12 planned pieces. These pieces are Beast, One of You is Fake, Thirst, Thesis Things Do Not Bellow Long Together, Precipice, and Decay Delay: Cycles of Formation. These works have been developed and shared in performance with Gibney Dance, Center for Performance Research, La Mama, Movement Research, Pioneers Go East Collective, Jack, and through residencies with Vashon Island Residency, Hambidge Residency and Marble House Residency. Desire Motor is slated to be completed in 2028.
In 2022, the Vashon Island Residency and Hambidge Residency allowed time to explore making bio-materials with detritus and transformed raw materials into new forms—for instance, charcoal skins, decaying spines made from eggshells, a translucent pine needle sculpture, and other experiments.
The most recent work of the series, the 7th piece, Unstable States is currently in development. Come check out a works-in-progress showing in November!
Please see bethgraczyk.com for further history on each piece.