“I have met peace.” is a danced eulogy to Robert Davidson, a masterful teacher of movement who died in December 2016. The work uses Skinner Releasing Technique (SRT) to form all of its aspects. Bob was the most direct source I had of this form, and it was our main mode of communication with one another over the decade we knew one another. My goal was to encapsulate the essence of what he taught in performance format for others to experience the resonance of his teachings, and to revive it for myself. I surrendered myself to the embodiment of peace, to cultivate more experience of this state of being in our world right now.

There are five elements to the performance: film, lighting, dancing, sound, and costume. The film projected onto the scrim so my body was immersed in its environment. It was a dancing eye that roamed over paintings on a gallery wall. The paintings were watercolor drawings I made after dancing in my rehearsals, and included in the paintings was a poem called “If you meet peace.” by B.Maria. The lighting was five pools of light along a diagonal that appeared and disappeared in relation to my movement, creating a streaming flow of light spheres. The dancing was inspired by images from the SRT classes, specifically from the introductory- level class seven. The sound was sitar, an instrument I closely associated with Bob, and the costume was clothing I got while in Istanbul the previous summer, training to become a teacher of Skinner Releasing.

To create the specific directions and motions, I also used a dandelion globe that dancer Vasiliki Tsagkari and I caught from a sunbeam while dancing together. A dandelion globe transplanted from Turkey to the United States by a Greek and an American—cross-cultural pollination in poetically physical form. The seed puff was my dance partner as I created the structure, and then I took it away. It wasn’t physically present with me on the stage—it sculpted my motions spontaneously and then was part of the dance through its absence.

The question of legacy is highly relevant in the world of Skinner Releasing right now—how will the form continue to be passed along? It is a kinesthetic form and is taught bodily. The dance was a peaceful experience, and released a fresh puff of creative spontaneity and regeneration.