For “Sex Tape” the choreography has been extracted from a video recording of myself embracing a male lover. In his place I cast a close female friend of more than fifteen years. I wanted to complicate notions of what friendship can look and feel like, repatterning my own search for care and refocusing my attention (i.e. love) on the people who were forces of good in my life. In the midst of the #metoo movement, “Sex Tape” presents an image of care and a positive representation of touch.

Part of the inspiration came from my discovery of a sculpture by Patricia Cronin of two women (the artist and her partner) embracing, not in the heat of passion, but with tenderness. While the work is titled “Memorial to A Marriage” and depicts two lesbians who would not have the right to marry for another ten years, what I saw was a depiction of care that resonated with me and transcended the politics of sexuality and legality.

“Sex Tape” uses a process I call embodied anthropology, stemming from the question, “What meaning can be gleaned from everyday movements and gestures?” While the choreography for “Sex Tape” originated through a casual improvisation, the performance meticulously recreates that choreography. My 2016 work, “I Replaced Him with a Lamp,” uses a similar process of found choreography and a similar reframing achieved by removing the man, however, its source material is an accidental videorecording of myself receiving verbal feedback from an older, more established, European male artist. In that solo, my subconscious movements, i.e. nervous gestures, searching gaze, and feminine posture, became both a structure and a portrait of gender and status. In both works I use myself as the subject, trusting that an intimate study of the self can also reveal universal and / or social truths.

Set to a sound score I created that weaves together New York City street sounds and Giusto Pio’s “Motore Immobile,” the result is meditative. The slow tempo and spaciousness of the work invites the viewer to oscillate between focusing their attention on the detail and quality of our movements, broadening their attention to observe the other audience members (seated on three sides), or turning their attention inwards.