We ought to dance with rapture that we should be alive and in the flesh, and part of the living, incarnate cosmos. I am part of the sun as my eye is part of me. That I am part of the earth my feet know perfectly, and my blood is part of the sea. My soul knows that I am part of the human race, my soul is an organic part of the great human soul, as my spirit is part of my nation. In my own very self, I am part of my family. There is nothing of me that is alone and absolute except my mind, and we shall find that the mind has no existence by itself, it is only the glitter of the sun on the surface of the waters.
D.H. Lawrence, Apocalypse and the Writings on Revelation
Here’s something in Berkeley, in a studio that smells like old wood and somebody’s ambition. Light coming through those high windows the way it does in the East Bay, unforgiving, honest, showing every line and shadow.
Briana moves and gone somewhere else entirely. That’s the thing about dancers, they leave. Not physically, but in all the other ways that matter. One moment she’s adjusting her blouse, human, self-conscious. The next, she’s transformed into something I can’t quite put a word to, or would want to.
With my camera I’ve spent a lot of time watching people work. Musicians, artists, hustlers on street corners performing, some even running card tricks for rent money. There’s a particular intensity when someone is completely consumed by their craft. No pretense. No safety net. Just the raw act of creation, which is also an act of faith, faith that this moment matters, that this movement means something.
The studio floor creaks. She spins and I shoot.
It’s not collaboration exactly, I’m a parasite, really, feeding off her energy, trying to steal pieces of something ephemeral and pin it to paper. She’s generous about it, lets me lurk in the margins of her process.
Between takes, she’s quiet. I’m quiet. That’s fine. We’re both doing the same thing in different ways, trying to make sense of being alive by making something that proves we were here. That we felt something. That we moved through space with intention.
The afternoon stretches out. The light changes. She keeps dancing. I keep shooting.
Outside, Berkeley goes on being Berkeley, bookstores and coffee shops and earnest conversations about changing the world. In here, it’s simpler. Motion. Light. The shutter’s mechanical click.
Proof of life.