Processed Food. 2011 05:08

I videoed the produce, seafood, and meat at markets in Rome and Florence. The images have been displaced and processed with the motion of a dancer to suggest a playful riff on processed food.

Stone Stories

Stone Stories 2008 (09:30)

The video reveals the Native American communion with the earth. The image of the performer blends into the stone walls of Copper Canyon (Abiquiu, New Mexico), suggesting how Native culture and all that it honors is deeply rooted in the earth.

Videographer Susanna Carlisle and indigenous choreographer and performer Rulan Tangen interpret the indigenous ancestral blood memory of the stories nestled deep within rock, bone and antler. An expression of animism - the belief of spirit inherent in all things- is suggested as the camera becomes a quiet partner to the human body meeting the textures of the earth and other life forms in a continuing song of merging and individuation.

The performance with skull and antlers honors the Native American belief that it is the deer who chooses the hunter instead of the other way round. It is the animal's choice to whom it wants to give its life.

The music was composed and performed by Joan La Barbara. Musicians Polly Tapia Ferber, Erika Duke Kirkpatrick, and Kristina Melcher joined La Barbara on this work. Most of the voice and percussion recordings were done at a location high up in the rocky cliffs of Diablo Canyon (outside Santa Fe, NM), utilizing the natural acoustical environment of the land with ravens, echoes, and thunder.