“I was interested in the idea of longevity of a dance taking a long period to evolve…” Molissa Fenley

When looking at the body of work of Molissa Fenley, an artist, performer and dance choreographer in her thirty-seventh year of creation, one can see the passion of exploration, a truth and intensity of expression, a ceaseless pursuit to be present, to evolve, to unfurl while remaining solidly rooted through the shifting influences of nearly a third of a century.  We see objects of stone and of tissue, light, dark, decay and birth, the growth of hands.  We see time as a dimension, as space in between, an incremental flow of movement folding back upon itself and unfolding again into stillness, into frenzy, into order…through the duration of a moment, dancers on a stage, through a collection of work, of bodies and through a single figure in a confession of the flesh, over a lifespan, over a career.  Time is a witness to the feminine, the masculine, life, ceremony, sacrifice, blood, unity, community, destruction, renewal...of a newly shaping landscape, an instant, a continuum, allowing for the possibility of creation, imagination, play and of course, ferns.

Text by Kerry Stichweh.

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