Two years ago I saw my first Cedar Lake performance. I was really impressed with Swan’s work with the company. When I talked with him afterwards we realized that we were taking our work in the same direction. We knew that we had to work together on a project in the future.

Collaborating with Swan is a natural progression for my work. I’ve always been fascinated by dancers and their movement and capturing that in still images. Each book of photos that I make tells a story but I also try to connect them together by using the last image of the last book to inspire the first image of the next book. My last image was of dancers moving through shadows and I wanted to push that image further, to see dancers flying in the air.

My work has always been inspired by stories. Sometimes the stories come from books and novels or sometimes they are stories that I make for myself. My books and photo sets always have a story, a beginning, middle and end. They take you on a journey. I love the way that choreographers are able to tell stories through movement but I like photography because I am not limited by time. I can use as much time as I need to find the right image and place it in a setting.

The photos are an integrated part of the installation. They provide key moments in the story while the choreography tells the parts in between. All the works that we’ve done over the past year have been experiments. We’re exploring and generating material that we will use in our story. We’ve worked with dancers on the ground, in the air and posing in portraits. Through all of this we’ve been exploring what kind of story this installation will tell.

I feel like Glassy Essence is going to be like a symphony. It has a lot of different elements that will start out in different ways but will come together to make one larger beautiful story.

-Francois Rousseau

This kind of flying with a harness is different from the kind of hanging stuff that we’ve done with Swan before. He has had us hanging and swinging around on walls, but it’s so different without the wall to push off from. Now that you’re in the middle of the room, once you launch off the ground you can’t really control where you go and how you turn. You just do the best you can to create interesting movement while you’re bouncing off another person.

We use two different kinds of harnesses. Jason and I are in the single line type. You have a lot more freedom but almost no control. Jon is wearing the kind with two lines in the part where he is just hanging there. With that one you can flip upside down, kind of head-over-heals, unlike the single harness. Actually, that’s a lie; I always seem find a way to go upside down in either one.

Swan wanted us to be human, vulnerable and exploring. But once you launch off the ground a lot happens that you just can’t control. But I think it’s like anything in art; you can’t go into it focused on creating something beautiful. If you do, you’ll spend the whole time self-critiquing. You have to just let what happens happen and be true to your intention in the moment. You just have to trust yourself and the choreographer.

-Jessica

We went down to the financial district with Gilles and Swan so Gilles could get footage of us in an urban setting for the installation. He was also taking photos, but I think Ana took some of these too.

The photo shoot was really a chance to be set free in New York and just work in a foreign environment. Swan let us go with a little less direction than usual. He told us to be characters, creature-like, working in these surroundings. Just to use the feeling that we didn’t belong in the setting that we were dancing in. I mean, I wasn’t in a suit with a briefcase; I was dancing on Wall Street in a sweater and skirt. At least I wasn’t wearing a bubble.

It was kind of awkward at first. Most people wouldn’t look at us. Of course, you have the typical jaded New Yorker who just thinks you’re crazy and ignores you. Some people were interested, like in this photo, but most people just wouldn’t interact with us.

I like this one:

We had just been asked to leave the store behind me when and we were going to start walking back down the street. This was right after the part in the video trailer with me looking in the taxi windows. I was looking for more people to interact with but the street was empty. That’s when I saw the scaffolding on the side of the building. I started climbing it while Swan was yelling ‘get down, you going to break it!’

It was a pretty fun day. I mean how often do you get to dance around New York City for work?

-Jason