My name can be pronounced in Spanish and English without changing the spelling.
I am a dancer.
Soy Chicana.
I find myself in situations, studios, spaces, geographies, moments, emotions, relationships, theories of living, and states of mind that require physical exploration in order to be understood by my left and right brain, my heart and my body.
My process is in the beginning stages of being defined. I pride myself on staying in the uneasy, the uncertain, the fear of the unknown to see what comes out on the other side.
What is comfort? What is home? What is embodiment? What is living by example? Who walks the walk and whose talk is cheap? What is my character? What am I made of?
I want to see, know, feel, hear the ferocity of my dancers. I want to experience them in the most awakening art form and understand what makes them feel alive as well as what consumes them. What are their downfalls? Where do their judgments lie? What keeps them wandering? Or wondering? Where does all of this begin, and where can it take us?
Many artists ask and asked these questions. Many people never think to ask them. Even more, some never figure out themselves, and maybe there’s no point in doing so. I believe the answers do not serve as much purpose as asking the questions. If we cannot verbalize or produce a human-made, legible, marketable copy of what we find, then we’ve probably found something worthwhile and even more questioning.
I’m not here to jump through the hoops or answer the questions, nor am I a savior of the world and humanity. I simply need to fulfill the desires within me, and if I’m lucky, I will influence others to uninhibitedly do the same. If anything offers knowledge and progress to the external world, it’s understanding of the internal and the self; to know the reasoning behind what you are doing, and then doing more so the thing you think you are doing. Survival does not come from living paycheck to paycheck. Survival comes from having yourself, and sharing what you can when you can give it, and taking good things when they are offered to you. Somehow, if it becomes more than that, it is living.
This, is what I choose to evoke out of my dancers and myself. The feeling of living, pink and peach bubbles floating up from the concrete around you. The peace within the chaos, the ease of motion in a bustling kitchen, the comfort within the fear.
This is la primera etapa of my choreographic life.
Clarita Lucia 