sarma

The CQ chapbook of my imagination doesn't exist. It is, rather, another opportunity to not know. And to not know it within thirty-odd pages of bound paper. I like to think that, like the "empty" space that invites a dance to materialize, the chapbook is already there, one need only make it visible. Passing For Dance is a consequence of the action to invite two collaborating choreographer-performers to venture into the print medium. Though their main writing output over twenty years together has been co-crafted "short short" paragraphs as promo for their work, HIJACK has a long love affair with action, procedures, dancing, surfaces, reading, and language. That they have cultivated a permeable line between highly pre-crafted choreography and improvised performance places them smack in the middle of CQ territory. Though the idea of "chapbooking" had been cooking for over a year, our making time was constrained to seven days together in their homes in Minneapolis gassing on and digging for words and a direction in conversation, in reviews, transcripts of interviews and talks, photos, and low-fi hand-made promo materials. At the end of it all, much of the material herein was discovered incidentally. Curious, it seems what we have here touches two formats we'd nodded our heads to avoid: the dance company "(s)crap-book" and the dancer's manifesto for the 21st Century. In the best and worst of cases, improvisation appears to live in the space between the arbitrary and the inevitable. Perhaps our process has taken us here, as I quote Arwen quoting someone else: "Read it and weep."

Here's to the beauty of a single action. Thank you, HIJACK. Lisa