These images were originally created as individual cells for an animated sequence to accompany a dance performance. Working with two Kenyon professors, choreographer Kora Radella and dancer and Julie Brodie, my photographs and subsequent digital images of a woman in a state of transformation were intended to visually reflect the theme and title of the performance itself, Uprooted. This dance piece, which included music by Ross Feller, was performed in numerous venues, including the Columbus Dance Theatre, the North Carolina Computer Music Festival in Raleigh, and the following Cleveland sites: the Palace Theatre, the Cleveland Public Theatre, and the Ingenuity Festival of Art and Technology.
The female figure’s transmutation of skin into bark, feet into roots, and arms into branches suggests the intense psychological repercussions of life transitions, such as moving, leaving friends behind, family members’ and children’s associated worries, money matters and the longing to be rooted somewhere finally. Like humans, the transplant of trees to new locations renders them extremely vulnerable. One’s destiny is held in the balance, and as the sense of being grounded slips away, the experience may feel like living in a world turned upside-down.