at the edge of Somewhere [2025]
Through the application of choreographic strategies to explore public spaces of Yerevan, at the edge of Somewhere is a performative map of the city that engages with the architectural, social, and cartographic contexts of the areas explored. Research for and performance of this solo dance work position the Outsider as both the mapmaker and reader. Traces of pathways are combined with observations of space to create an impression of place in movement; locating technologies demarcate the here to build a sense of the now.
The performance was preceded by Mapping Places: Cartography and Choreography in Artistic Research, an invited artist talk at the Institute for Contemporary Art Yerevan (ICA) on 28 March 2025. For nearly two weeks, I was in residence at the NEST Art Residency of the ICA to create at the edge of Somewhere. In the talk, I shared my particular approach to cartography and choreography as well as methodologies used when creating the new work.
During the talk, I shared the concept of a "structured drift" as a choreographic approach to navigating unfamiliar space and formulating meaning through description of place. The audience collectively built a list of objects to search for in public space, and the score to make use of this list can be found here.
A site-sensitive work, at the edge of Somewhere premiered as a work-in-process in the gallery spaces of the Armenian Center for Contemporary Experimental Art (NPAK) on 29 March 2025. Audience was invited to view the performance from one of two sides.
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To use a map is to navigate by means of it: that is, to plot a course from one location to another in space. Wayfinding, by contrast, is a matter of moving from one place to another in a region…there is a certain parallel to be drawn between the processes of knowing and mapping. Both are environmentally situated activities, both are carried out along paths of travel, and both unfold over time.
-Tim Ingold, The Perception of the Environment
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The sound score for the performance was created in collaboration with Liam Byrne. Text for the piece was created using a "structured drift" through unfamiliar areas of Yerevan over the course of four days. A transcript of this text can be found here.
—Video documentation of the performance will be uploaded here soon—