CONVERSATION WITH TEDI TAFEL
For the past year I’ve held a Chalmers Arts Fellowship for a research project called “toward feminine form: text, body, and the witness in process and performance”. It’s been an opportunity to research alternative forms for artistic process and alternative systems for how artwork is produced or meets an audience. It’s been an opportunity to consider and articulate what I value or prioritize when I work. Things like the work staying in process or in movement, prioritizing the body, prioritizing ensemble work, prioritizing the space or environment, inviting the audience as active witness. Collaborating with Tedi Tafel has been foundational or inseparable from how I think about this work and how we are able to practice this work in the rehearsal hall.
I’ve been thinking about what kind of artistic practice gets centered in our country, and the possibility that we need fewer of some things but much more of other things. I wanted to create time and space to hear from Tedi about her work and her process because my proposal is that we need more of what Tedi is doing. This talk is a way of valuing it and practicing it, and is based in the idea that what we do and what we say matters and can resonate in public spaces.
Jill Connell