When the first few beating notes of the music first began, before Jocelyn first stepped out, I had little idea of what to expect of the performance. As she began to dance, or rather jerk and move about, I started to see just how abstract the piece was going to be. I was taken aback by the unnatural movements, but it also captivated me as I tried to figure out what was happening and what it represented in relation to the theme. As the performance continued, I finally started to piece together my interpretation of the dance.

I saw the beginning as chaos, as people stuck/caught up in the chaos of their own lives, unaware of their relation with others, save for a few interactions. This stops when they see something–the Earth–in the distance, transitioning into the idea of the overview effect and its potential implications. The music stopped and there was a sense of rawness as she took her hair out of a bun and he started jerking and making sounds, reaching a yell. There was this sense of internal chaos in him, followed by this curiosity as they kicked around the beach balls. This transformed into the two of them circling around in a circle, saying the names of numerous countries, giving the sense of a newfound unity, showing the implications of spaceflight for conflict resolution as people realize just how small and insignificant we, and our individual problems, are. But this was soon forgotten as they began making hand gestures, leading up to them holding up “guns.” Then there was a sense of coming together again as they fought and ended up settling against one another again, as if tired of all the circling and hidden messages. By the end, they stand together, experiencing the same day and night, light and darkness.

Having an idea of the premise of the performance before watching it helped me to put together this interpretation, but I could understand the confusion many of my friends experienced. We didn’t go into this realizing just how abstract and far from usual images of dance the performance would be. As a dancer, I had my own image of what I thought the performance would be like, but I would not have imagined what it actually turned out to be (in the best way possible). My favorite aspect, however, was hearing my peers’ reactions to the piece during the intermission/break. While I wouldn’t say that the talk and Q&A helped to give me a better sense of the performance, I think it may have provided some deeper insight for others. I love how this piece can be interpreted in so many different ways, and I enjoyed how the abstract and metaphorical nature of the dance made/forced me think and interpret each movement and section of the dance. This isn’t something you can watch passively and truly appreciate, at least in my opinion. I greatly look forward to future performances for this course, though it would also be nice to see some works that aren’t nearly as abstract.