Self Help/
Dances with Symptoms

To create the short movement study Self Help, I gave myself three directives: (1) contrast extreme movement and contemplation; (2) investigate the breaking of movement, and its relationship to poetic structure and sense of whole; and (3) dance with symptoms (soliciting suggestions from housemates, who came up with rather comic examples). I was curious about the challenge to make movement both with and against a very potent short poem by Katie Peterson, “Self Help.”  Movement vocabulary and structure of the work were inspired by elements of Madrid choreographer Elena Córdoba’s Sin correa (Without a leash, 2000). Reflection on a concussion I sustained earlier in the year also factored into my choreographic choice-making.

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Self Help/ Dances with Symptoms

Choreography, voice and performance: Eryn Rosenthal
Text: “Self Help,” by Katie Peterson
Betty Pease Studio Theater
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

© Eryn Rosenthal, 2014. All Rights Reserved.

Note: Katie Peterson’s poem “Self Help” appeared alongside Richard Deacon’s drawing “Illuminate My Throat” (2014) in “A Picture and a Poem” section of T: The New York Times Style Magazine on April 3, 2014.

Illuminate My Throat and Self Help

(The text that’s cut off on line 17 of the poem above is “butterfly,”).

“Illuminate My Throat,” by Richard Deacon, 2014. © Richard Deacon, 2014. Felt pen on paper. Courtesy of the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York. Poetry editor: Meghan O’Rourke. Art editor: Gay Gassmann.

Self Help/ Dances with Symptoms | 2014 | Projects