Artist Statement
What do I see when I watch
from within and without?
Felix Mendelssohn’s overture for A
Midsummer Night’s Dream hit a nerve, one that
reverberated through the past and present
understanding of beauty and desire. It brought
to light Fanny, the sister, the genius, the one
who was only permitted to shimmer a fraction
of what she could. It brought to light beauty
as masculine determination. It brought to
mind other voices that were never heard,
desires that were never fulfilled. It brought
out stories that were never shared, and things
never said. It provided a musical overture to
make new music that supports current dreams
and desires and the possibility to recuperate
mistakes and redesign them with new energy.
Felix and Fanny’s Overture is the departure
point for a larger investigation into ideas
of permission, being audible, pilgrimages,
shared fictions, history making, overdue and
redundant conversations, glorification, and a
desire to penetrate.
OVERTURE imagines a way to draw back
and reconnect to those gone, those who
didn’t have a voice, those who never heard
yours. OVERTURE gathers memories, fleeting
images and imagined pasts. It projects them
into the space, on to the walls and onto one
another. OVERTURE allows for the body to feel
possessed and possessing. OVERTURE is for
the brave ones. — Anny Mokotow
Unspoken words seep out of the skin and
memories burst quietly through the fingertips.
Desires and unspoken conversations pepper
the overture before they are discarded or
used to form new memories, conversations
and other desires. Dancing through the
culture, gender and genealogy stored within
them, using skills and failures cultivated to
communicate, the dancers disclose their
private and shared pasts. They shake, run,
halt, throw limbs and memories out through
the ends of their fingers, their hair. They halt,
gather, shake, halt, run, fling and halt again.
They cross, meet, entwine and recoil. They find
a common desire in fantasy, in the imagination
of movement.