by Rachel Bernsen
I was mesmerized by Koosil-ja‘s Dance Without Bodies, performed at The Kitchen in December 2006. What really stuck out was Koosil-ja and Melissa Guerrero’s absolute focus on multiple TV screens, playing three different loops of evocative moving images. The act of miming and/or interpreting what they saw forced them outside of the interior space of their bodies, allowing for a kind of hyper-presence without possibility of retreat. In contrast was the fleeting moment, or moments ( I can’t remember now if it was once or twice) when the screens went off and the two danced without them, retreating naturally into themselves and their sensations. It was a stunning shift into a beautiful kind of self-consciousness. They changed, everything changed in that moment. The screens came back on and again their faces were rapt, their moving bodies fed by a constant flow of images. They did not have time to think or worry about what they were going to do next. It made for an exquisite freedom that was exciting to watch.
