A New Orleans contemporary performance artist and dancer, Heather Hansen, has devised an ingenious way of using paper and charcoal to capture her dance moves. As part of her performance ritual, the New Orleans artist invites her fans to watch her as she dances and flattens on the piece of paper which gets marked with the charcoal in the process, eventually constructing an elegant and sophisticated shape of her dance routine. Those who cannot watch her ‘take to the stage live’ can take advantage of the “Emptied Gestures,” a video that features studio recordings of her polished performance.
Hansen asserts that what she is doing in “Emptied Gestures” is basically a piece of research in kinetic drawing. It is an attempt to relay what happens on the dance stage on a piece of paper, essentially transferring gestures from one form to another and creating a product as the process unfolds. Hansen spent 2013 doing many gallery performances and literally created 1 sketch per day, and plans to do even more in 2014. Anyway, that may well be an excellent way to remain creative and inspired!
