LYDIA
JEKOT
DANCEABLE WAGE [2022]
Grants and dance companies can partially and wholly support Chicago dance artists temporarily, but long-term support and stability is hard to find in the field. Four artists discuss how lack of resource and the jobs they work to financially support themselves affects their ability to tend to their dance work and their lives generally. They imagine with their voices and bodies how a guaranteed income for artists could transform the future community of Chicago dance and open up possibilities for more people to choose artistic careers.
For information on universal basic income for artists and all:
This film I directed with the support of a micro-grant from Anti-Capitalism for Artists features the interviews and dance improvisations of Kara Brody, Ali Lorenz, Keeley "KYZflow" Morris, and Isabelle Taylor. It was edited by Alexandra Ditoro.
I'LL TAKE IT FROM HERE [2021]
Created as a "One Hour Project" through Project Bound Dance, I chose a location and had one hour in the space to create this scene with my collaborators, Project Bound dancer Sarah Ellen Miller and cinematographer and editor Helen Lee.
"I'll Take It From Here" is a display of sure ownership of space coexisting with femininity and a play on old fashioned misogynistic pool scenes.
THE TASTE OF WATER (PT 2) [2021]
A development and sequel to my film "The Taste of Water," this performance was danced by Isabelle Taylor and Teagan Reed for Simantikos Dance Chicago's Annual Choreography Kickoff show at Ruth Page Center for the Arts. It delved further into the community healing aspect that we had reached at the end of our short film process.
Adding a new dancer into the mix, we explored Teagan and Isabelle's natural instincts in moving together and challenged habits of giving comfort versus asking for and taking what one needed from the other.
In a more improvisational piece based largely on initiation and attunement to one another, the dancers' trajectory shows how showing up in the world can become more doable with company whom we trust.
Images by Brian Cooper Photography
THE TASTE OF WATER (PT 1) [2021]
This short film created for DanceWorks Chicago's "Digital DanceChance" features Isabelle Taylor and myself and was shot and edited by Timothy Tsang. It was presented on Zoom in July 2021 with two other choreographers, with audience discussion moderated by Alice Svetic.
My choreographic process with Isabelle Taylor involved discussion on a new onset of helplessness upon learning disenchanting knowledge about the state of the world during the pandemic and beyond. The final product is an intimate display of the body's role in internal "mental" processing, resignation to broken expectations, and what we can find together once we are ready to process with others.
BOTTOMLESS MIMOSAS [2021]
bottomless mimosas was a solo project I worked on to place my thoughts and frustrations surrounding artmaking pressures, shifts in environment, and a lack of emotional space during quarantine in the fall of 2020.
Compiled of videos that were byproducts of personal movement research and journaling, it was used as a space to record personal shifts and create conclusions about artmaking in a pandemic while, ironizing the use of digital performance.
HABEAS CORPUS [2019]
Image by Emma Petersen Photography
My composition project performed at Loyola University Chicago, which I used to organize and convey my thoughts on the 2018 scandal of the continual clerical sex abuse within the Catholic Church. Our process was based in themes of betrayal, unveiling, and community healing.