xxxiiia. “All the natural movements of the soul are controlled by laws analogous to those of physical gravity. Grace is the only exception. […] Grace fills empty spaces but it can only enter where there is a void to receive it, and it is grace itself which makes this void.”

—Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace, 1947, trans. Emma Crawford and

Mario von der Ruhr

For Howes, the choreographic score is often first step in materializing her vision toward a new alphabet. The drawing acts as a sketch, a working document, a work in itself, and its documentation. Used both by performers to learn the choreography and by the composer to write the music, the score also becomes a scenographic element in the film.

This choreography for seven performers is inspired by baguazhang, a traditional Chinese martial art form. It is chiefly characterized by its circular movements, which provide internal stability and the capacity to outmaneuver one’s opponents. The murmurations of starlings, in which flocks of thousands of these birds instinctively fly in sync, also play an important role in Howes’s choreographic vocabulary.

The scores are based on Beauchamp-Feuillet notation (1700), a system of movement notation developed under Louis XIV and still used by baroque dance enthusiasts. Here, the composer’s score takes the form of a hieroglyphic palimpsest. In the performers’ score, a cross-section of an artichoke can be perceived. Or are these markings on a gymnasium floor where a decisive game is about to be played?

Exhibition History

• The Time it Takes
  2024
  Musee d'art de Joliette
  Joliette, CA