'ALULA & KEEL' work in progress. Photo by Tess Davila. 2025.
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A work in progress version of Keel has been performed in 2016 at the SARUS Festival. Alula will be performed at Wilmington Dance Festival on April 11th and 12th, 2025 at Kenan Auditorium in Wilmington, NC: Between April and August we will be working with community members and guest artists to develop "Alula & Keel". The big coming together, the meeting, the tangible and intangible energies of a shifting border.
Some Thoughts This piece emerges from a deep instinctual place that has been below the surface of my skin for many years. I kept feeling it as a place of surrender, of mourning, tenderness, passion and awe, but also frustration and resignation. it comes from an urge to connect, and to have all of us come together as our bare selves. "Alula & Keel" is a prayer, a ritual, a gesture toward attention, attunement and a surrender to allowing each of us and everything to live, fully free, fully happy, self-actualized, connected in support and acceptance, in care, and in love. We do not need to understand something or someone in order to respect and care for them. We can observe and describe, feel, and allow. We do not have to shape and mold into prescribed shapes. "Alula & Keel" asks: What have we compromised, what are we mourning, what parts of ourselves have we had to silence in order to be loved? And how do we silence the truths of others? We stand at a precipice. Every day we negotiate the changing membrane between the solid ground and the moving waters and currents of life. If we turn our gaze to the sea, what do we see? What do we feel? How are we part of the deep and unruly, unknown, dangerous? How are we part of the determined, as followers of our thoughts and beliefs, of our social and familial enmeshments? And how does that hurt another? Who are we? Where are we? How are we? What do we contemplate when we give our full attention to the moments of the tides? What do our body-minds want to express? What do we wish for at the edge of the sea? What do we contemplate, dream of, or cast to the sea? Who do we wish to be beside us? Can we unthink all of our thoughts to become renewed in our openness and receptiveness to life's wonders? Can we make this day our first day ever on this earth? |
Choreography by Karola Luettringhaus (with the dancers)
Performers: Alex Toribio (Alula), Brinson Leigh Kresge (Alula), Rachael Crawford (Alula), Karola Luettringhaus (Alula), Angela Gallo (Keel - the Sacred), Amanda Ling (Keel - Aristocracy), Erin Bailey (Keel - Plague Doctor), Ashlee Daniels Taylor (Keel - Clergy), Kim Korzen (Keel - Jester) Costumes (design and production) by Karola Luettringhaus Music live performed by Emmett Sharon Filmed and photographed by Tess Davila |
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Themes: I am starting from this basic premise: what do you encounter at the precipice of the ocean, of this unknown, vast, powerful force of nature? What does being there evoke for you, in you, and what kinds of movements and gestures emerge from you in connection with this physical or metaphorical placement: at the edge?
The Format
- You can come into rehearsal with absolutely no knowledge, expectations, or past experience.
- There will be a one-on-one rehearsal with me to explore your movement relationship with the theme. I invite each participant individually to be curious and spend at least two hours with me in the studio to explore a precipice that speaks to you and your life at this moment by sensing into our emotions and physical sensations and translating these sensations and gestures into movements, phrases, actions, prompts for further improvisation. I invite participants to be open to other forms of expression as well, for example vocalizations. In that first rehearsal we will begin create a series of gestures that you can draw from during the performance. We will explore movements that feel good to you and that you feel you need to "speak" to the ocean, to the audience, yourself, or to whomever. We will also play with trying out other people's gestures and movements, in our very own ways. We translate their movements into and through our own experiences.
- After the first meeting you can decide if you want to meet again to deepen the experience and take on a more detailed, and perhaps longer, part in the piece. We can rehearse again and again until the performances in August. If after the first rehearsal you decide it's not for you, that's fine too.
- What I am interested in is also the process of working creatively with complete strangers, with many people, to discover their embodied relationship with the physical reality and the concept of "the precipice".
- Eventually there will be some rehearsals with others to explore our movements in relationships to others. Movements will be as simple or complex as you are able or willing to do. Based on your very unique movement story, we will lay out some action patterns that you can implement in the performance in collaboration with and in reaction to others around you. We will determine how you joint the performance, what you do within it, when and how you end your part.
- Since performances will be outdoors at the beach in August, please consider the heat and what you are realistically able to do, and for how long. I don't know yet how long this piece will be, if it is an hour, two, or even longer. If it is a longer piece we will find ways for participants to take turns and come into the performance and leave it on a rotating basis. You could participate for 10 minutes or once or three times, or more or for a longer period. We will offer opportunities to cool off in the ocean as part of the piece and we will have water and snacks to stay hydrated and nourished. There will also be a couple of volunteers to assist people as needed.
- This piece offers you the opportunity to co-design your costume with me. Everyone is wearing black, creating group cohesion, but the unique part is the textures and silhouettes that you create with your costume. Each person can be as modest or as outlandishly flamboyant or extravagant as they wish. Your costume can be from present day or historical, abstract or figurative. But it needs to make absolute sense with your story. We are not costuming ourselves for the fun of it, the costumes express us in relationship to our story. For example: your dance is in memory of a person and you wear something that reminds you of them, or you are relating to a historical figure, or a movie star, etc. This piece is a meeting of individuals and their complex realities. Keep in mind that the costume will get sandy, wet, and could tear. I do not have funds to buy costumes for everyone, each participant is responsible for purchasing their own costume.
- In July, there will then be two rehearsals in groups of 5 or more. There can be more such rehearsals if you want.
- And finally there are the performances on August 1 and 3 (alternate weather dates are August 8, 9, or10).
- A rehearsal schedule will be posted here, and each meeting or rehearsal will be clearly marked as either for a specific person, a specific group or open to all.
- I am hoping that we will get a very large group of participants of at least 40 people.
- If you are curious and want to find out more, please feel free to email me at [email protected]
- participation is free and we would love it if you made a donation
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rehearsal video part 1
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rehearsal video part 2
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rehearsal video part 3
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rehearsal video part 4
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rehearsal video part 5
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Video from rehearsal at Wrightsville Beach 2025.
Unfortunately there is no video from the performance. The weather was perfect: a storm came up and the sky turned black and 3/4 of the way through it started raining and the red costumes slowly melted away. The music (gong and other acoustic instruments) by Emmett Sharon was eerie, dramatic, minimalist, and beautiful. Photo below by John Alexander Turner. 
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An analysis of the piece is forthcoming here.
Some key landmarks:
Some key landmarks:
- process of socialization
- fighting nature
- mistaking the jester for a good leader
- living alongside uncontrollable forces
- always at the edge of uncertainty
- society attempts to establish something solid, lasting alongside the constant relentlessness of the waves of life
- social structures, hierarchies
- the alula is the bird's thumb bone
- Keel is the bird's breastbone
- when the wing meets the breastbone
- plowing a deep groove into the sand, KEEL wants to march forward without getting disturbed
- Alula intersects their progression, tempts, confuses, introduces doubt into Keel
- Keel holds steadfast, it is slow, slow to progress, slow to adapt, resistant to change
- Alula adapts flies, changes perspective, wants to fly over the ocean, into the water, be wild
- KEEL wants order, predictabilty
- KEEL ends up tying Alula to themselves, in the end everyone gets absorbed into KEEL and while they attempts to be alula from within Keel, they eventually surrender in one way or another
- Keel follows the jester, the clergy, aristocracy, all follow the jester
Photos by Robert Alexander Turner on the day of the performance on August 10th, 2025
