In Conversation with CONTRA-TIEMPO x LMU Residency

This writing, by Holly Johnston, emerged from an invitation to share responses to questions that arose from CONTRA-TIEMPO’s residency at Loyola Marymount University with Jannet Galdamez, Community Engagement Director, Company Artist, Rehearsal Director with CONTRA-TIEMPO.

“…as artists we often wonder and imagine worlds, dances, things, people, ideas that don’t yet exist. When this creative imagining is connected to our lived experiences, when we listen to our body’s deeper wisdom, when we collectively craft and build communities, when we are moved to tears, explode into laughter, when we hold one another’s falls, when we hear/listen and see/feel with our intersensory systems, when recognize ourselves in stories, when we’re confused and soothed by abstract shapes, when time is visual, when tragedy sits next to comedy, when pacing and shaping can be felt in words, when you’re not sure what it is that you feel, but your body is coming to know something through its senses…a sense of this original wonder from the artist(s) meets in this moment those who are witnessing the art. Connection as a felt experience. When we feel connected, even to a stranger’s art, we feel bonding and a sense of belonging, like your presence matters, what you notice, feel, experience matters. Your presence is invited here to be with the artist and the world they offer to us to share and co-imagine. Our bodies feel this connection deeply. It's a part of our biological optimism to protect, nourish, and sustain a world that recognizes our presence matters. Our bodies are motivated towards action to care for a world that cares for us. Art can be an active and a dynamical exchange of mutual creativity through ancestral technologies of sharing our stories, dreams, and unique specificities as a person and peoples. We can feel empathy, appreciation, value-all attributes that are the origins of activism. Art activates our capacity to feel our presence with one another.”