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10 Sally Jacques Sally Jacques and her site-specific aerial dance company, Blue Lapis Light, have been performing in pools, on hotel walls, in airplane hangars, and in government strongholds in Austin, Texas, for two decades. Moving easily from the abstract to the politically motivated, Jacques’ work encourages us to see the beauty of our surroundings and to rectify injustice on scales from the global to the local. Among her many awards, including being honored as a lifetime member of the Golden Key National Honor Society and the Susan B. Anthony Award for Peace, Jacques was recently inducted into the Austin Arts Hall of Fame and was nominated for a USA Fellowship 2008. Pavlik and Jacques met up in Austin on December 5, 2004, for a conversation about Jacques’ site work. An Interview with Sally Jacques CP: What is your definition of site-specific dance? SJ: In a word: beauty. Site-specific work is an integration of the environment , its elements, and the emotional language suggested by the space. A work is site-specific when it does not impose an idea onto the space. In other words, it does not set a theatrical environment onto the landscape but uses what is inherent in the space to create the dance. The site’s environment is itself a collaborator, and it determines what unfolds from myself, the dancers, and the rest of the collaborators. CP: What motivates you to create work on site as opposed to work in a theater? SJ: I am motivated by the unknown, the mysterious, and the silence that invites imagination to live and breathe freely. A boxed framed space limits my perceptions; it almost scares me as I feel its limitations, freezing my thinking into its requirements. To enter a site is exciting; the site is alive and ready to engage in a dialogue, demanding that you listen. It speaks volumes in its skeletal form. 200 Sally Jacques I have choreographed in a theater, but even there I was changing the perception of the space by placing structures in it or by working with set and lighting designers to somehow make the space shift into something else. My attraction to creating site work is rooted in the challenges these works demand of the soul. For me, it is a spiritual journey, an internal weaving of struggle, trust, and listening. All the senses are centered on the physical demands on the body, on finding the courage to experiment, to risk, to defy gravity, and to hang in precarious ways. Also, the collaborative interaction with the dancers emulates the relationships found throughout nature, in that the interdependence of creativity exists for all the elements to thrive and be. This fascinates and intrigues me and informs my life on many levels. I believe if we live without the framework of societal expectations, we live in a world of spontaneous imaginings and endless possibilities. CP: Have there been any events or experiences in your life that have inspired you to create site works? SJ: I was certainly inspired the first time I saw the Sankai Juku Dance Company perform. I was mesmerized by their exquisite sense of purpose and beauty , by the stillness, attention, and intention of each movement, which was sometimes barely noticeable, like breathing. I am also inspired by the Japanese film director Akira Kurosawa’s work, especially what his movie Dreams presented : the flocking behavior and movement patterns of birds. He explored how we are a part of a greater universal system and not an isolated planet. I have lived in many parts of the world and have a fascination for diverse cultures, art, and architecture, especially places of worship. I have been shaped by these cultures on many levels, especially by East Indian philosophy and meditation. I also find early experiences crucial to my inspiration; my childhood influenced my worldview, as well as my political and social insights. I was not raised in a small nuclear family. I was brought up in a large institution and developed many instincts at an early age, the most beneficial of which was to dream and imagine. My inner world was strengthened at a very early age. I often listened and prayed and talked to nature for solace and comfort. CP: Do you find sites, or do they find you? SJ: This has varied. About two years before I started working on The Scaffold Trilogy, I was taking a walk along Town Lake in Austin, Texas, and I saw a scaffold...

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