Daven Dowse is a new short dance film project sponsored in part by the City of Austin, under the umbrella of Women & Their Work

Fascinated by the body as site and archive of personal and cultural lineage we dove into the movement research using several modes of inquiry (davening, dissolving, slowing down, molting, trembling) to come back to the site and edge of the body’s innate intelligence. Through such an excavation process we hope to reveal an idiosyncratic and intuitive language unique to each dancer - one that precedes the verbal. This unearthing, is not superimposed but instead gathered from memories and desires already present is in each of the dancers.

Giving powerful voice to each of the performers, in this way, the process honors each of the dancers’ unique approach as well as personal and cultural histories. This is not a staged dance captured on film, rather it is motion-practiced and built for the camera.

Directed by Lauren Tietz