Natalie Green’s first evening length dance, I’m building a shrine. is both personal and expressionistic. It is meant to be experienced as a dream, though it is grounded by earthly motivations.

“I’m building a shrine. was not a title until recently. It was just something I would say, while laughing at myself, when someone would ask how the dance making was going. The cycle of devotion, loss, penance, and destruction has risen in my work because it’s in my personal life. I started to feel like all I wanted to do was bury objects in the earth to try to make peace, to let go. More recently I’ve realized I want to build a shrine, abstractly and kinetically. I want to honor, adorn, love and then burn a version of my life. This dance is a way to both build and shed, harness and destroy. I am crafting this dance as if I were building an altar.. stacking crystalline images on top of dark ones, using expressive textures like vibrating, undulating, circling, and pulsing. I’m drawing inspiration from personal research on archetypes to make bold movement and imagery choices. I feel like I am building a world, while simultaneously molting. I’ve been making a ton of material on the spot in the studio, asking my dancers to help me track the idiosyncrasies in my movement. I am interested in working with dancers that possess exhibitionistic qualities, performers who bring their whole selves into the process. Together we work to create a clear, unique point of view for each person inside the dance.”

I’m building a shrine. is created by Natalie Green and performed by Alexandra Albrecht, Stacy Grossfield, and Miriam Wolf. Sound by Tei Blow. Lighting design by Joe Levasseur. Visual Installation by Caitlin Kronk.

“A Monument in Motion: Rituals of Letting Go” – Gia Kourlas, New York Times