Commissioned by ATM Magazine to consider the theme of observance — in many manifestations from ritual to surveillance — this short dance film, ay.eye.ay, was made for ATM Issue 2: Observance in collaboration with filmmaker Tatyana Tenenbaum. Enter through the portal of ATM Issue 2: Observance, which is presented as a virtual altar, and find the film among the many objects under the editor’s note. 

“ay.eye.ay” is a dance film, a visual poem, and an altar to how dance became a solitary ritual for me in 2020 as global COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns shut down entire cities and dancers’ possibilities to perform.

Documenting an improvised dance, I dance alone in the open air in a park in Lenapehoking (Williamsburg, Brooklyn) by the East River. My audience is no one. The dance is spontaneous and impulsive much like the many dances I danced during pandemic lockdown on my apartment building’s roof, in parks by the river, on sidewalks during long lockdown walks at night.

In poetic voice over, I detail how these solitary dances became a pandemic ritual–one that enabled communication with my ancestors and moved me through grief, confusion, and rage about surviving crisis. Filmed by Director of Photography Tatyana Tenenbaum, the improvised dance and poetry reading is edited together with personal iPhone footage I took of my ancestor altar in my home and the landscapes of the Munsee Lenape/Canarsie (Brooklyn, NY) and Munsee Lenape (Upstate, NY) collected during the pandemic.

I’m grateful that this dance film gets to live on the same altar with art works, fiction, and essays by Mariana Pealoza Morales, Daonne Huff, James Anderson, Aliya Bhatia, Ceyenne Doroshow, Greer Gibney, Amalle Dublon & Sandra Wazaz. The issue ends with a collective altar created by a public chorus.