Symbolic Movement Choir is a modern dance and theater project created by Alishanee Chafe-Hearmon and Fox Conner. Inspired by Antonin Artaud’s Theater of Cruelty and Richard Foreman’s Ontological-Hysteric Theater, Symbolic Movement Choir inquires on the nature of being , phenomenology and subjective experience. The pair work with energetic shifts in space and time using Franz Mesmer’s animal magnetism and hypnosis hypotheses. Aesthetically and theoretically informed by Gurdjieff’s Movements, Medieval dances of death, ancient hieroglyphs and choreomania. Alishanee’s experience in Flamenco and martial arts informs her movement style, while Fox’s in-depth study of Kurt Jooss and Pina Bausch influences his movement, together, the duo create live Rorschach tests for the past, present, and future.

Their next project is set to premier in October 2025

Stalk of The Grain, July 2024, Hosek Contemporary, Berlin, Germany.

Length: 55 minutes

Concept, choreography, performance by Fox Conner and Alishanee Chafe Hearmon

Live Music by Zaher Alkaei and Nabil Arbaain

Original set design and costumes by Fox Conner and Alishanee Chafe-Hearmon

Light design by Lukas Oppenheimer

Original text by Anna Winslow found text by Nikos Kazantzakis

Prelude

“Woe unto me, unto what am I likened? I am not likened unto the fowls of the heaven, for even the fowls of the heaven are fruitful before thee, O Lord. Woe unto me, unto what am I likened? I am not likened unto the beasts of the earth, for even the beasts of the earth are fruitful before thee, O Lord. Woe unto me, unto what am I likened? I am not likened unto these waters, for even these waters are fruitful before thee, O Lord.” Protoevangelium of St. James C.E 125

An offering

i walked for seven days in silent darkness. along my path. On the seventh day, the sky was white as smoke, and i stopped to rest by a pool nestled in a cliffside, in a grotto, where light and shadow twisted over the rock walls. i fell asleep and dreamt of the sweetness of the earth

The soil- the sower of 5,000 seeds

bent over, glued to the soil, their hands, feet, and minds filled with the swallowing earth. All of their hopes were placed in it, over generations they and it had become one. In time of drought they grew sickly black from thirst along with it. When the first autumn rains began to rage, their bones creaked and swelled like reeds. And when they ploughed deep furrows into its womb with the share, in their breasts and thighs they re-experienced the first night they slept with their wives.

Destruction-betrayal

but the images morphed: the bee was a locust, both the rabbit and the horse were slain, and their hands pooled with blood that crystallized into dark jewels under fingernails. frightened by what they saw, they covered their eyes with their hands, and when they opened them again, they awoke. 

What Mothers Carry

the world glared in dizzy forms of light. what they saw was too bright for them. wilting lilies grew by the water, perfuming the air with rot, their petals floating like waxen wings upon the waves. I used to watch her coming and going, opening the wardrobes and coffers, uncovering the jugs, stooping to look under the beds, I trembled.

Burial in a strange and angry earth

the earth itself opened around them into a cistern, and enclosed them again in darkness. here they waited… 

Lullaby- the stars whisper your name

who dug me out? myself or someone else? or the earth itself shot me out like a shrub, a tree. praise the stars, the jasmine that blooms in the night, praise the blue hours of respite. If one cannot dance, they cannot pray. Angels have mouths but lack the power of speech. They speak to God by dancing.

Length 10 minutes

Inspired by Kliest’s essay Über Das Marionettentheater and Rilke’s Fourth Duino Elegy, this piece is an attempt at reconciling childhood reality with the fantasy adult constructions of the world. When our efforts to ignite our own life into the lifeless fail, we are faced with our mortality and materiality. Puppets and angels, are not so different. Getting closer to the blurry line of material reality and imagined reality. There is a mysterious string binding animate and inanimate, passivity and agency. Consciousness disturbs natural grace, coming of age is the fall from paradise.

The Doll is the Eternal Stranger, August 2022, Uferstudios, Berlin, Germany