My artist statement

I am attracted to dances that engage people from a sociological context. What do I mean by sociological context? The type of work I actively
pursue are pieces that create a sense of community among people from
the subject matter which is usually about a very specific group of
people. I like to create movement from themes, images, poetry, prose,
free writing, and drawing in my rehearsal based on individuals’
experiences. Through these individual stories, I collaborate with the
performer to create a movement phrase that is unique to that person. I
like to bring in a human element to my choreography. Dancers are human
beings and have the tactile sense of touch, smell, hear, taste, and
sight. By heightening the senses, the performer is invested in the work
and can fully commit to their performance. As an artist, I strive to
make my dances accessible to a full range of communities that might
otherwise lack the exposure to dance. My hope is that my work can
bridge cross-cultural ties between different countries, races,
religion, and social standing. I am interested in blending recognizable
everyday mundane gestures to more abstract imagery, athletic movement,
and dance vocabulary. I like blurring the lines between the
improvisational and the choreographed. Breaking cultural stereotyping
by bringing light to subjects and themes that engages audiences to
think about a social group in a different way, an example from my
current work: The Korean dancer performing traditional Korean dance to
French accordion music, a Swedish poem, and wearing Indonesian batik
inspired sarong.

I am very excited about cross-pollination within the arts and collaborative projects with photographers, jewelry
designers, musicians, actors/actresses, playwrights, filmmakers, and
visual artists. Art inspires art and I find a lot of creativity and
inspiration from other artists because we all speak the language that
can transcend cultural misunderstandings, languages, and politics (even
if the work has a political undertone). I am currently working with a
jewelry designer, several photographers, a musician, an actress, two
other choreographers, and I am also dabbling in documentary film to
create this Chameleon project. This project is bigger than me, it is
about my community, our community, and the International community we
live in.

- Alaine Handa