HANNAH WEST

A Note from the Artist:

Dance has been a constant driving force throughout my life. Training in a ballet-heavy studio for my whole young life helped me appreciate classical technique, but made it difficult to explore my individuality as an artist. Throughout my undergraduate studies, this individuality made its way to the forefront of my training and has offered an opportunity to reflect on everything I thought I knew about dance training. This led me to strive for creating safe and experimental work spaces, whether in rehearsals or teaching classes, I prefer to abolish ideas of perfection and specific technical skills. 

In creating a work, my inspiration comes mostly from the bodies on which I am choreographing. Creating movement in the moment, feeding off the energy in the room, while celebrating the vast differences within the bodies before me, is what drives the works I form. The surrounding environment moves me to create: as well as human activity, various forms of interaction, visual art, music with unpredictable sound scores or beats, and items or encounters happened upon by chance. Above all, working with people who share a common passion, within a safe environment, is where my creativity and inspiration blossoms. Collaboration with a cast of dancers is how I enjoy generating movement to get the ball rolling. Working more along the lines of creating a combination of my movements and their movements, to form a harmony of positive feelings in the bodies throughout the space, then letting the succession of the work naturally follow behind. More often than not, I tend to avoid placing movement that is entirely mine, on a group of dancers for any piece of a certain stature. Using each body’s artistic and physical differences to their advantage, to create a piece that is not only mine but the collective group’s, is what I find the most gratifying in being a choreographer.