delicate hold
I couldn’t decide: did I want you?
I wanted you
or, …did I want to be you?
you – the object of my desire.
my future self.
I could see your contours faintly in the distance.
but, I couldn’t quite put my finger on the details…
…I felt, if I could, they might answer everything.
delicate hold is a poetic map of desire.
An archive of sorts. A list.
What desires are known and unknown to us?
Can we pursue them with a tender abandon?
delicate hold was an online, remote performance that mixed movement with text, images, and voice over distance. The performers were in four different locations and the director in a fifth, where she live mixed video feeds to reach viewers during the summer of 2020.
co-created with the performers:
keisha janae
precious jennings
chih-hsien lin
ginger wagg
directed by:
jane jerardi
This remote performance happened on friday august 28 and saturday august 29, 2020 as a live stream (excerpt above).
“delicate hold is always highly tactile, keen to the slightest sound of breath, the crinkle of folding paper, the turning of a page in a notebook, the scratch of a pencil on paper. delicate hold conveys gentleness… The soft caress that Jerardi’s work imparts is perhaps her way not only of treating herself gently but of giving her audience permission to do the same.”
“What an exquisite, dream-like but grounded, experience. It truly was a special event and unlike, which I hope you know, online performances that I have seen. It captured intimacy, a visceral closeness in and with the body, environment, and word. Thank you, thank you.”
— Audience member
highlighted in Irene Hsiao’s Reflection on 2020 in The Chicago Reader:
”Some Observations:
Knitting is dance.
Kneading is dance.
Baking is dance.
Breathing is dance.
Growing a garden is dance.
Building a union is dance.
Feeding the hungry is dance.
Action is dance. So is stillness. So is rest.
Let us continue.”
Follow us @delicate.hold
and on Twitch: twitch.tv/jjerardi
Jane Jerardi and this presentation of delicate hold are supported by a 2019 Chicago Dancemakers Forum Lab Artist Award. The Chicago Dancemakers Forum’s support has made the research and creation of this work possible.