Documentary Illustration Statement

I’m interested in documenting Collage Dance Collective; a ballet company right here in Memphis TN. Nicole Taylor introduced me to this organization after I met her at Rhodes College, and she later informed me on a conceptually intriguing dance routine that she had orchestrated as her senior thesis piece for the University of Southern Mississippi. Even though I already had an amateur understanding of ballet due to dance classes in elementary and a younger sister in the department, I now made an important conceptual connection between visual arts and dance. Before this conversation, I viewed dance only through its beauty and routine without consciously taking the ideas behind it into consideration. This excited me because I have been trying to make connections between the arts ever since I attended Power Apac in Jackson MS, an art school that fostered music, dance, theatre, and visual arts.

Imagine my joy when I discovered a school in Memphis that creates creative potential in young people at an affordable price. There mission simply reads “To inspire the growth of ballet.” I believe in any goal that is focused in the arts because I feel like it gives people of different cultural backgrounds the chance to make interactions in environments that demand collaboration. Also, it furthers an internal motivation of mines to get the arts to the underprivileged, an initiative that definitely affected my growth. Even as I was getting aid from outside sources, I worked with my father to teach art classes as early as twelve years old to people in my city. My involvement with the arts has created a desire to spread it wherever I am. In this way, a network of artistic understanding is created. This idea of connectivity is the root of my art.

Recently, I had begun to combine visual art skills with poetry and rapping, so I have been craving an opportunity like this one. One, where I can visually document dance and get insight in the IPC (Idea, Process, and Criticism) behind ballet pieces.

By documenting Collage Dance Collective I plan to accomplish a number of things: interview the founders, interview some of the young students, capture amazing movement, paint portraits, document the environment that they work in and see how that environment affects them. The skills that I gain in this documentation should also translate into illustrations that I am working on as well as help make necessary connections with artist in Memphis.