I have been making weird things with electricity and light, and broadly speaking, neon is an embodiment of both. 

I can watch a neon bender’s movement for hours. It’s clear how the mind and the body work together in the making of this craft. Position, orientation, direction, and rotation of the body become particularly important in neon bending, while sometimes it's also rhythmic, the body can sway back and forth and side to side and even the feet are sometimes used to keep count of time as well.  

It took me a good number of years to understand how to work with glass as a creative medium. There were reasons why I had been having such a hard time forming shapes or making basic bends with glass tubes when I started.  I studied neon bending in the same way as I was learning a new lexicon of movements for a dance piece. I discovered that I had a sense of strange disconnection between the self and the body. The disconnection was so great that I was unable to communicate with my body so it can perform the work as required. 

That was certainly a trauma response. I am a survivor of gendered-based violence, and a part of me got stuck quite often in crisis mode even long after those traumatic events. When I was sometimes triggered, post-traumatic, and stressed, my mind was unable to grasp when it was or where I was at a present moment, and my body became frozen, frigid, and disorientated. For many years, I was a stranger to this body and sometimes I almost didn’t realize that it existed with me. 

Around this time, I started to work with the Move to Move Beyond Storytellers and Gibney Dance developing new work combining storytelling, dance, and movement as survival strategies.  

With that practice I try to answer these questions:  

• How does our body perform its way out of the structures that contain it?

• If our survival strategy were body gestures, what do they look like?

Some of the responses to these questions take the form of poetry, sculptures, lights, installations, dance-making and performance, and interactive experiences.

Through this process, I slowly began to take more care of myself and approach the abilities of my body with great curiosity again. During this time, a shifting of community slowly happened when I began to ask: “What does my community look like to me now?”

For this performance, I created neon and ceramic work and incorporated flower arrangements into the pieces.  They are created in dialogue around the practice of care as an art form and the survival strategies of my communities. 

Credit:

Co-created, Performed and Costumed by: Molmol Kuo, Carmen Elizabeth Guzmán Lombert, Sandra Manick, Amy Miller, Moreno Moore, Doraina Rochford and Ava Wilson
Art and Set Design: Molmol Kuo
Additional Poetry: Joan Hutton Mills
Rehearsal Co-Direction: Amy Miller and emily tellier

Move to Move Beyond® Storytellers
Carmen Elizabeth Guzmán Lombert: Areyto de Jemaya//The Source Code
Joan Hutton-Mills: Enigmatic Poet
Molmol Kuo: A Continuous Curve
Sandra Manick: Freedom Warrior
Maria Meneses: Blooming in the Storm
Moreno Moore: Storyteller
Doraina Rochford: Fulfiller of Destiny
Ava Wilson: Spirit Warrior

Gibney MTMB® Storytellers Team
Amy Miller, Director of Engagement
Yasemin Özümerzifon, Senior Director of Community Action
emily tellier, Senior Community Action Manager

MTMB® Storytellers are generously funded by the Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund;
additional funding is provided by the NYU Community

Additional images below by Zui Gomez @createdby.zu