Photo by Victoria Lynn Awkward | The Davis Sister Absolutely in Love: A Rom Com
Photo by Victoria Lynn Awkward | The Davis Sister Absolutely in Love: A Rom ComWinter 2020 Run of the Mills Resident
Artist statement
Alexander and Joy Davis, The Davis Sisters (TDS), were mistaken for a married couple in 2015, and have spent the past 4 years, unsuccessfully, convincing people that they are somehow related. Celebrated choreographers in their own right, The Davis Sisters’ collaborations represent the intersection of physical rigor, humor, theatrical structure, dramaturgical research, and glamour that both artists respect in the other.
At the threshold of dance, theater, comedy, and installation, The Davis Sisters create experiences in which performers and audiences are invited to contemplate humanity, enjoy absurdity, and delight in physical and verbal articulation.
Tell us about your BCA Run of the Mills project happening on Saturday, February 1.
Our Run of the Mills project titled The Davis Sisters Absolutely in Love All the Time, Always and Forever: A Romantic Comedy is an evening length dance theater project created and performed by The Davis Sisters with an interactive audience.
Utilizing the theatrical and episodic structures of an early 2000s Rom Com, we explore various ways to portray romantic love through text, movement, film collage, live stream technology and essentialist set design.
Joy and Alex play all of the characters: two lead couples, antagonists and highly opinionated friends.
Although romantic love is the most forward aspect of this project, this work also explores the commitment to a career in dance as a high maintenance relationship, especially wherein that commitment is prioritized over romantic relationships.
What are we committing to? What are we passing on? What are we missing out on? We live in an advertising culture driven by FOMO (Fear of Missing Out). We create accessible work through humor, the vulnerability of sharing real stories, and making way for many options for what commitment looks like.
Photo by Heidi Wild
Tell us what inspires your work, and how that is expressed in your process and/or in the work you are making.
Drawing from pop culture and the pedestrian, we develop work that displays the theatricality of everyday life and imagery from less logical dreamscapes of the imagination. By illuminating underrepresented queer narratives, we delve into topics about love, hope, and memory which transcend boundaries and make space for individual connection. Through rigorous imagination, movement improvisation and the ridiculous, we courageously and insightfully dare to create scenarios in which we perform magnified versions of themselves.
What about your process is uniquely you?
We create work that sources from personal experiences, and stylizes, dramatizes, and reimagines our own realities. Our process can include long days of dancing in a studio, going out to a bar and people watching, quietly sitting together, interviewing our loved ones, and shopping at a thrift store. It is all relevant. It all is present in the work.
Courtesy of the Artists
Photo by The Fleet
Who does your art speak to? Are there communities you work within?
Our work is for anybody who wants it! We strive for accessibility through specificity.
Tell us about the most memorable/impactful piece that you have created.
We are fortunate that we have been given the opportunity to rework, reimagine, re-stage, and recycle our projects. Each performance and process informs, inspires, and is directly related to the next.
Tell us your biggest art blooper moment.
“There are no mistakes, only opportunities.” – Tina Fey