One Removed

2018, Choreographer’s Evening, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN 

One Removed is an experimental, audiovisual, and performance work formed from the experience of displacement—sociohistorical, geographic, and psychic. The movement of a single brown body attempts to metabolize centuries of diasporic dispossession and the powerful geological processes of the earth itself. The work is an aspirational gesture toward finding breath amidst patriarchal and political oppressions.

Video Concept: R Yun Keagy with Tia-Simone Gardner
Video & Sound Editor: R Yun Keagy
Choreographer/Performer: Chitra Vairavan


“(Squinting). I make out a brown body, barely visible, curled on the floor. The audible sounds of water sliding over rock make me think of geologic time imperceptibly eroding. A sequence of rectangular projections illuminates and obscures different parts of the dancer’s body, slicing the dancer into light and darkness in a jarring sequence. Her movements are barely perceptible, but I can see her toe as she pushes herself in a slow circular pattern on the floor. As she finishes, she arches her back, her head touching the floor, her gaze piercing the audience as if to remind us she is still here.”
-- Maija Brown 
Fragments: Reflecting on Choreographers’ Evening 2018 through Bodies and Memory
(Fourth Wall/ Walker Art Center)