INTERVIEW WITH CHOREOGRAPHER M. BULLOCK

 

Photo by ACC Intermediate Photography Course

M. Bullock is from San Antonio but has lived in Austin since they were in high school. They always adored dance and would dance for themselves and whenever possible. They didn't get to take dance classes until they moved to Austin and it was offered as an elective in school. They have a fondness for ballet. They are a dance major and are looking to transfer to a four year university after their time at ACC.

The title of their piece, “A Feather as Light as The Sun,” comes from a poem they wrote, which is presented at the beginning of the dance. M. says, “For my piece, I took a lot of influence from African and Latin cultures. I really wanted to make something authentic that connected to my past. My piece is a representation of my childhood... growing up with anxiety and depression as a young kid and how overwhelming it was for me. I grew up to become very good at ‘masking’ how I felt and how overwhelmed I was. No one really knew that anything was wrong, and I just wanted to evoke the same feelings that I felt during that time. It goes from being myself as people know me to revealing my emotions with my poem. The audience is forced to sit with those emotions until a distraction hits.”

M. adds “Choreographing this piece was very hard, actually. I had a very strong beginning for so long and struggled to move past that. My dancers were really supportive and helped me not to give up when I felt very defeated. It was also hard to find inspiration. It was until I reached out to ask a friend about my piece that I felt very reassured in my original ideas and inspired/motivated to do more movement. It was like a ‘Hey! You’re doing great, keep going!’ so I did.”

M. hopes that there's at least one person who can relate to their dance. They hope that those who know them feel like they understand both present and past M. a little bit better after watching.