powerlines: nuclear power plant research
Photographs from research day at Plymouth, 2021.
The artist created a persona of a nuclear dancer, interacting with the land adjacent to the decommissioned Pilgrim nuclear power plant that exists as converted bike trails and overgrown power corridors.
nuclear dance film project statement
My current research in my artistic practice concentrates around nuclear power and the mixed reactions it elicits from the public. Despite being scientifically proven as both clean and safe, as well as integral to slow our use of fossil fuels globally, nuclear power often elicits emotional reactions perhaps more than any other power source: ranging from passion and hope to fear and anger. I seek to connect with people, collect their reactions to nuclear power and translate them into dance choreography to be performed in a community or at a site relating to power. Responding to this topic through dance allows me to capture the emotions so present around nuclear energy and to approach the topic in a unique way: by using my body when (despite science proving nuclear energy is safe) there is a lot of public anxiety around how our bodies coexist in and around nuclear power plants. The dance will be choreographed in a contemporary style and will respond to the space it is performed in.
Finally, at the heart of this project is gender: both at present with the stance of the League of Women Voters of MA is against the construction of new nuclear power plants, and historically with the legacy of the Radium Girls, a group of female factory workers who regularly were exposed to radiated materials on the job and whose resulting declines in health revealed the effects of radiation on the body. As a woman and a dancer, I want to bring these histories into my work and hold space both for the pain of the past and the hope for the future.