Judith Van Oeckel – All She Wants To Do Is Dance
Modelling Body
While chronic migraine makes dancing impossible, Judith Van Oeckel explores how to move within the constraints of a failing body.
All She Wants To Do Is Dance departs from the temporary immobility of a dancer. In these performances, Judith Van Oeckel models a series of micro-choreographies described by speaker Fae Felis.
As Van Oeckel rocks back and forth and her body seems to warm up, Felis explains that the dancer can only perform micro-choreographies, which she films and then meticulously describes. Today she will attempt another dance. Felis describes the movements from an I perspective, as she recorded them. Lifting an arm, bending a knee, a twisting motion with the hip. Occasionally the physical experience of pain is dryly rendered in the process: ‘I feel pressure radiating from my neck to my forehead.’
A vulnerable performance in serenity, an ode to loss of physical ability and yet a triumph of control over her movements: Van Oeckel remains an artist.
