Performed Dismantle Map twice two weeks ago…unusual for me to keep performing the same work but I must say I do like doing this solo. Each time I perform it I enjoy the differences. The way the audience makes me feel, the venue, my mood, Matt’s music/sound. It all compiles to make the solo different and fresh for me each time.

I will perform it twice more for certain. Once on the 28th October at University of Surrey Roehampton and in Helsinki (in December! Burrrrrr!) at an international conference on ethics and politics in dance. I’ve also applied to present it at another conference at Brown University in the USA in March 2005.

Logistics aside, I feel I need to make a confession about this solo…despite my programme blurb, which read:

Dismantle Map
Choreographed and Performed by April Nunes
Live Trumpet by Matt Davis

April Nunes uses the idea that everyone's body contains within it a map of their past experiences which manifest themselves as physical characteristics as a springboard for a physical exploration into the concepts of individuality and adaptation. Metamorphosing images between the raw and the refined question the experience of habitation in our human form.

WHAT!? Why must all dancers be so obscure, so mysterious about describing (in writing) what we are trying to do (ah, the onerous battle with language!) The statement I wrote about ‘questioning the experience of habitation in our human form’ was just a glamorised way of saying I was thinking about being a chicken. The more I try to stop thinking about a chicken in this dance the more weird my thoughts become…suddenly I am a blind animal that smells its way about the stage…I more because I want to know what it is like eat your own guts. Don’t get me wrong; I am not a morbid person. I don’t enjoy horror movies and I hate science fiction. I’m a Simpson’s lover, a Jimmy Buffet listener and generally a pretty nice person (if I can say so myself…well, it is my website!)

I’ve got a long history with chickens. My best friend’s father when I was about ten years old used to cut their heads off with an axe. I’d walk over to see if she could come out to play and there are loads of headless chickens running around. Not a pleasant sight.

My sister adored chickens so much that she raised two of them from chicks in her bedroom. They walked around the house following her, even into the bathroom! When these chickens died my sister absolutely went ballistic! She cried for days. These dumb birds were like her best friends.

My brother similarly had a chicken obsession. He’s an artist (draws in pencil) but works construction to pay the bills. Everything he drew for years had a chicken in it. I never asked why.

So, you see, long chicken history. Needless to say, I’m vegetarian.

Maybe I shouldn’t have confessed the chicken thing….

Maybe I’ll get some work funded one day and this site can start to look really slick with really professional looking photos and images you can move the cursor over and they do tricks!

Maybe I can f*ckin’ dream on…

Then again, I like the grass roots style of my lonely work…and appreciate those few who come and watch it and read this stuff!