LMU Dance visiting assistant professor Janessa Clark is looking for anonymous participants as she builds a new volume of ‘tiny dances’ as part of her artistic work this semester. The Tiny Dances Project began in 2017 and is an ongoing multidisciplinary endeavor weaving dance, video art, installation, performance, and co-authorship with the public.
The project embodies anonymous letters sent from around the world. Some letters confess buried secrets while others reveal private moments and memories; all of them weaving together a tapestry of hidden experiences. For every letter received there is a dance. For every country or community visited, there is a new volume created.
According to Clark, “The project aims to be a platform for sharing and connecting within an economy of anonymity, so that we may all experience our commonalities as humans and create invisible bonds with others around the world.”
How to Contribute
If you would like to contribute an anonymous letter for the project, please click HERE to watch a short video on how to do so or read on below:
- Stop by the dance department in the Burns Fine Arts Building.
- Locate the Tiny Dances Project letter writing station in the department common space.
- Scan the QR codes on the wooden mailbox to learn more about the project or to watch some of the video dances created from previous letters.
- If you are interested in contributing a letter, grab a writing packet (next to the mailbox).
- Think about something you’d like to share anonymously and write it down:
- Something true about yourself such as a memory, a secret, a personal moment.
- Make sure it’s something you feel comfortable sharing.
- Do not use your name or the names of others.
- The letter can be a paragraph or a full page, it’s up to you!
- Seal the letter and drop it in the mailbox in the dance department. Letters are being accepted until 20 are received or until October 21, whichever is sooner.
That’s it! Your letter will then be connected to an artist who will ‘translate’ its contents into a dance film, musical composition, photograph, or other artwork. This piece will join over 50 artistic interpretations currently in the project, a selection of which will be part of an exhibition at LMU in 2023. If your letter is not turned into a tiny dance by the end of the Fall 2022 semester, it will move forward with the project to the next location where it will then be activated by a local artist.
All letters that follow the correct protocols (no names, minimum of one full paragraph, etc) will be incorporated into the project and will continue on in future exhibitions. The full project will be complete when it reaches 100 ‘tiny dances’. Current letters in the project come from New York City, Stockholm, Sweden, Mt. Vision, New York, Horton Bay, Michigan, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and St. Petersburg, Russia.
For more information please visit: The Tiny Dances Project or Janessa Clark’s website.
