Artists’ Statement:

In collaboration with Lightscatter Press, dancer and choreographer Ashley Anderson's work The Windy Gap, in which the body intervenes a curated archive of slide projections, is reimagined for the camera. The newly iterated and layered vignettes and original score by filmmaker Nora Price accompany selected text from Derek JG Williams forthcoming book Reading Water via intermodal QR code integration (in print May 2025). 

 

Notes on Process: 

For The Windy Gap, I purchased a box of slides from a yard sale in Roanoke, Virginia. Some of the images are part of a uniquely American zeitgeist: Old Faithful, Mount Rushmore, Monticello; others are anonymous. In The Windy Gap, only one tray of slides was used, the rest closed inside their box for nearly 20 years. When approached with Derek’s manuscript, I thought about all of the people and the landscapes inside their carrying case. As I read stanzas like:“rich vanishing seasons blink and stutter past” I thought that the writing was much like the dance or the projection equipment itself. Putting all the slides back out on the table, and holding them to the light, I found many literal and figurative connections, choosing two new trays of imagery to place myself inside. With the nature of film and montage lending itself to improvisation, many of these connections were enhanced by Nora’s editing. 

   

Nora Price is a dancer, experimental musician, and filmmaker based in Salt Lake City. She trained with the Milwaukee Ballet Academy and Second Company and is currently a Film & Media MFA and Screendance certificate candidate at the University of Utah, from which she also holds a degree in Linguistics. Nora has recently performed and created work with 801 Salon, Deseret Experimental Opera, Experimental Sound Studio of Chicago, 12 Minutes Max, Doom Lounge, Municipal Ballet Company, was awarded two-year Artist-in-Residence with loveDANCEmore, and is a performing member of SB Dance company. @_nora_mal

 

Ashley Anderson is an artist and educator based in Salt Lake City and recipient of the 2014 Mayor’s Artist Award in the Performing Arts. Her choreography has been presented locally by the Rio Gallery, the BYU Museum of Art, Finch Lane Gallery, the City Library, and Preservation Utah, as well as national venues.See more at ashleyandersondances.com