What We Leave Behind (WWLB) explores the relationship of choice and impact through tap dance, visual, sound, and digital art. By deconstructing and focusing on the many often unseen artifacts of an improvisational tap dance performance, What We Leave Behind poses the question, “What unseen impact do our own choices have?” This, of course, brings other important questions to light, such as, “How can we see all our choices?” “How do we think about impact?” and more existentially “Can we really know what is good?” These questions speak to the formative relationship between ourselves, our choices, our impact, and the potential for individual, communal, and social change. Developed in the inaugural InBreak Residency by Lebanese American tap dancer Andrew Nemr, What We Leave Behind explores the experience of improvisational tap dancing, and frameworks of oral traditions and spiritual formation, to imagine a new way forward towards change for the good.
My work has always come to life at the intersections. Notably, Tap Dance itself functions at the intersections of sound, movement, and personality. With formal training in the visual arts (School of Visual Arts, 2001) and apprenticed in tap dance (mentored by Gregory Hines among many others), my work has explored the mediums storytelling, digital art (including virtual reality), physical art, and music. Fueling every exploration is an ongoing journey through the ways of oral tradition and spiritual formation as they interact with the questions of life. The questions have varied. At different times they may be more reflective (What is happening right now?), imaginative (What could be?), or existential (What is real?). Regardless, I have endeavored to use the variety of mediums as vehicles by which to share my journey through these important questions.