About Our Double Jump Fellows
Grace David and Amber Lucia Chabus
Grace David
Website Link: missgracedavid.com
Artist Statement: My work finds itself at the intersection of character performance, improvisational dance, and spacial installation & design. In all my life stages, every phase of art making has been directly rooted to and sourced from human emotions, inner monologue, and personal experiences. My creations seek to make physical, tangible, and visual representations through design and performance to personify the phenomena that happen inside my mind.
My current process of personifying my Personally Accurate Angels began to manifest itself in a blue bubble blow-up suit, blue skinned hands, face, and feet, and a black blunt bowl-cut bob wig while surrounded by walls and webs of blue denim and blue environments; Ebonibleu. Second, a pale skinned, bulging bodied, wide mouthed, and black toothed creature, Miracle, who’s appearance may be ever-changing. Short meditations assist in the transcendence of my humanhood/human mentality to access them both with something as spirited as delusion-based joy or solemn as isolation and social death. Depending on my character and access point I use improvisation with movement that either meets at the intersection of clowning/miming persona and Hip Hop gestures, or the Japanese movement genre of Butoh.
I am brought to the term Personally Accurate Angels by making the connection from Biblically Accurate Angels. My performance characters embody and have embodied fear, anxiety, delusion-based joy, and isolation which all are known to be dangerous and uncomfortable emotions that exist also in me, yet were made in me to protect me. Biblically Accurate Angels, as described and depicted, also appear monstrous and grotesque and yet still essentially acting as a celestial hierarchy that assist in the divine plan. With the access points of both Ebonibleu and Miracle, I find my way through my own divine plan, and provide a space of healing and understanding of a life I made for myself.
Being a Black, visibly queer, trans-spectrum person, simply my presence on a stage can be politicized without the intention. It is a mission of my work to find freedom from that exposure so my true message can be heard. Removing myself so I can finally be seen. The engulfing nature of the costumes make for a deliberate removal and abstraction of gender presentation, body image, perceived beauty, and any other identifiers to allows a transcendence of my and our humanhood and emotions, and a euphoria of anonymity.
Researching personal journal entries from my teens and college years I find that a lot of what I searched for was to be understood, to be seen, and to be held. For people to see past my perceived gorgeous vessel and bright persona and understand some of the rougher/complicated feelings that make me whole (Virgo Sun, Scorpio Moon). I think thats what we all want for ourselves. God gave you eyes to see, so see me.
What is the vision / ethos behind your work?
The vision behind my work is that I and we have the ability to escape the natural perception that is placed upon us to then bring the inside out to truly be seen.
Being an artist and creator today means that I get to create worlds, utopias, and euphorias for myself to exist in. Especially when I feel like I don’t exist anywhere, don’t want to exist anywhere, or only exist within myself. I find ways to escape my body and my environment to get closer to them.
I look to bring a uniqueness and grotesqueness that serves as a mirror that forces audiences to see themselves for their individualism. Through my work I want my audiences to be able to reimagine themselves to and the universes they exist in to truly become what they are.
Based on this quote, describe how you practice community within the DMV dance ecosystem: “We are each other’s harvest, we are each other’s business, we are each other’s magnitude and bond.” -Gwendolyn Brooks
Community in practice looks like coming to shows and really investing in sharing space, being in conversation, and sharing hugs & energy. I’m usually accidentally one of the last few to leave being caught in so many different conversations and just feeling so energized by it. I spread my love and engage with my joy, which I understand now how to use as a tool. Times are tough even when times are wonderful, so its important we pollinate. Thats what it feels like to me.
Community, truthfully, is something I’d like to have a better or different relationship/practice with. The feeling and act of community is something that I’ve craved, and with natural behaviors in isolation and loving my own space I’m still working to find a beautiful intersection between my worlds.
Amber Lucia Chabus
Artist Statement: I value joy and play with the same gravity as pain and trauma. I embody power and celebration. I invite audiences to think about real questions involving family, nostalgia, and death. My work as an artist talks about healing, and it also dually acts as a healing agent – personally, interpersonally, and communally.
I make movement-based art with empathy, humor, and rigor that speaks to my personal experiences and interactions as a white, Hispanic, Gen-Z/Millennial woman. My movement is heavily based in contemporary, modern, and post-modern dance aesthetics and training. I create stimulating and engaging dance experiences through choreography and performance.
As a choreographer, I foster a collaborative and feedback-driven process that draws inspiration from stories within my life and the lives of those around me. I am only as strong, as open, and as expressive as the community I surround myself with in my choreographic processes. I incorporate playfulness through my use of music, props, and technical elements to invite audiences into genuine experiences around family identity, healing, nostalgia, and joy – all in the context of memento mori. My work ties memory to structures of time and world-building.
As a performer, I embrace embodied strength and sensitivity. With experience performing both on traditional stages and in unconventional site-specific spaces, I challenge the boundaries of performer to audience; likewise, audience to performer.
As a community organizer, I create opportunities to encourage growth, support, and exploration for artists through workshops, peer group forums, and active listening. I show up for others, and I show up for myself.
I am driven by a passion for storytelling. I embrace vulnerability. I crave intense physicality and endurance. I believe in transformations. All of these values encompass my artistry as a dance artist – and in my practice, I invite others to join me in exploring how dance can strengthen, build, and challenge.
What is the vision / ethos behind your work?
“My work as an artist is rooted in the belief that storytelling through movement is transformative. In particular, I focus my practice on broad, universal themes—i.e. healing or dying—and I distill them into personal, relatable stories that speak through the score of the body. Even the most complex ideas can be broken down into something tangible, something that can connect with the audience and bridge identity and expectations. I take these themes and explore their nuances, asking questions that challenge how we perceive them and how we navigate them in our own lives. The ability to cultivate and hold space gives my art meaning for audiences and collaborators to find a connection to their own stories.
I explore ideas for long periods of time – my most recent project, “Sana, Sana”, evolved over three years from short form explorations into two different evening-length premieres at Dance Place and Atlas Performing Arts Center. Distilled from a childhood story about healing, “Sana, Sana” transformed into a world of frogs, and laughter, and Puerto Rican Christmas music, and tenderness, and sisterhood. This type of longevity with an idea gives both myself and the artists I work with time to delve into the nuances of the research experience and explore how it then transforms into the body and performance.
Being an artist today is both uncomfortable and empowering–a dichotomy of extremes. I frequently question: why dance? Why my artistic practice? There is so much fear and anxiety, especially with the current U.S. administration. And my answer is: because art is what stays and exists over time. Art can traverse boundaries. And art is always, always political. The act of creating and sharing a practice is to contribute to the larger conversation; multiple voices is better than one. When there is a limit to freedoms elsewhere, the multitudes of possibility in creation empowers.
Also, quite simply, when I dance and when I’m creating work, I feel better. And I strive to create an environment for my collaborators and audiences where my movement can also make them feel better.
My artistic practice is a space of empathy and reflection, where stories find their truth, and where those truths, whether light or heavy, bring healing, connection, and a sense of shared humanity. That is why my art matters.”
Based on this quote, describe how you practice community within the DMV dance ecosystem: “We are each other’s harvest, we are each other’s business, we are each other’s magnitude and bond.” -Gwendolyn Brooks
My role in the DMV dance ecosystem is one of responsibility–to support, engage, and uplift all in the community. By being involved and attuned, we can lift each other up. I show up in a variety of shared spaces; aware of where and how my presence is needed. I am a thought partner, a collaborator, a spectator, and a friend. Being a part of each other’s worlds is where we nourish and strengthen each other as fellow artists.
In particular, I practice community in shared spaces, often with other mid-career artists. Through grassroots performances, shared group chats, pop-up classes… together, we are creating the ecosystem that we want to be built in this city. And when one artist shows up for another, that cycle of support and creation continues to flourish.
I am deeply invested in the collective success of the DC arts community. When other artists succeed, it elevates us all and it elevates the external perspective of DC dance. The vitality of the ecosystem is built from within but it also needs the external spectacle from outside patrons and influences to keep dance as a profession (especially in DC) viable and attainable. We must scream loud and proud about the dance and artistry that is fostered in this city – the more boisterous we celebrate, the more opportunities will come our way.
‘We are each other’s harvest’, and I am also my own garden. I simply cannot prioritize others without gardening my own flowers too. I can give love, and I also need to accept love to continue to fill up my own cup. This involves rest. This involves communicating with fellow artists. And this involves being true and honest. The balance of supporting others, alongside the ebbs and flows, keeps the community dynamic and strong.