Wishes, Longing and Heartbreak:

Embodied Love in David Copperfield

“What I want to say is that you must never forget me. For I’ll never forget you... And I’ll write to you, my dear. Though I ain’t no scholar. And I’ll— I’ll—” Peggotty fell to kissing the keyhole, as she couldn’t kiss me. He was unwilling to let me go; and stood, holding me out, with a hand on each of my shoulders, as he had done in my own room. “Daisy,” he said, with a smile— “For though that’s not the name your Godfathers and Godmothers gave you, it’s the name I like best to call you by—and I wish, I wish, I wish, you could give it to me!”
“You have no best to me, Steerforth,” said I, “and no worst. You are always equally loved, and cherished in my heart.”

Finding connections between David Copperfield and iconic Tucson shrine “El Tiradito,” I created two new dances inspired by different types of love and love stories found in the book. Exploring the themes of love such as love of place, love of friends, love of caregivers, first love, forbidden love, and romantic love, the movement phrases were inspired by a combination of text, gestures, and the embodied experiences of space and place. Working with the Big Book Field Studio team in a short series of movement workshops, I created two contemporary dances “Wishes, Longing & Heartbreak” that are embodied readings of love, El Tiradito, and David Copperfield.

Media on this page include documentation of the process of making the pieces and its performance at the exhibition’s installation at MOCA Tucson.