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Paul Smith

Choreographer - Dancer - Poet - Visual Artist: Crafts - Visual Artist: Prints / Digital Art

About the artist: I am a writer and graduate student in library/information science living in Houston TX. I have published a long playful essay, entitled “The Theatre Under Construction” in 1997 in a nationally distributed art magazine, ArtLies.

This essay contrasted key differences in Western and Classical Indian aesthetics in regards to architecture and dance or dramatic / poetic theory. I have been a featured reader in several past public readings of the Houston International Poetry Festival and was published in their journals.

I also won a scholarship as an Art History undergraduate for an essay on Gertrude Stein’s use the notions of landscape and geography as models and symbols of creative and philosophical states and expression.

I have been working on a long poetic novel project that deconstructs American mythology through Tantric mythology and metaphors in part inspired by Gertrude Stein's quote that, "America is now the oldest country on Earth since it was the first to enter the twentieth century".

I have an extensive background in dance and performance art and have performed at the Judson Church in NYC as guest of the New Movement Research Center in 1995.

I have studied on and off with Deborah Hay since the 80's and have performed in a piece of hers at DiverseWorks entitled "The Tower".

I have also studied classical Indian dance under Ratna Kumar and performed in a Bengali dance drama based on the writings of Tagore at Rice University's Hammond Hall in 1992. I have developed my own form of movement/ performance awareness technique and practice that maximizes a performer's awareness of the subtle energies inherent in the breath that can expand a performer's experience and impact on an audience.

I taught this to other dancers in Austin and at the New Movement Research Center NYC as part of a performer exchange program, that included performers such as John Jasperse, sponsored by The National Performance Network and DiverseWorks and performed a piece called "The Heretic" based on the gnostic writings of Pseudo Dionysius in 1994.

In 1993 I performed an installation/ performance piece as part of the Twelve Minutes Max series at DiverseWorks based on the Indian saint Ramaknishna's mystical experience of the goddess Kali.

I have recently studied workshops with Carolyn Sutton Clarck in Austin, artistic director, choreographer of the Butoh troup "Wicked Cricket Theatre", in Butoh technique and philosophy. I have tended to structure my performances as strings on non-linear subjectively associative inner "holographic" imagery translated onto and through the body in view of suggesting a subject or experience to the spectator.

Performance informs my literary work as I am interested in the notion of the “performativity” of language and I also structure my work conceptually as I would movement for a performance. I also “design” my writings informed by the Sanskrit poetic notion of resonance or dhvani, which implies that poetic pleasure arises in part because of language’s transcendence or violation of its ordinary usages.

I am interested currently in collaborating with video or digital artists in recording and manipulating live performance into accompanying installation work. I am also interested in teaching and sharing with performance practice or "Pranic Movement", experimental choreography and performance, and writing opportunities.