Page - 205 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 07/01

Dance Video Review: Works & Process Artists (WPA) | 205 Brandon Ambrosino Dance Video Review Works & Process Artists (WPA) Virtual Commissions The Guggenheim, 2020 Accessible at https://www.youtube.com/user/ worksandprocess All we hear are bagpipes as a blurry image gradually comes into focus. We be- gin to make out the dark torso of a man who appears to be suspended upside down. His arms are folded beneath his head. A faint drumbeat starts to play and his right arm begins to trace the ground several inches below. For the next four and a half minutes, Jamar Roberts will wriggle and pulse through a rectangular performance space not that much bigger than his body. The cam- era angle will change, as will the volume of the music accompanying him and the speed at which he moves through his confinement. Watching the piece is an exercise in disorientation. Which way is up? Is Roberts lying down or dan- gling by his feet? We struggle to find our bearings as we watch him navigate his own. The odd pairing of bagpipes and drums adds to our slight discomfort, to say nothing of the fact that the image calls to mind the haunting lyrics of “Strange Fruit”. The last few moments see the dancer, now drenched in a blinding white light, softly snap his chin to the right before going limp. According to the Artist Note by Roberts, the performance piece, called “Cooped” (2020), “was inspired by the release of recent statistics showing the disproportionate amount of black and brown bodies being affected by the Covid-19 crisis.”1 Imagining a “fever dream”, Roberts set out to explore “the anxiety of quarantine” among minority populations already politically 1 Jamar Roberts, “Cooped”, 24 May 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3GgOpXxufI [accessed 5 January 2021]. www.jrfm.eu 2021, 7/1, 205–210 DOI: 10.25364/05.7:2021.1.13