In the Pines

Title: In the Pines
Conceived and Choreographed by: Patrice Miller

In the Pines is a performance art piece that questions the romanticizing of gendered violence in pop culture. Utilizing choreographic dance scores, choreography, experimental text, and wearable often surreal props to interrogate American murder ballads, a pop music genre rife with tales of domestic and sexual violence. Using minimalist composition to contrast between the performer’s body and the songs’ narratives the piece does not reify the historical violence through reenactment and instead centers the performance on the live body.

My goal has always been to investigate as a performance creator if there is a way to resist dancing to this music, so as to not victimize the performer by reifying the violence. Is there a way to bear witness to these stories while resisting the pop aesthetic that seems to invite us to celebrate these stories?

In the Pines has been presented in various iterations at The Brick, Brooklyn, NY (2017); Snug Harbor Cultural Center, Staten Island, NY (2017); AUSTRAL festival, Buenos Aires, Argentina (2019); Wicked Equity! New York, NY (2022)