Best Move From Live Performance to Video

Photo: Tiffany Bessire

When sheltering in place began, many people began watching the daylight change, spending more time in nature and avoiding contact with other people. Artist and Vanderbilt professor Jana Harper incorporated these realities into a revised vision of This Holding: Traces of Contact, which was scheduled to premiere live at OZ Arts. Rather than cancel the visual art and dance performance, she and her collaborators — choreographer Rebecca Steinberg, musician Moksha Sommer and filmmaker Sam Boyette — created a video adaptation that brilliantly captured the moment. The original idea of the work — to portray internal struggles through movement and interaction with sculptural objects — remained, and resonated even more with an audience besieged by the global pandemic. SARA LEE BURD