How dance influences sculpture

I have enjoyed dancing and watching dance all my life. In my early creative career I imagined myself as a choreographer, but the discipline required that I reproduce a series of movements reliably. My tendency was to explore unending changes. At that point, I started sculpting my dance ideas in clay.

I am most inspired by dance that suggests a story of some sort. The expression of a body in motion or the language and power of a hand gesture excites me.

Almost all my work requires imagination of movement. Most of my sculptures are impossible for a model to hold or even to move through. I "think" the movement and feel it in my own body first. Only after it is mostly modeled in clay do I ask a model to position individual body parts to be sure details are correct. I have found that this method keeps the sculpture alive and the narrative objective clear.