Dance, Dance, Dance

Dance, Dance, Dance Lithograph, 57 × 67 cm, 2025 Edition of 50 ## In Paris: Dance, Dance, Dance Paris studio notes · 2022 In my final month in Paris, I spent three days making a lithograph at idem paris, a printmaking workshop in Montparnasse. I had tried etching and screen printing as an undergraduate, but only briefly. As this project approached, I felt a little more apprehension than excitement. My earlier prints had drawn on existing paintings, allowing more people to enjoy my work in their everyday lives. This time, I went to the workshop each morning and began by drawing directly onto stone. Working alongside skilled printers through the printing process was an entirely different experience. Watching a dodo emerge from the great presses that had carried so many artists’ images was a moment I found difficult to put into words. I wanted to bring my three months in Paris to a close with a single image, drawn freely. I found myself remembering the month I spent in Mauritius in 2015, searching for a bird that no longer existed, and Haruki Murakami’s Dance Dance Dance, which I read there. Its journey of searching, strange encounters and a return to everyday life seemed to echo my own time in Mauritius and Paris. For a while, I loosened my grip on the reins and let my feet follow wherever my thoughts led. I stepped into landscapes I had long wanted to see, breathed in air I wanted to remember, and listened to the sounds around me. These were days when I could say without hesitation what I liked and what I did not. Looking back, it feels as though I was dancing all that time, almost as if I were flying. In the novel, the Sheep Man urges the narrator to keep dancing while the music plays. I thought of that invitation to keep moving, without letting the search for reasons and meaning bring me to a halt, as I gathered my time in Paris into this image. ## Paris photographs · 2022