Process:
I responded to the words remember and history ringing through the dance piece. I found the relationship of the singular viewer to the dance collective to hold numerous tensions: physical, mnemonic, sexual, etc. My main medium is poetry, but I knew I wanted to work with a different medium and, also, I know I can’t trust my telling of the past in a poem.

On a related note, I’m somewhat of a voyeur. I grew up obsessed with film. I remember that I tend to walk around with my phone recording any little detail that holds its own heart—a red-haired woman carrying a bushel of twigs and holly, the back of a construction worker shining his orange vest, or two men, holding one another, sleeping on the late night train.

My mother hates that when I travel I don’t take pictures of myself. I made this piece thinking of how I wanted remembering to feel like. Like the dance piece, I made sure the spliced clips moved into the other—the dancer extends his arms and momentarily conjures a yellow tree, the dancer extends his arms again to disappear into a concert, with room after queer room filled with no story, filled with unceasing dances.
—Francisco Márquez

Francisco Márquez is a Venezuelan poet in Brooklyn. His work has appeared in Narrative, The Offing, and Bennington Review, among other publications. The recipient of grants from The Poetry Project, Letras Latinas, and Breadloaf Writer's Conference, he works at the Academy of American Poets.
@femd222