As a maker, my choreographic explorations are often situated inside projects of autoethnography – considering durational perceptions of Self that are shaped through both mundane and hyper-disciplined fragments of lived experience. As such, my work necessarily posits conceptions of the body across time – testing its capacity to retain, recreate, or reanimate on the one hand, and leveraging its unruly plasticity to question, warp, or rupture elements of its past conditioning in the present/future, on the other.
These investigations of the possible follow the kinds of temporal curiosities posed by scholars like André Lepecki and Rebecca Schneider, and pointedly dialogue with theories of inscription and gendered performance brought forth by Butler, Foucault, Jones, Noland & Ness and others. In feminist impulse, my work negotiates caveats of power accrued through trained excellence in culturally specific codes; it plots agendas of agency through the investigation of past narratives, and instigates audiences to participate in the re-construction of meanings and messages through their witnessing.
The heart of my artistic operations attempts to beat paths toward more equitable and connected futures through corporeal operations of communal reckoning, Self realization/liberation, and empathetic collaborative exchanges.
Doll House
Live Performance + Projection
M.F.A. Thesis, 60 minutes, Solo
Doll House was produced in 2023 by the University of Iowa. This evening length M.F.A. thesis was performed, choreographed, and designed by Hallinan with the support of her production team. Please reference the links below to access the full publication and virtual program.
We’re Still Whispering, originally staged in 2022, was built in collaboration with the University of Iowa’s renowned International Writers Program (IWP). Featuring poetry by award winning Thai Novelist, Jidanun Lueangpiansamut, the work transposes literary expression into bodily performance. The dance evades auspices of effacement through a presence that echos the transcription of its inspirational text, a poem titled Ghosts.
Poem Excerpt : (transcribed from Thai) The ghosts’ way of thoughts Are undestroyable. Flying in the wind, Enter the ears of those children of the new century, So that the children will not ignore the injustice, As the people in your generation did.
Apapacho was built in collaboration with the University of Iowa’s International Writers Program (IWP), and featured Hallinan’s partnered performance with renowned writer and activist, Diana Del Ángel.
Apapacho comes from the language Nahuatl, which in English could be translated as “caress with the soul.” In constant translational relay, of poetic language and corporeal presence, the collaborators of this work moved to build an experience of care as an offering to its witness. By writing a tender relationship onto paper and onto space, this piece served as a fleeting opportunity to collect, gather, and commune in solidarity.