Cecilia Knapp is a writer, performer and poet. Her writing focuses on the poetry in everyday life, experience and human interaction. BODIES is one of her latest works and it was materialised into a video project that explores solitude and moments of brief happiness.
Cecilia Knapp on “Bodies”:
I’ve always written as a way of figuring things out, as a way of containing the chaos in my head. This particular poem came to me after a night of dancing and the resulting acute awareness of my body, the way it looked, the way it moved, the way I couldn’t escape it, the way other people saw it, the way men saw it. I was going through the end of a relationship of sorts with a man and everything came to a head that night and I got this sense that I wasn’t able to escape from any of it. The poem just happened once I’d got home, it kind of just fell out of me. Its intended to be quite claustrophobic, relentless and intense, which is exactly how I was feeling at the time of writing it. I also wanted the poem to have a sense of movement, as though the poem itself was the pulsing bodies on the dance floor that night, I wanted the reader to get a sense of the dampness, the aliveness of a dance floor.I was, and still am, interested int the idea my own agency and whether I really do have it. That night, I was dancing as a type of escapism but I wasn’t able to achieve that because I was entwined in a failing relationship and I was dancing in a space where I was being observed by men and women alike. I was conflicted, not wanting to care about what people thought of me, but also having been conditioned to care what people think of me. Am I the right type of woman? Do I want to be wanted? Am I wanted? Is it wrong to be wanted? Can I really actually do what I want? What do I even want? The night was an amalgamation of a period of confusion and insecurity and the conflicting ideas that occur in your head when you are still trying to figure out who you are.
Performed by: Cecilia Knapp
Cast: Jordan Stephens, Izzy Brooks, Ben Tavassoli
Production: Savage Reel
Director: Irina Alexiu
Cinematographer: Claudia Rocha
Editing: Irina Alexiu & Claudia Rocha
Sound Design & Ronin Operator: Andrei Pacuraru
Music: Teodora Retegan & Mischadora
