A solo, Spill was initially inspired by a magazine photo of a person who had fallen into a well. Later, while traveling with the Limon Dance Company to Alaska after the Exxon Valdez oil spill, Plauché Flink was moved by the photographs of sea life, birds in particular, covered in oil. Their innate nobility and natural instincts were at such odds with what was being done to them by outside forces.
Photos: William Cameron
A solo created by BLM Artistic Associate Emilie Plauché Flink, Spill was initially inspired by a magazine photo of a person who had fallen into a well. Later, while touring with the Limón Dance Company to Alaska after the Exxon Valdez oil spill, Plauché Flink was moved by the photographs of sea life, birds in particular, covered in oil that she saw at a exhibition about the disaster. Their innate nobility and natural instincts were at such odds with what outside forces had done to them. Their struggles were profoundly tragic. The solo morphed and became a fusion of these animals’ struggling to maintain dignity in the midst of terrible circumstances and the perspective of the person at the bottom of the well.
“Plauché Flink’s subtle solo Spill is welcome complement to Flink’s sometimes relentless athleticism. Leslie O’Neill flails her limbs and sidles across the floor like a protean creature in the act of transformation. Alert and mysterious, she’s a destabilized force valiantly struggling for equilibrium.” – Linda Shapiro, St. Paul Pioneer Press, August 20, 2006.
“Leslie O’Neill conveys a broken-bodied struggle in Artistic Associate Emilie Plauché Flink’s solo Spill“ – Camille Lefevre, Minneapolis/St. Paul StarTribune, August 20, 2006.