CRUX
Crux is a 22-year-old Jersey-born performance artist. She recently graduated from Temple University’s undergrad dance program. Currently, she is a teaching, performing, and choreographic artist, as well as a marketing and program associate throughout Philadelphia. She is the founder of Forbidden Fruit, a curatorial collective bridging the gap between artistic communities globally. Crux approaches art as a universal language with which humxnkind can heal on individual and collective levels.
LSDC: How have the social shifts of 2020 impacted your life as an artist?
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C: 2020 has forced me into the isolation that I’ve always been too active to find. 2020 navigated me into an internal stillness that I’d never thought I’d discover. Through all of the upheaval, we were given an opportunity to sit with self and reassess life in the present. I realized I could either drown in the turmoil & suffering echoing through our planet, or hold onto the rope of my artistry and find my way from darkness to light.
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LSDC: How has the broad emergence of this digital realm influenced your creativity/artistic work?
C: Though I was resistant to it at first, I am very grateful for the digital realm available to us artists today. It makes the impossible very real and very possible. I have turned into self and all of my past learnings in order to sustain myself as an artist over the past year. I have become my number one resource, using technology as a means of stability. In addition to creating, teaching, and performing dance, I also design graphics, curate virtual events via my curatorial collective, Forbidden Fruit, run a self-operated bakery service selling vegan goods, run social media pages, and finally I began expressing self through the medium of music!
LSDC: How would you describe yourself as an artist, and/or your work, as we step into the year of 2021?
C: I am formless, never not morphing into a new energetic essence. My artistry allows me to exist as more than human… As naturally as water. I am an alchemist of art, reflectively expanding & creating what I wish to be as a mover & a human.
LSDC: Have you produced any new work, live or digital?
GR: Since last April, I have produced one new original work. As I was unable to finish my senior thesis, crafted to be a live concert work with a cast of nine, I recreated it and transformed it into a digital solo. This 4-part work premiered live on Zoom to an audience of 50+ folks. With this work, I realized the power and force I have as a creative when I stay driven along my artistic journey despite all obstacles. I am now in the process of creating new works to be performed both live and virtually, stay tuned!
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LSDC: How have you maintained balance and regularity in this time? What does your daily/artistic regimen look like?
C: Maintaining balance has definitely been a challenging area for me. Most days I feel best when I just go with the flow. Paradoxically, my mind also goes a bit haywire when I feel like I haven’t accomplished enough. This year, I have implemented daily physicality, meditation, and some form of creativity into my regimen which has been a great foundation for me to work from. I also accepted that I have nothing but time to achieve all I set out to do, with each day being a journey on its own.
CRUX in Motion
Crux in conceptual movement video, Cellophane