Stick Apart is a vernacular performance directed and choreographed by Maria Plotnikova. The vocabulary of the performance has been used by Plotnikova in works’ past, but never has this gesture been so relevant to our community— being kept at a distance with the force of an object maintaining this barrier. The realization that the air circulating in one’s lungs is dangerous. The complexities of breathing being simultaneously a life sustaining force and a pathway toward the light. Emotionally we feel the weight of this air as heavy as bricks, as big as boulders, in those lungs that are simply craving fresh air. It makes me wonder, am I washing my hands enough? This rash on my wrist won’t go away. Though I still keep washing. When the subway car pulls up I assess if there are too many people on the train. I hope they aren’t fearful of my smoker’s cough. I want to scream— it’s just the cigarettes. When I’m standing six feet away from you I feel a pressure on my chest. A sting underneath my collar bones. I try not to move too much. I don’t want this necessary space to fall to the wayside. The feeling of skin on skin separated. The edge of a cliff I’m constantly leaning over. But this distance between us is impossible to hold at all times. Even when we try our best to keep away, we find ourselves at the same wave break, the same page break, about to break. Abandoned together.

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Llio Zorga