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Choreographer and dancer Elizabeth Dishman brings us this beautiful new video in response to Joshua 15:63-16:10.

Joshua 15:63-16:10

Terra Firma

By 

Elizabeth Dishman

Credits: 

Curated by: 

Spark+Echo Arts

2015

Dance

Image by Giorgio Trovato

Primary Scripture

As for the Jebusites, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the children of Judah couldn’t drive them out; but the Jebusites live with the children of Judah at Jerusalem to this day.
The lot came out for the children of Joseph from the Jordan at Jericho, at the waters of Jericho on the east, even the wilderness, going up from Jericho through the hill country to Bethel.
It went out from Bethel to Luz, and passed along to the border of the Archites to Ataroth;
and it went down westward to the border of the Japhletites, to the border of Beth Horon the lower, and on to Gezer; and ended at the sea.
The children of Joseph, Manasseh and Ephraim, took their inheritance.
This was the border of the children of Ephraim according to their families. The border of their inheritance eastward was Ataroth Addar, to Beth Horon the upper.
The border went out westward at Michmethath on the north. The border turned about eastward to Taanath Shiloh, and passed along it on the east of Janoah.
It went down from Janoah to Ataroth, to Naarah, reached to Jericho, and went out at the Jordan.
From Tappuah the border went along westward to the brook of Kanah; and ended at the sea. This is the inheritance of the tribe of the children of Ephraim according to their families;
together with the cities which were set apart for the children of Ephraim in the middle of the inheritance of the children of Manasseh, all the cities with their villages.
They didn’t drive out the Canaanites who lived in Gezer; but the Canaanites dwell in the territory of Ephraim to this day, and have become servants to do forced labor.

Joshua 15:63-16:10

This portion of Joshua is one of a series of long passages in which the tribes of Israel receive their allotments in the promised land, their lines of demarcation being tediously described. The brief verses at the ends of these chapters caught my interest, noting almost in passing that “Judah could not dislodge the Jebusites…They did not dislodge the Canaanites living in Gezer.” I’m drawn to these moments in the book of Joshua–and the whole Bible really–when the clear path encounters the unexpected, the unideal, the nooks and crannies of reality.


As a response, this film is a study on territory and dancing with the enemy. The work revels in the contested but shared space between two dancers who grapple within a carefully plotted piece of ground. With a supporting cast amplifying the intimate struggle, Terra Firma embodies the effort of ousting an enemy, and figuring out how to live with him in the ambiguous aftermath.

Spark Notes

The Artist's Reflection

Elizabeth Dishman is the Artistic Director of Dishman + Co. Choreography, a Brooklyn-based experimental dance company founded in 2001. Originally from Colorado, she studied Voice Performance at Emory University, and Choreography at The Ohio State University. In pursuit of ineffable junctures between the abstract and theatrical, the universal and deeply personal, Elizabeth and her collaborators devote themselves to scrupulous exploration and ardent play, probing the elusiveness of live performance in search of lasting things. Over 15 years and 40+ original works, Dishman + Co.’s choreography has been described by critics as “complex skeins and cerebral dreams”, “bodies in rigorous concentration”, and “playful and provocative…raw humanity seeps in”. www.DishmanAndCo.org




Elizabeth Dishman

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