About Laurel
Laurel has spent the last twenty years in the fields of art and design as a dancer, choreographer, teacher, traveler, and fashion designer. She is thrilled to bring together these passions to present a unique voice and vision.
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The short film “BEAUTY” is the 4th and final segment in the umbrella project Theme +Variations: American Woman, a series of photo stories, essays and finally film capturing the clichés, societal standards, inner lives, and actions of women in the United States of America today.

We are inundated with images of perfect beauty achieved through cosmetics, fashion, fitness, and long held cultural norms.  It seems that beautiful women are only 17-26 years old. They encompass an arresting assemblage of breasts, legs and shiny manes of hair. They effortlessly exist in a vacuum of perfection free from relationships other than sexual, as well as the friction and hardness of daily life.  They are static, frozen.

This short film represents what I believe to be the real truth of beauty:

– a projection of a woman’s inner life to her outer visage

– an essence that is not defined by various body parts, clothing, skin color, or age

– a celebration of the unique qualities of every woman

– a delight in moving through the world rather than posing in it

– a connection forged in authenticity and generosity

STRENGTH. GRACE. FREEDOM. PASSION.

BEAUTY

~A dance short by Laurel Schaffer.

 After loss and grief and isolation and pain, all that we have left is…

Dance

 

Imagination

 

Strength

 

Friendship

 

Beauty

 

Perseverance

 

Love

 

All that we have left is everything.

Isolation, Disconnection, Furies

 

Southern Utah.

 

Music: “Bring the Madness (Noisestorm Remix) [feat. Mayor Apeshit]
Film: D. Hopper

~ Isolation Series #4

~Isolation Series #3

“No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.”

 

 ~ Buddha

 

Music: “I’m Not Scared”, Ezio Bosso.

“But let there be spaces in your togetherness and let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.”

 

 ~ Khalil Gibran

 

I riffed on the choreography here that I created for my first dance short film, ” Beauty”. Isolation is not always lonely or sad. In creating dance and stories with others, we give to each other bits and pieces of our luminous selves to carry onward, sustaining our hearts and minds when times grow dark…

~ Isolation Series #2

~Isolation Series #1

Love consists in this, that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other.

 

 ~ Rilke

 

Wildwood Dance Project Member Laurel Schaffer, sheltering in place in Southern Utah…

Music: “Bron-Y-Aur Stomp”, Led Zeppelin.