Upwell | Mourning Surf | Short film and essay by J'aime Morrison
"I surfed almost every day during the year that followed Jim’s death, even on small days or when the surf was blown out..."
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We encourage you to give multidisciplinary artist J’aime Morrison’s short film, Upwell, your full attention. Upwell was choreographed and directed by the artist and is accompanied by her essay, Mourning Surf.
Mourning Surf by J’aime Morrison
In the first few weeks and months after my beloved husband Jim died, I couldn’t read anything or even listen to music. Not even talk radio. A total blackout. I couldn’t go near anything that might plunge me deeper into sorrow. What did offer comfort in those early days, in ways I never imagined, was surfing. I surfed almost every day during the year that followed Jim’s death, even on small days or when the surf was blown out. In the face of huge swells of grief and sorrow, surfing taught me how to thrust myself forward into the curl of the unknown…
Featured writer and artist J’aime Morrison is a theatre director, choreographer, and filmmaker based in Los Angeles. She is a Professor of Movement at California State University, Northridge where she teaches dance, movement and somatic theory, and stages multi-disciplinary experimental productions. She holds a Ph.D. in Performance Studies from New York University and was a faculty Fulbright Scholar in Movement to Portugal. J’aime has taught Master Classes in Dance and Movement in Lisbon, Shanghai, Dublin, Belfast, London, Los Angeles and New York City. With Mourning Surf, she turns her attention to grief and the body, specifically how grief is expressed physically and how movement is an essential part of the grieving and healing process.
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