Roobi Gaskins

Roobi Gaskins is a NYC based artist, who specializes in dance, choreography, and garment construction. Although she has always had a passion for dance, she owes her movement genesis, ability, and training to 14 years of competitive figure skating, where she competed internationally as a member of the Puerto Rican national team. Due to injury, she decided to redirect her career path, and began her formal dance training at Bard College where she received a BA in Dance. She has performed works with various artists and companies including but not limited to Abby Z and the New Utility (Jacob’s Pillow), Brownbody, 7NMS (Baryshnikov Arts Center), and Trisha Brown (92nd Street Y).

Transcript

My name is Ruby Starla Gaskin and I'm based in New York City.

I like to think of my movement, like a fusion of every single part of me. So big, internal, external, conscious, unconscious, all of those parts, having unlimited space to exist unapologetically, where I don't feel like I have to leave anything behind or filter or silence everything, or anything.

It's deeply rooted in liberation, I think it's a form of liberation, practice. And I like to stem it in this idea of knowledge of self...and I kind of call it a form of conscious meditation.

I feel like it stems from a feeling. And I kind of like my natural way, I gravitate towards movements like wiggling and kicking.
But I also actually used to be a figure skater and my parents put me on ice at the age of two. So I think my movement stems a lot from that feeling of wanting to fly to feel free.

Some things can't just be said in words or in dialogue. And I think it's an opportunity for me to let go and exist as my free, most unapologetic self, being, spirit.

With appropriation, what tends to happen is that you only grasp what you see you grasp that snippet, so you kind of just cherry pick what you like. And then it's also there's just so much history and lived experience that people are just taking for popularity. And so I think that that is the danger of appropriation because erases the human resource to the person that these things are being taken from. But I think there is a way to do it that appreciates the culture that uplifts the culture, and life is improvisation. So that's deeply rooted in it. I think.

Being curious, being black, brown, healing, liberation, like I take that wherever I go, whatever I come to in the world. And so I think I also bring that into the studio and into my movements. So there's not necessarily a disconnect, except for the way that it manifests itself, visually, through that medium, but I think they are one in the same. I use it. It's how I learned to survive. It's a survival tool that has kind of allowed me to heal in a way that I don't have to know everything. When I don't have to feel like I have to articulate and verbalize it and explain myself, but I can just kind of and I think I've come to a lot of peace with that.