earthbound is a tribute to gravity, to the bond with the earth, with a glance toward the sky, and feet firmly planted (or almost so).

Two figures served as a backdrop during the work on the piece: Antaeus and Bas Jan Ader. Antaeus drew all his strength from contact with his mother, Gaia, the Earth. He was ultimately killed by Heracles, who discovered his secret and lifted him off the ground, severing his connection to the source of his power. Alongside the myth of Antaeus, the images from the Fall series by Dutch artist Bas Jan Ader began to filter into my work. In his early pieces, Ader used gravity as a medium and explored various ways of falling in a series of performance videos.

The fatal disconnection from the ground in Antaeus’ myth and Ader’s deliberate loss of balance before letting himself fall created a kind of conceptual short circuit. What interests me here is how losing balance might be a necessary step to reconnect—or disconnect—from the Earth, echoing the ecological message of our dependence on it.

In traditional cello technique (as in all string instruments), coordination between the left and right hand is essential to sound production. In many passages of earthbound, the solo cello deliberately breaks this equilibrium, experimenting with a periodic disconnection between the bow and the left hand—the contact and its faltering, the loss of balance. The instrumental writing gravitates around and toward this disconnection, often aiming toward the lower register— at times as plunges or falls, and at others to establish a grounded strength, a contact. It navigates the inevitable attraction to the Earth while also creating contrast and opposition. Playing with this attraction and its potential rupture, the piece builds a series of departures, returns, dances—always similar, yet ever-changing.