DPJ’s Urban Form series looks at the interplay between movement and surroundings through the lens of dancers and architecture in downtown Phoenix.
Dancer Lacee Garcia. Photo: Ashley Baker.
Cityscape is a flurry of fashion, food and entertainment gracefully kept amongst the towers of buildings standing tall around it. To be inside CityScape is like walking the corridors of a new-age cement kingdom where its subjects are casually situated about the multitude of shops, eateries and posh outside seating. It is a place where tourists and Phoenicians alike gather to enjoy Sunday brunch. This is a part of its charm. To be a one-stop shop where outdoor mall meets architectural spectacle and Chipotle all in the same breath is a very special thing.
Finding ourselves on the upper floor, on the bridge that extends over Central Avenue, with the buzz of the people scattered below us, felt like a microcosm of this spread out, yet filled in city. The space where dancer Lacee Garcia intertwined her body to become this shape, existing within the angles and folds of the buildings around her, was quiet and uninhabited. This was contrasted by the spaces nearby, which found warmth not only from the sun, but from the people moving inside of it. CityScape is much like a heart, it brings us in so we can pump right back out.
