I want rejected mysteries to be a place of enquiry. Of obsessions and contestations pursued. Always questioning.

I keep returning to the myth of the fallen angels, the carnal transmission of ‘unspeakable mysteries.’ How we are changed, transformed into hybrid creatures—knowing creatures, yet unknowing.

I will write about my experience of the body, dancing butō, the flesh in its night. Hijikata Tatsumi is to me one of our fallen angels. I never cease learning from his art, being changed by it.

—Alkistis