'Babylon', the Creative Process.
The creation process & meaning behind my solo piece called 'Babylon', performed for IDI and filmed at the Rockefeller Center in New York City.
Last winter, I was invited to perform a solo with Ice Dance International. Recently, I’ve started skating on my own again, something I hadn’t done since I was about seven, when I used to compete in solo ice dance. It’s a strange shift: going from focusing on another person’s movement to having no one to look at, no one to mirror or orient myself around. It feels lonely, and I realized my biggest challenge was learning how to place myself in space. Without another body as a reference point, I’ve had to learn to become my own compass.
I’ve always felt that the music you skate to chooses you, more than you choose it. I was searching for the right song to choreograph a number to, waiting for that ‘coup de foudre’ (instant spark) until ‘Babylon’ came on shuffle. I first discovered the song on YouTube, when it was released, in a live rooftop performance by Tamino. I found it beautiful, especially in its simplicity: the video begins close to him, the location unclear, maybe Egypt? As the song unfolds, the camera slowly pulls back, revealing we’re actually in New York. Tamino, who at first fills the whole screen, gradually disappears into the busy city, his voice eventually drowned out by sirens and urban noise. He uses the story of Babylon as a metaphor for lost love, and the subtle camera work amplifies the idea — something that starts out grand and all-consuming, eventually fading away.
I felt that obvious “that’s the song!” moment, before I had even fully tried to understand the meaning or figure out why I was so drawn to it. This is always my favorite part of creating anything: that moment when everything seems to come together like magic, even though you don’t yet know why.
Afterward, I began listening more carefully to the lyrics and reading about Babylon. In myth and history, Babylon is often portrayed as a magnificent, powerful city that eventually collapses under the weight of its own pride and corruption. It’s become a symbol for human ambition, downfall, and the loss of something once great.
He uses it as a metaphor for a love he lost : trying to understand why something so beautiful could turn so ugly. I felt connected to the story too, though for both similar and different reasons. I was also reckoning with a loss, something I had helped build, something that once felt so grand and powerful, only to end up cast out of for daring to question it. I was left staring at something that once seemed magnificent, now watching its ruins crumble.
“Babylon, day comes the vultures devour you.
Baring the rot in your gardens.”
Sometimes, what appears so great on the surface is built on rotting soil : and no matter how impressive the structure looks, it can’t hold.
“And I’ll be coating my treasures in fire
So none but the damned may prize them.”
Extracting the beauty from what I needed to free myself from is a process only those who know that exact kind of pain can understand.
“They’re all I leave behind
Oh, were they even mine?”
I’ve often felt like none of it was ever really mine. As I let it go, I kept circling the same questions: What was mine? The fault? The beauty? What was I meant to keep, and what was I meant to surrender?
“Babylon, I’m looking out from your cold tower
Into a past horizon.”
How do you reckon with missing something that was hurting you? How do you mourn something that you know was breaking you?
“Bring down the rain of arrows
Take the defense
I wanna love tomorrow
But I love what’s left.”
It’s hard to know when to give up on something. Even when there’s nothing left to save, I stayed stagnant. Not just in the past, but in the need to make sense of it. It’s hard to stop searching for meaning and to accept that some things are better left misunderstood. Some stories are meant to stay unfinished, some endings to remain unresolved.
“Oh Babylon, you fake
Your walls are built to break
And I never came to stay
But I’m losing every way around you.”
Even when I wanted to leave and escape, I found myself trapped, unable to move on, losing myself again and again in the ruins.
As someone with a near-pathological need for sense-making, the choreography and performance became a way for me to let go. To allow myself to rest inside the liminal space between past and future, breaking and building, denial and acceptance.
When I had coffee with my friend Jordan (@oniceperspective) to see if he was free and wanted to film the piece, I initially suggested shooting at the Central Park rink, where I envisioned re-creating the camera pullback that reveals the city. But Jordan proposed we film at the Rockefeller rink, because of the Prometheus statue there. Although Prometheus doesn’t have a direct link to the Babylon story, I felt an immediate connection: Prometheus was the Titan who defied Zeus by stealing fire from the gods and giving it to humanity, enabling progress and civilization. As punishment, Zeus chained him to a rock where an eagle ate his liver every day, only for it to regenerate each night. Prometheus has long stood as a symbol of rebellion, sacrifice, and the suffering that comes with bringing knowledge or light to others. And as someone who often turns to mythological stories to make sense of my own life, I knew it was perfect.
I had so much fun planning where the camera would be at different points in the choreography : revealing Prometheus for the first time when the song’s lyrics mention “Babylon,” and positioning me in front of the statue as the camera slowly revealed the surroundings. And since I had already envisioned my dress making me look like a water-worn, oxygenated statue, pulled from the sea after Babylon’s fall, it all felt meant to be.
