open studio 8.
Today, I cheated. But good things came of it, so I am allowing myself one day with broken
rules.
I did not dance without music, but I did think of a great idea for my open studio visitors. Starting in September when I will officially invite everyone to come watch me practice, I will ask folks to bring in a piece of music that they know very well for me to dance to, hopefully having never heard it before, but that's not a requirement. In the same way that I like to affect the way we experience silence when I am dancing, I would like to know how others experience something "equally" familiar through the "strangeness" of my dancing (though to many friends, my dancing is no longer an unknown, it too is something with which we can grow familiar --turning to fondness or boredom).
I was very tired in the studio today, which is why I let the music continue. I hardly warmed-up, in the traditional sense, spending instead twenty minutes "merely" sinking into the floor. This is my absolute favorite thing to do in the studio. I lie on my back in a relaxed position, arms and legs dangling straight from their sockets. My muscles and bones wrap around the floor, which I hardly even notice because all the pesky thoughts of the day and week are flooding out into my head. And I let them. It's such a relief to take the time to notice that they're there, and then to relax as they dissipate from my mind and I start naturally to focus on my melting body.
When I am dancing, I often come up with the "best" ideas or the most lucid thoughts or the loveliest revelations. Perhaps it is the patient clearing of the mind that allows for this; perhaps it is the pulsing flow of blood from exerting myself; or perhaps it is that these are my most successful and secure moments in life, and my inhibitions are too low to prevent the ideas and thoughts from happening.
Today, I spent the hour floating. In my head, on my feet, in my arms. It was the steady 3/4 wave of the music that kept me going.
Labels: openstudio
open studio #7.
It's been a long break in between Open Studios --I am returning to my weekly practice (finally) hoping it will also help to ground me through the next stage of turmoil in my life. And my session today has been peaceful and fruitful. It's the first practice in which I've successfully "imagined" an audience and addressed their presence in my choices. Of course, I get no adrenaline rush from empty chairs, but at least I was able to focus.
When I am dancing alone in the studio, I tend to be either "boring" (meaning traditional and following pre-existing patterns) or uncharacteristically silly --which is actually not uncharacteristic at all, I just don't display that part of myself to many people and certainly not in "performance mode." Being silly is a relief. It lets in new ideas without judgment or evaluation. They are all valid and real.
I am amazed at our capacity for tuning into the body -- a sensitivity to movement and feeling on such a minute scale. Just listen closely and you'll feel it. Move with careful intention slowed to a pace that lets you feel the muscles flexing and releasing, the blood flowing, and your nerves tingling with information.
It is its own kind of dance and performance, this solo improvisation I do. It's not particularly special for being a type or genre or dance, but it's also not to be categorized with most other dances.
I'm saying this poorly. What I mean is that *I* don't imagine that I am creating a solo dance or a solo choreography. I am not trying to fit in and I am not trying to be different. The brilliant and exciting part is that I am trying just to connect to myself, o be genuinely inspired into action -whatever that action might be. I feel so alive in these moments, so selfishly and indulgently awake. I want others to share in my thrill without my having to give up any of it, without having to come down one step off my high. It is glorious and dangerous.
I think, in truth, I have been away from Open Studio these two months (!) because the energy from the May performance (about which I neglected to write for the same reason) was so strong that I needed to just ride it out before I could face the empty studio with only a fraction of that feeling available to me. It was overwhelming.
Labels: openstudio
