Thirty Days of Thoughts: Day 13

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Conscious Living, courage, Courageous Vulnerability, creative energy, Creative Flow, creative process, creative spirit, Creativity, Dance, gay romance, love, Love Between Men, male love, realization, Soul to Soul, spirit

“That’s the strange thing about us, even if the heart is lost we are still capable of giving love. The only difficulty is when the heart is no longer there, it’s almost impossible to receive love”.

This is a line from one of the characters I am working with on a project that has been whirling around me for years. Last night’s dreams brought so many of the challenges of the story into new light and lifted the veil of not knowing how to connect the dots.  

There were so many lines that revealed themselves along with imagery and poetic metaphors for things that it became all too clear how this story needed to be told. Especially the time frame and the place. 

One thing that struck me was how much I was thinking about the writing as a linear format rather than the organic way I normally tell stories, present imagery or make work. For some reason I never thought to write something like this the same way I make dances. The dream last night basically was the movie of the work and it was unfolding image after image. 

I am pretty excited about rewiring the process abs in some ways making it a little more messy. Layout all the moments and images and then shade shape and form from there. This work is begging for a collage and is needing to be presented through a movement perspective rather than a literary perspective. Spending time in the depth of each imagistic moment is what always works for me in dance and seems to be the way the story is begging to be told here. 

It seems as if I am getting the “picture” that in order for me to write, I must write like a choreographer. In order for me to convey my ideas, I need to shape worlds like I shape dance works in space. It’s a big ah ha for me to realize I just have to keep creating the way that is best and works for me rather than trying to create in a way that works for others. Stay in the creative flow you know and let the medium be the variable. 

I have a lot of scribbling and imaging to do today so I think it will be enough for today’s thoughts. My intention was to talk about the line I started with but I think I will save that for tomorrow. Happy to explain why the character says what he does and what it all means. But for now, I’m rather inspired to get to making; dancing my way through the story. 

Thirty Days of Thoughts: Day 5

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body knowledge, choreography, creative energy, Dance, Dance Forms, dance makers, dance making, dancers, dancing, energetic pathways, Energy, teaching dance

6/5/21

I have fallen in love with dance so many times during my adventure with it. In and out of love with the field and all of it’s dysfunction and challenges. What I have come to realize is that I have not really been in love with dance but rather a body in motion and the ability to be consciously present in the training, reshaping and organizing of a falling body through space. 

For so long I have tried to simply do this very thing and have been challenged to justify it as research, choreography, engagement, activism and outreach when all that was important for me was to simply exist in the joy of being present in this body.

I realize existing in academia all this time I have lost the soul and joy of movement by always having to assess, quantify and promote my brand. It’s no wonder the joy of movement and being in love with it has long been gone. What an exhausting relationship and unhealthy coupling it is. Certainly not a positive one to have had if dance was a person.

So in my reflections during these turbulent times I am finding out that I am remembering when it is I have been in love with my body in motion and the carving and shaping of my energies in space. I am remembering that at every turn all that mattered was the movement. I remember there is nothing else but movement.

What is delightful about this is I can return to the space of being where I am free to present and deeply committed to the conscious movement mechanics and expression of a soul inhabiting a body in motion defying space and time. 

I can be in this place again if I am capable of surrendering the justification for being driven by the ego and of the expectations of a field requiring long held hierarchies. Is it possible to exist within structures that strangle and suffocate voices that do not adhere to the same exclusive value systems laid out by a field and more specifically the archaic funding mechanism which holds so many marginalized voices hostage?

I have always struggled with this but now feel it is truly time to let it all go and fall back to being in love with falling; artfully and gracefully falling through time and space without a care for the construct which binds bodies from being all that they are and can be. 

Thirty Days of Thoughts: Day 3

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choreography, creative energy, Creative Flow, creative process, Creativity, Dance, dance makers, dance making, dancers, dancing, energetic pathways, Energy, energy flow, joy, Movement, venation

6/3/21

After the last two days of sharing and taking you back to the intersection of creativity and spirituality I thought it might be fun to take a walk down memory lane and share a little about the first seeds of the abundant work that followed from my first professional work called Venation. 

I was so inspired by the Tao Te Ching, Qigong and energy work in general that I wanted to research energy more and pull together the eastern and western essence in this process. So off I went to look to science, specifically contemporary physics, to see what I could see. And there went the box to the lid that has still yet to be closed. 

I researched and researched from both a traditional and contemporary perspective using imagery and concepts from both to create a men’s quartet that would gain a lot of traction by premiering at a shared concert with some of my colleagues in the Chicago modern scene and danced by myself, Raven, Krenly and Troy. It was a powerhouse premier that ended up being performed in several venues and festivals throughout the next few years. 

It was my first taste of doing that kind of in depth research and work which carried me even further down the rabbit hole of inspiration. Oddly I continue the investigation as a way of explaining my belief that “choreography is the art of shaping energy in space”. This very simple belief system for myself was the best way I could explain how I made dances or more honestly how I see dances being manifested in space by how my eyes see time falling bodies organized in an artful and poetic way. 

I worked this way for several years before deciding to run off to graduate school where I would have to really justify my process, clarify the research and be able to qualitatively and quantitatively convince my thesis panel of my beliefs. I remember Donald McKayle expressing what a unique way of looking at dance making and the way I see energy as a way of making sense and the matter of dances. 

This would continue in this fashion until the premier of Amaranth Contemporary Dance in 2006 for a concert entitled Experiment in White. This title was a nod to the company I had in Chicago, Cerulean Dance Theater, and our major concert Experiment in Blue. It is very clear my need to connect the dots, pay homage and to remember where all of the work comes from. The heart has been the energy throughout this process and will always be the fire energy necessary for the art of making dances. That and the art of using conscious movement to heal ourselves physically, energetically and spiritually. Art is really from the heART. 

The photo is from a shoot to promote Venation. Photo Credit: William Frederking

Something To Be Grateful For

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adult dance, art, Ballet, contemporary dance, creative bliss, creative energy, Dance, Energy, gratefulness, Modern, Movement, pedagogy, Soul to Soul, spirit, spirituality, Teaching, Technique

Recently I was asked to share my thoughts on what I might be grateful for with the participants of an adult dance camp that I had the opportunity teaching at. What came to mind was the moments you see a student realize that they have the power to make physical changes and be conscious of a technical application. This moment is a tremendous light that is reflected throughout the body and radiates such joy that one cannot help but be grateful to be participating in such a wondrous event.

 

I think this moment is one of the reasons I enjoy teaching so much. In all honesty, I never wanted to teach in my life. I had a very different vision of what I would be doing, but for some reason, my path has created an opportunity to be in the act of sharing information that helps people to find their kinetic potential and realize the magic of dance that I so love myself. Watching students fall in love with movement and their development of a conscious relationship with their body and their moving spirit really is something to be grateful for.

 

Another reason why this moment is so significant for me is that it allows the learner to release their walls of insecurity and fear. In doing so, it empowers them to understand the meaning and purity of movement. It encourages a confidence in them that they too, for all these collective moments, experience the great joy and magic of dance. It is truly a wonderful world to be able to live in. I am grateful that I am blessed with the opportunity to live it on a daily basis and share it. What brings me continued joy is that those that are able to glimpse that magic for a brief amount of time are experiencing it.

 

It is so very important that we as human beings understand intimately the power of magic in our lives. It is incredibly significant that we allow opportunities for ourselves to be in a state of creative bliss no matter how small or expansive those times may be. We, at our very core of our existence, are pure creative energy. We need to be congruent with that so that we can be at peace with our mind and body while inhabiting the creative energy of our very being.  All too often, we are held hostage to ways of existing that are not sustainable to our souls, our environment and one another.

 

Therefore, I am grateful. Grateful for the opportunities when I can see people stand with incredible courage in front of themselves and watch themselves dig deep within their potential and make shifts in their physical being. These very shifts will offer a magnitude of ripples in the rest of their lives. I hope that when they are faced with incongruence, they will remember the joy and magic of what they felt making changes in their bodies and realize they have the power to make changes in every part of their lives.

 

It is my hope that my students, whatever the age they may be, realize that in the end, learning how to dance is really learning how to navigate this wondrous life. The educational process of dancing is really a metaphor for our lives. We must daily put into practice a rigorous training so that we may pay attention to our physical being and our creative spiritual being understanding their balance and letting them be a partner in realizing our dreams.  If we are to truly understand life, we must reveal our souls to the process of living and the process of learning. I can think of no better way to do them both than the art of dancing, or rather, the art of gracefully falling through space being carried by the spirit of the work and the magic of dance.

Photo Credit: Doug Roark

Amaranth Contemporary Dance: “Transcending Chronology”

Choreography: Scott Putman

Dancers: Katie Contessa and Scott Putman