Thirty Days of Thoughts: Day 28

Tags

Ballet, Believing, choreography, Conscious Living, courage, Dance, Dance Appreciation, Dance Forms, dance makers, dance making, dancers, destiny, faith, improvisation, manifest, modern dance

I was reminded of a memory from four years ago when I was in Arezzo, Italy teaching a EBAS Level I teachers certification workshop. I used to love going there on a regular basis to teach dance and to spend about 6-8 weeks there at a time. It was such a gift to settle into such a lovely place surrounded by folks who wanted to be submerged in the arts and in Italian culture. 

I consider myself fortunate to have had the opportunity to be a part of the Academia del Arte’s summer arts program for about 6 years and then to continue a collaborative relationship with their program by returning to teach certification courses off and on for the next four years. It was such a delight and certainly a creative luxury. 

Now that we are on this side of the pandemic and there are openings happening, it’s time to open the heart for the next European opportunity. I am not quite sure where that will be or even how it will come about, but I am putting it out there that I am ready to collaborate in ways that combine dance and being in beautiful places with engaged and passionate people. 

And now it is out there. Time to give space to it so it travels to where it needs to land. It has worked many times before and with an open heart, it will connect again. 

Oddly this is how all of my study abroad relationships began. Having conversations with the universe opened conversations with people. First was the lighting and dance program in Costa Rica that created so many wonderful opportunities and was the seed for creating my project based company, Amaranth. The unfolding and work that evolved from that has been mind blowing. 

The second opportunity was the Arezzo one where I was searching for places to host a new study abroad program in Rome. I sent an email to request information about spaces and would you know I ended up on the summer arts faculty at the Academia. As I mentioned before that unfolded into a ten year relationship that was simply magical. 

Most recently, after the shift and changes of Italy I was sitting at a recruitment table for VCU when I was approached by Michael Foley to see if I would be interested in working with him and USF to build the semester study abroad program. He was taking his brilliant summer program and blowing it up to create the larger semester program. It was brilliant and began a lovely collaborative relationship that is still unfolding. I am so grateful to him and all of our students who get to have this incredible experience. 

Another delightful experience has been a six year relationship with Perth, Australia where I have had the incredible opportunity to build a relationship with that community in ways I never imagined possible. Teaching Master Class workshops, EBAS teachers certifications and setting work on three colleges and companies has been delightful. It will be nice to return in 2022 for certifications and hopefully a creative opportunity as well. It would be glorious to open a relationship with folks in Sydney to share the work there as well. 

And so now, I open my heart to the next opportunity to share EBAS, Fundamental Conscious Movement and many creative projects wherever there is the space and willingness. I release this into the universe to connect and engage folks that are hungry to connect through these unique ways of holistically training the body and creatively engaging one’s voice. It will be a delight to see where these energies take me. 

Thirty Days of Thoughts: Day 5

Tags

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. 

Small Moments/Small Breaths

Tags

art, changes, Dance, Dance Appreciation, Dance Forms, dance makers, dance making, dancer makers, dancers, dancing, Existence, faith, humanity, learning, lessons learned, me, observations, sharing, space, thoughts, truth

Small Moments/Small Breaths

Strangled by the separation of bodies in motion in shared spaces and the need to push forward in “uncertain” times I have finally come to a point where I no longer feel confident and secure in pushing forward. Sure, I have had to find the strength and courage to be there for the students and to be able to find the ability to keep on keeping on, but honestly, it has been a lot to carry and at times hard to breathe.

Once classes had ended I found myself a drift in these new spaces and new ways of figuring out what to do. Like so many, I struggled with not being able to be in the same space with all of these incredible bodies searching, striving and living the beauty of a body in motion artfully shaping space with incredible precision and grace. The lack of being present in the moment of transformation hurts the kinetic spirits of a community of movement. And no matter how much I am supposed to be brave, confident and courageous, alas I don’t think I am succeeding.

In  many ways this is good to be able to recalibrate and ask so many necessary questions. I believe this as well as believe that in the end this will be a moment of courageous change and a necessary shift for the field and for how dance lives in academia. Truth be told I have never seen myself as a “company” kind of artist nor one that is constantly academically justifying outcomes in an art form that, for me, is all about the process of discovery.

Within the context of this time, how do we reframe the ways in which we see ourselves within the field, within the our process and within our dreams? When being a body in artful motion has been in many ways irreversibly changed, how does one continue to find the surface of the waters of darkness to just catch a little breath to fill the lungs of hope?

Of course I am moving! I still continue to share EBAS classes with folks from all over finding new discoveries and new ways of being in communion. Sure I take long walks with Beathan and find myself in motion on so many levels. Yet, my heart is broken by the inability to be in communities of movement artists to grapple with new concepts and ideas together while watching and encouraging play and exploration.

As many know I am very much an introvert but being in a classroom either leading or collaborating is the way in which I am able to find connection, compassion and a fulfilled heart. I must say being alone isn’t lonely when the work you do on a daily basis is in community and in the love and passion for your work.

One of the things I love most about teaching is the extremely intimate hands on approach that I engage in with my students. I have healing hands and consider myself more a healer than a teacher, choreographer or artist. Certainly more so than an academic. Be that as it may, when the ability to physically connect and create a space of sensorial exploration and transformation is removed from your daily experience, it is crushing and suffocating to say the least.

So now that having to put on my big boy pants and carry on has come to a close, I must admit I am at a loss now that even the smallest amount of connection to movement and students has dried up. Now it is a matter of asking questions and spending a great deal of time accessing new ways of moving and perhaps new ways of making. Yet, I am not interested in the many forms that people are suggesting and pretending that it is just the way we have to carry on. I certainly understand that we need to move forward and figure it out, but still my heart breaks at the love lost in the ways that have meant so much to me.

Truth be told I am not a dance for camera person. It is a great field and there is so much great work happening, but it is simply just not something for me. Many of the directions we are being asked to explore are not for me nor am I particularly interested in being a part of. There are so many wonderful artists already doing this great work and exploring those avenues. I am just not one of them. No, I am one of those artists that lives and breathes the body and craves the discoveries and all the wisdom that a body in motion shares in that process. Is it so wrong to JUST want to be that? Is it a crime to not want to pretend that I am desperately afraid of losing the kind of physical corporeal wisdom that I value above all else?

So then why is it I feel I am not connecting to all of these new ways and that I am just not capable of pretending to be “going with the flow”? While I mourn the loss of contact and the physicality and exuberance of training and performing, do I still have to pretend that all of this doesn’t matter? Is pretending that the heart is broken and still carrying on a healthy thing to do or can we breathe and ask ourselves the kinds of questions we need to ask in a more calm, rational and open space?

This is the thing about calamity, we turn into very reactive individuals trying to solve problems that we have no answers for but feel we need to do it in the first place simply because we are falling prey to the corporatization of academia, the field and the prioritization of outcome or product driven models of success. Wouldn’t it be the time to breathe and ask ourselves some deep seated questions about how to move forward while truly addressing issues in the field that have continued to be overlooked? Would it be nice to stop the train and have conversations that are necessary in having to actually work in community rather than work as individuals in a community cloaked in the very models of suppression that exist?

I would most certainly welcome the space and time to share and grapple with how we are all feeling and move from a place of empathetic understanding as the beginnings of discovering the kind of field that is necessary at this time and the kind of field dance has the potential to be. If we find ourselves coupling together in the energy of survival, how are we asking ourselves clear questions through the lens of creative change instead?

In my meditations I keep on hearing the body whisper “small movements. small breaths”. It is a recurring phrase that I hear but am not quite sure how to translate. The one thing I do know is it is suggesting small and conscious steps through conscious movement with conscious breath. I also think it is a response to the broken heart missing movement, connection and the joy of that collaboration. Perhaps slowing down into the present moment of every action with the awareness of that moment is the best way for me at this time to find the courage and confidence to breathe deeply in movement again.

Perhaps this is all I have to hold on at this moment as I figure out where I wish to go next. Perhaps this is the way of asking myself the questions of my intentions within the field and the kind of artist I wish to be moving forward. Perhaps this is the moment to question whether the kind of artist I am is viable at this moment or will the way I have loved working ever have value in the same way. Perhaps small movement and small breaths will be the way in which I am able to answer these questions finding a path the brings peace back to my heart.

Training for the Love of Dance

Tags

Ballet, body, body knowledge, contemporary dance, courage, Dance, Dance Appreciation, Dance Forms, Energy, faith, Jazz, light, Modern, nueral pathways, sharing, Soul to Soul, speaking body., Speaking with the heart, spirit, Support, Technique, training

 

We push the body to expand its limitations while embedding spirit with that training.  Even though our bodies are not us, we are our souls that expand as the direct result of our training. In doing this, we build an intimate connection to all the emotions the body goes through while evolving through the rigor and technique as well as the continued rewiring and retracing of our neural pathways. We move mountains inside our physical selves creating space for place while expanding our souls creating space for grace.

 

It is the presence of this grace that exemplifies who we are as dancers; it is the energetic makeup of the performing kinetic body. It does not matter what kind of dance style we perform, what particular genre or technique; training is the act of deepening the physical and spiritual body so that we might allow the heart to speak through all movement.

 

It is this place that we should welcome our brothers and sisters in our forms embracing that we are all warriors of this thing called dance and that we share at our very essence the art of training, We should honor one another despite not understanding why we choose to manipulate or speak with our bodies differently. We should wrap our colleagues in support knowing that we too have needed loving arms to ease the burden of striving to better our physical and emotional selves.

 

It would be lovely to be able to see all our dance forms as building a larger community, understanding and learning from one another so as to expand our voices, build new audiences and drive the art form ever more deeper into our own hearts while sharing our humanity with an ever expanding audience.

 

Training for the love of dance is why we are here. Living for the love of life is why we share.