Thirty Days of Thoughts: Day 18

Tags

Ballet, Believing, change, Conscious Living, courage, Courageous Vulnerability, Dance, modern dance, Soul to Soul, spirit, teaching dance, training, transformation

I missed two days of postings this weekend but oddly the work I have been doing over the last two days has been incredibly insightful and supportive of the work I will be presenting at the Corps de Ballet International Conference July 6-9. It has been a flurry of connections and linking of many aspects of my research. Super excited about sharing the work and welcoming folks into the history of the form in addition to the theories that inhabit the Elemental Body Alignment System. 

I have shared this work with my students of course and have shared the form but I have often only shared the pedagogy perspective with students of the teacher training courses I host. Even there I have not shared a lot of the foundational work as there has not been enough time during our course to really get into that or from a feeling that it might be too controversial or  too esoteric for folks simply wanting to embed the form into their training schools. I have not presented this material in a conference setting nor have found the right voice or theme to connect to. I am excited that this conference offers this opportunity and am very grateful to be invited to do so. 

It has been an awfully long time trying to figure out how to share this information without it feeling like I am condemning the way ballet or technique has been taught. The work does ask us to reexamine how we present our material and what our values are behind our training practices. This in and of itself is a challenge especially in a form that historically focuses on the end aesthetic results and values a limited range of what constitutes success. 

There have been folks in the field who have been practicing and teaching in a certain way for so long that to challenge that in any way might seem an affront or conflict for them. I often see this reflected in students who are reluctant to explore and experiment with different ways of doing material they have learned a certain way. Even if they are in pain or are uncomfortable with what it is they are doing. Ironically students don’t even know the how of what they are doing rather they just try and match a picture of what has been presented. Students mostly learn through imitation rather than sensation. 

You can see that shifting the way in which they have participated in class or have been evaluated and praised is difficult for students. Even if they are interested in getting better at what it is they love to do, when they are challenged with change, they find it difficult. However, as soon as they “feel” movement from a different perspective which offers them more freedom of movement and range of motion and gives them the legs, feet, turns and jumps they want; the student begins to open up and explore how much more is possible for them. They are now empowered through this new vehicle and begin a new relationship with the form as well as with themselves as creative beings. 

I am really excited to share this with folks who are the teachers of students from across so many demographics and am hoping this will be a bridge builder opportunity for more sharing and creative relationships. It is exciting to see the new ways that will be available for folks to access and dive into the information in new ways. The connections and layering of both eastern and western sciences and theories is clearer than ever and will hopefully make it easier for people to understand the how of EBAS and the fundamental concepts and principles of ballet. 

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. 

Questioning an Ephemeral Life

Tags

artistic, Ballet, choreography, contemporary ballet, creative process, Dance, ephemeral, heart knowledge, kinetic imagery, modern dance, sharing work, Soul to Soul, spirit, Teaching, teaching dance

As an artist and a teacher of ephemeral kinetics, I often wonder what it is my work amounts to. There is no tangible structure, thing or product to behold. All that is left of my work is what remains in the hearts of those that experience it.  Yes, there are videos of work or photos of moments in work, but really, the work as it is meant to be experienced, does not exist in any kind of totality.

 

Recently I created a very large work and left that work with the company. When I say left the work, I really mean leave behind the spirit of the work inside the movements of the hearts and minds of the dancers. They are the keepers of this energy and of this spirit. They are the guardians of the kinetic imagery and are truly the only ones that can translate the visions of my heart mind.

 

I left this work behind in the hands of many beautiful dancers and had to give away any control or tangible ownership. I sat quietly the evening of its premier knowing, that several states away, my vision was being revealed, moment-by-moment, in a space so very, far from where I sat.

 

This got me to thinking more deeply about what it is I do. How is it I have managed to make a life out of sharing the unknown or unseen? How is it that I have managed to build a body of work that really only exists in the moment? Even in teaching, once the class has ended, one can only know with ones heart what the body is feeling. One cannot really point to a book and say, I know this. Tests do not reflect the body’s knowledge when the heart is the only thing that truly understands this kinetic knowledge.

 

Does the work I do have value? Does what I share within the context of a concert or classroom matter in the scope of things? I know my heart has been moved and my life changed by my own process, and for that there is much value as my life is larger than I ever dreamed possible. Yet, what does it mean and how does one share that with people in the world who are so desperately needed to help support this kind of illusive artistic expression?

 

Our culture puts a great deal of value on product. We are constantly thinking about producing and providing outcomes. Even if those outcomes are really, just place cards to help people assign value to something unseen or unknown. Many times, I wonder why it is we are forced to justify ourselves through sales and seats when we should be spending more time crafting and exploring the value of our hearts.

 

Yet, with all of these unanswered questions, I retreat to the land of kinetic images. I give my time and my energy to creating worlds within worlds that only those that have the courage to walk through, will understand. I choose to spend my time working in the ephemeral world because what has brought goodness and light into my own life, may in fact, be felt by someone else. Moreover, the simple heart exchange, the moment when one basks in the energy and light of the universe through the transference of kinetic heart energy, is the most immeasurable yet profound moment of all.  This is the moment I choose.