Converted from Claris Works to HTML by Jim Davis, July 16 1997.
Dear S.P,
As you know from Ming-Shen Ku's performance being a choreographer isn't any easier. But really it's not the figuring it out that's important. You are perfectly positioned in the 'Cosom' of a false dichotomy. It is from that potential space of endless questioning and deconstruction that you will find the spiral of energy for the next 25 years. The choreography is in the asking- i.e. Take a stand, get a life!
Dear Jacky,
Everytime I find a new pair of kneepads they leave me after a few weeks. How can I keep a good pair of kneepads in my life?
Knock kneed
Dear Knock Kneed,: You could try finding knee pads that really want to commit. Hard in this free flowing community. A more practical solution could be painting or dyeing them to stand out as they try to escape across the floor, or those strings like on mittens when you were a kid. Permanent knee pads could be the answer... I hear in your letter a strong sense of loss. I think you should stay with this raw discomfort. Perhaps practice embracing the insecurity of not knowing if they will leave.
Dear Jacky,
I yearn for the mature, older, wiser woman. Are you available?
signed 'still learning'
Dear Learner,
Although I am flattered by your letter, in my professional position I am unable to follow up such a proposition.
Jacky (room 313 North)
Dear Jacky,
I have this feeling I may be a Socialist Worker. How can I tell?
Yours, possibly in Comradeship.
Dear Red in the Bed, , Ways to tell your a Socialist Worker: You sit on the Left side of the dining room. You think the word Jam is a filthy capitalist invention.
Dear Jacky,
When you haven't had enough sleep, you've just put your shoes on to leave and someone you've longed to dance with the whole celebration suddenly appears in your kinesphere unattached. Tell me , dear Jacky, what's my priority here.
Signed: in the doorway
Dear In the doorway,
Do not miss that opportunity again. Tear off your shoes, drop your bags and say staring directly into their eyes," finally the dance I've been waiting for the whole night. " Carry them into the middle of the space and enjoy yourself. No one could resist feeling that special!!!
Dear Jacky, How do I go about getting a conversation going with some cute girl, ya know, one that I'm hot for. Any help appreciated.
Another cute girl.
Hey Cute Girl,
Heat will certainly lead you to other bodies in this form but I say the direct approach is always the most successful. That way you know right away whether the 'hot' feelings are mutual. Or you could try the subtle approach but with only a few days to go you could end up dancing solo. So what are you waiting for! Stop rolling around and get straight to the point. Ask her to dance.
A few hours before this evening's performance, I asked myself why I am going to perform. Why dance in a specific viewing scenario where all of the onlookers are stunning movers in every dancing and jamming situation? What makes my desire to perform tonight any different or more suitable than a much less informal romp in the studio?
And so I try to bring this insatiable urge into words, I came to this thought in anticipation of tonight's improv, with my partner of dance, life, love, and the father of my child, Aniya.
A time not to think. Not to think about what I know is possible, but to open my channels to possibilities.
To enjoy my life partner in a mutual love for this dance we live through our lives.
To breathe in my sensations through my pores and generate from my center the gut of my affiliation to existence on this earth, in this body, to what calls me again and again -- to move, to touch, to enter, to resist, to fly with closed eyes that are open.
To love and play
with you
in contact
through life.
It differs from all other muscles. How many push-ups can you make before the muscles in your arms and stomach get so tired that you have to stop? But your heart muscle goes on working for as long as you live. It does not get tired, because there is a phase of rest built into every single heartbeat. Our physical heart works leisurely. And when we speak of the heart in a wider sense, the idea that life-giving leisure lies at the very center is implied. Never to lose sight of that central place of leisure in our life would keep us youthful. Seen in this light, leisure is not a privilege but a virtue. Leisure is not the privilege of a few who can afford to take time, but the virtue of all who are willing to give time to what takes time - to give as much time as a task rightly takes.
--Brother David Steindl-Rast (submitted by Martin Keogh)
Gratefulness, the Heart of Prayer
Breakfast Conversation, Friday:
(submitted by Elizabeth Zimmer)An American : In my laundry room at home, we use a little card like the Valadine, so I don't need to save quarters any more. The machine has a digital readout; you know exactly how much time you've paid for, and how much time is left.
A Scandinavian : The laundry machines in the basement of our building are free. They're part of what we pay rent for.
A German : We usually have washers and dryers in our apartments.
curved. unfolded. opposed. softened. curled. grounded. tested. circled. built. bridged. absorbed. overflowed. bled. bruised. balanced. believed. completed. meditated. grooved. realized. encompassed. nudged. scooped. shelved. undulated. leaned. gestured. widened. narrowed. joined. dropped. lifted. tipped. spun. alternated. complied. collided. influenced. contrasted. engaged. developed. invested. reached. committed. resolved. changed. grew. circulated. tolerated. confused. did. panicked. retreated. lingered. stayed. healed. hurt. dislocated. arrived. expanded. traveled. overlapped. separated. hugged. synchronized. manifested. trusted. took. shifted. opened. closed. pressed. affected. crawled. warmed. relaxed. massaged. folded. unfolded. repeated. articulated. connected. pulled. held. stretched. condensed. released. pushed. compressed. grazed. reached. risked. fell. flew. sounded. ran. cried. laughed. sighed. sang. jumped. stilled. fitted. moved. repelled. freed. found. lost. lived. attracted. walked. was. yess'd. no'd. coincided. caught. supported. recovered. intersected. captured. felt. inhaled. connected. diverged. exhaled. imagined. pointed. harvested. followed. changed. asked. answered. searched. focused. directed. wandered. looked. observed. rolled. rocked. shook. bent. squatted. stood. sat. reflected. breathed. circled. led. spiraled. telescoped. crescented. activated. desired. survived. intended. touched. encouraged. sensed. gratified. stopped. landed. saw. noticed. chose. contacted. dreamed. feared. loved. transformed. played. thanked. met. resisted. allowed. formed. danced. transferred. cradled. flipped. switched. reversed. extended. gleaned. poured. plopped. gave. collapsed. guided. weighted. waited. forgot. remembered. willed. began. ended. continued...
--Shari Azar
The jam in Toronto takes place every Sunday from 11:30 am to 1:30 pm. While they claim to have the longest-running jam (20 years) on the same day, it has been at different places. For the last five years they have gathered at the Omo Dance Studio, 345 Adelaide Street West, and they ask for a $3 donation. Anywhere from 5 to 35 people show up, with an average of 15 people. CI is taught at all professional institutions in Toronto, including the National Ballet School, the School of Toronto Dance Theatre, George Brown College and performing arts high schools. The dance community just put on their First Festival of Interactive Physics two weeks ago, and brought Martin Keogh and Peter Ryan to Toronto as guest teachers. The Festival lasted for three days, Friday through Sunday, with classes and performances.
Contact has become a vibrant part of the Toronto dance scene. The professional dance community has become quite enthusiastic and energetic about CI.
After Steve's talk, at least six people cut their toenails.
Elizabeth Zimmer, the Village Voice dance critic, hosted a panel discussion on the Politics of Touch in the Age of Sexual Harassment on Tuesday. With her on the panel were Roger Copeland, an author and professor at Oberlin, Riccardo Morrison, who calls himself the Servant of Pan, and Ann Cooper-Albright, a feminist and scholar.
First, I would like to start with a definition of sexual harassment (this is from a pamphlet from Oberlin College, Equity Concerns Office):
A sexual offense is defined to include, but not be limited to, the following:
- Behavior relating to gender or sexual orientation which has the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with an individual's performance or which creates an unreasonably hostile, offensive, or intimidating environment.
- Behavior which is inappropriate to the academic or employment setting -- for example, unwelcome or irrelevant comments, gestures, or touching -- which may reasonably be perceived as a sexual overture or sexual denigration. This includes making known to other people a person's sexual orientation without his/her consent and with the intent to denigrate that person sexually.
- A request for sexual favors when submission to, or rejection of, such a request might reasonably be viewed as a basis for evaluative decisions affecting an individual's career or educational opportunities.
The discussion meandered around issues of sexual harassment and legislative cures, but no one ever came forward with a definition of sexual harassment as presented above.
My first thought after the discussion ended: what does sexual harassment have to do with CI? While many dancers probably have experienced sexual harassment, the author included, we have not experienced it during a dance. Generally, sexual harassment occurs between people who have different amounts of power: teacher/student, boss/employee. Not between dancers. If you look at paragraph no. 2, preceding, it states: behavior which is inappropriate to the academic or employment setting. Not a dance studio, unless it's a class. And only then between teacher and student.
The discussion topic could have had a better name: Appropriate touch, or what to do when a dance starts getting juicy. Leave the politics out of it.
Now, some people like their dances juicy. That's fine. One person commented that he had many people he danced with using sexual energy, but they had a clear agreement that they left their desire on the dance floor. This works for some people; for others they may need to say something to their partner to clarify the situation.
CI requires intimacy without sexuality. To many, this does not make sense. We need to discuss this with those new to the form, and talk about it with everyone a little more than we do currently. We need to speak up when we feel uncomfortable dancing with someone, for whatever reason. We need to let the strength of our bodies spread to our voices. Let's continue the dialogue in our communities.
From the notebook of Christie Svane
Today I danced with Ann Woodhead and we both wept as we embraced -
I whispered "Thank you" into her ear. And she thanked me too. I felt this whole event was to bring me to her ear to thank the woman who opened the door to a life I've been leading ever since....
I feel so honored to be part of this community, to be part of this history. I feel like I am floating on the sea of all the work, all the dancing, over all the years. I feel the safety of the trunk of this dance-tree now in the winds of the world. I feel the roots deep and the crown high.
Its so good
to grow up
together....
During the feedback circle after the Image Lab, a fellow says:
"I see a Group Faith in this simple, spacious, ambiguously theatrical way of working"
LETTING THE FORM INFORM
I thought about calling a small group and then realized - thanks to tiredness and our general overbooking - that instead I am more curious about a broad far-reaching experiment in which any concerns or "hot" issues arising from our practice of CI could be examined by referring back to the principles inherent in the form itself.
What would happen if we gathered to study "together" any question with the idea that the form itself may contain the wisdom we seek?
My dream is to be comfortable enough to be curious, to act from respect for one another's dignity. Referring back to the form - to inform - helps me step outside of my conditioned tendency to polarize and defend. I imagine playing with each other in this way would provide further dissolution of the counter-productive boundaries that keep us separate.
I am curious about the obvious simplicity lurking just below the complicated surface of our fear.
I want to practice relying on this form to inform us of the next steps to deepen our communion and Sybarite our humanity.
May our greatest resource be each other.
Be in touch.
(Carolyn Stuart
2836 S.E. Oak
Portland, Oregon 97214
email: ctchmky@aol.com)
A little girl goes to see Santa Claus: "I want a Barbie doll and a GI Joe."
"But I thought Barbie comes with Ken," Santa replies.
"No, she comes with GI Joe; she fakes it with Ken."
A panda bear walks into a bar and orders a grilled cheese sandwich, potato salad and a beer. He eats his meal then whips out a gun and shoots the bartender, to the utter horror of the other customers. When they ask him why he shot the bartender, the panda bear replies, "See the dictionary." And sure enough, under panda bear, it says, "Eats shoots and leaves."
Q. How many hippies does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A. Hippies don't screw in lightbulbs; they screw in tents
1. Always have dessert first, slow social dancing is the vertical expression of "Horizontal Desire."
2. "Back From Outer Space (oh no not I)": The universe spits back two New York blondes in black who mock attack to disco yak.
3. "Instructions From With-in" but the Muse without tames the fierce lioness and the Kundalini centaur.
4. "I Was a Choreographer," but I gave it up to make jewels. No audience misunderstanding here, Bravo!
5. "Something Will Happen," to the European union, but will it be more than a pastiche?
6. "Thru Gentl Winds Wam'n See" a shaman doing American Kabuki.
7. "Dali Zerni": It is harder for a camel to pass thru the eye of a needle than to dance stuffed with hard candy.
8. A clown, a mime, an ommmmm...with "I Can't Remember Your Names".
9. "Some English Suites" entering after too much Darjeeling tea, meandering in the river of Gould and Bach, finding a boulder on which to preen.
10. "Deal" me in. Call me out, clap me awake, (bad air ball), fall me down, catch me, juxtapose me, delight me.
Curatorial Comment: Good frame, arresting aspects, multiple perspectives.
Contact Improvisation is the pas de deux of contemporary modern dance. --attributed to Peter Bingham
And the answer is Yes I have bee there and looked over and held on and let go and watched and wondered and yes this is what i know here i am my face my hands and yes I have seen and been and yes I have known...
I remember the kitchen... of course thats not the earliest memory yellow checkered table cloth Mrs.. Burks letting me put 2 teaspoons of sugar on my Fortified Oat Flakes... but of course thats not the earliest. The windows the west Scammons Garden the corner of the tiny room the living room rug. nothing earlier? the crib my crib I remember the bar between my feet my mother putting the heavy shoes and the iron bar on my tiny feet to point the pigeon toes straight. I do remember that. Sleeping on my back. couldn't;t turn over. my mother came and turned me. is that true? could that be true?... And in the same tiny room wanting to know if the earth was the same thing as the world a burning question I had to know if the earth was the same thing as the world and I couldn't ask. I needed to find a way to get the answer without asking. I know it was a stupid question. I couldn't ask. I had to know.
So the sea lion says what you have to do is ask the question. Just ask. Is the earth the same thing as the world. Its ok. Just ask. Just ask. No apologies. No excuses. Just ask....You will get to the window. You will see out. You will know. And the bars between my feet? When do I get those off? Just ask. Just ask. And the question? The earth? The world? Just ask. Just ask.
Amidst the history and the documenting for the future at this celebration, I was looking for the present of us here. The invitation to contribute a writing to this paper gave me a place to find it as well as by being asked to create a small group focusing on singing. I asked the participants who were there if they would like to contribute an image that came from the small group as part of this writing. I would write an introduction to these images.
Friday evening I was asked to be the spokesperson for some of us who expressed non-interest in the Round Robin score that was devised for that evening. People felt it was too long (3 hours), was taking time from dancing together in a more open yet focused way (we had never begun a jam with a clear space for example), and that a night somewhat free of too much structure was wanted. There was a strong consideration that those who had signed up to participate really wanted to perform and should still have the opportunity. At the pre-performance meeting, we arrived at a score that seemed to satisfy the desire for a small focused group to perform within the larger group as audience, for specific time to do a structured score (three half hour groups of twenty people), a 1/2 hour to open it to the large group yet still contain it, and then completely open it for jamming.
It was interesting to me how by being a spokesperson for others for ways to reconsider the format of the evening as well as suggesting a few ideas of how it might form, I became to some the leader of the event. Many people kept coming up to me for answers to their questions as well as to tell me what they wished was happening. I seemed to have acquired a responsibility that I did not expect to have just because I spoke up. I felt this from the curators - one of them asked me if I would keep track of the time for the beginning and then left as did one of the other curators. I observed that when a suggestion was put forth in between the half hour designated groups for anyone to speak up if they needed clarification or wanted to change any of the structure, not much was said but I did hear during the dancing and then later how some wanted more simplicity in the score, wondered where the round robinness went and seemed somewhat disappointed and unsatisfied by not being able to see what was going on because there were so much going on. I was in agreement with this for the most part. I did love the unexpected risings of coherence that would occur within the blurs of movement, but I also missed some of the original idea of having a Round Robin as a performance structure. I chose not to speak up because I wondered if anyone else would express that to the group as a whole rather than to me.
I am writing this the day after. There was a wonderful out door Round Robin on the lawn today that totally fulfilled my desire to have one. A lot of what I have already written about seems somewhat irrelevant in the course of the development of this wholeness of this celebration (we do what we need because of what previously happened; we learn from our history). Most participants I have talked with today seem fine with the outcome with minimal disappointment. I think a reason I want to voice this is that last night raised questions for me about responsibility and leadership and wanting to encourage people to speak up for themselves in a way that they can be heard and not feel it will threaten or destroy some of the groupmind that at times undermines the ensemble possibility. I read last summer in an interview with John Cage that he doesn't believe in only harmony because many sounds are then not heard. This seems relevant in that I think sometimes people don't speak up because it might seem to be disagreement (I do not think disagreement is negative), someone else is louder and more certain, or they think someone will speak for them. I started to understand something Steve has been saying about how it takes more than one to do a dance. I see that he is not dodging attention but spreading responsibility out.
What it comes down to for me today is that it is something about the voice, how we use it, how we listen within using it, the timing in our phrasing, the tone, the content, the desire to be heard and to be heard. I believe the voice is a way to empower ourselves and each other. If we can study and learn how to use our voices, I think we can learn how to communicate without the communication becoming a power struggle.
I would really like to continue my thoughts on the idea of responsibility and leadership and groupmind and individual desires and would welcome any dialogue, vocally or on paper about this. And I would like to add that I am not judging last night's event. I think it was a good attempt at trying to find a solution for how to create a place for two hundred people to feel included. I saw a lot of very beautiful dancing. I also did see some dancing that worried me about safety and wondered how to express my concern about that in that situation and wondered if anyone else saw it that way. I am also not moving away from taking on leading a group and do feel it is important at times to have very clear guidance. I am very curious and interested in what occurred in me and in my perceptions of around me. It is another way of finding the dance.
I have recently discovered a key to my singing that I have been looking for through my studies of Body-Mind Centering. Body-Mind Centering is (for a short definition) a learning method that uses the study and experience of entering different body systems (skeletal, organ, fluid,etc.) and developmental/evolutionary patterns as re-education. The key for me was to learn and enter about the glandular system. This system, also known as the endocrine system, is similar to the chakras in that they work in concert with each other and support the body centrally from the bottom of the spine up through the skull. They can be gently stimulated through sound, creating resonations that I have experienced as very physical. This physicality of sound through and from different locations in my body (somewhat like points on a map) has opened my vocal sound in my singing as well as created a base from which I feel very strong to express myself (more and more) through my singing, as well as my dancing.
There is a lot more about the glands than what I am writing, much more than I have yet discovered. I told this as well to my small group and invited them to go on an exploration with me. We began in a circle saying our names one after the other a number of times in different ways: to learn each other's names, to really hear each other's names, to hear the space of hearing each other's names in the silence between the saying of the names, to sing the name through the body and to shape and distort the name to be unidentifiable.
This was a warm up to who we were and to what our own and each other's sounds were. I then spoke of my interest and then led us through a somatization of the places the glands were through location with touch on the outside of the body and then through sounding. We had time to listen to a more open exploration towards the end which led to learning an African song as a group.
One of the images I gave was that the glands worked not in isolation but as a constellation together. This was an important image for me for us to enter into our own singing as well as how we would be able to sing as a large group.
The other images I would like to share with you come from the other singers:
PINEAL: I am singing a long song way back behind my head. A song within the tail of a comet - a trail of used up energy rocks and dust of history, millions of years, millions of stories ago. There's Agostina, and her mother, and her mother's mother, and Agostina's daughter- my mother- whose voice presses closest, whispering in my ear: "This is what we come from; this is who we are."
PITUITARY: This sound pierces the front of my skull, laser light cutting through bone; an arrow of light streaming to the future. Like a hook on a line cast sure and true, sound sails forward and lands somewhere out there before me...causing a ripple, a splash, an explosion, who knows? I hear my own voice singing not from my throat my mouth but straight from my head. The voice of a thought. The song of possibility.
MAMILLARY BODIES: I stand in the center, at home in the mamillary body, in my mammal's body, singing. Singing in the center of my skull in the center of all this singing. All these mamillary bodies singing what they can, what they will, what they are. Here, now, in Ohio.
The song of the glands a strand that connects time to space, body to spirit, power to joy.
.K. Maltese.
Open my centers here sound here
sound here here here
hear this
echo and touch
open. out. in.
echo and echo and echo and
breathe out
a hot soft tear...skin and sound collide
Hover bird and fish
sweep the sky
permitting this. this. this.
unity of voices.
.Shari Azar.
Touching deep interior centers. Finding voice of their opening our breath a channel projecting centers outward. Our shared space becomes
A living body of sound.
Exterior interiors (inside out). Then our bodies move together. More channels opening: Many layered touch, Inner resonances, grown, visible.
.David Gallahan.
Singing from the Inside Out. On my feet, eyes closed. My mouth stretches open into a great ellipse. Inside the mouth I discover a space as black and vast as the night sky. I listen and find the sounds deep inside my body. The sounds are colors, the colors are vibrations, the vibrations are sounds. I let them rise and pass through my cavernous mouth into the air where I hear these sounds for the first time.
.no name.
On the singing of our names:
I found a message in my name while singing
(shouting/groaning/moaning/whispering...)it over and over. It's about the A, the first letter, it's an opened mouth and senses ready to receive. This is me, yes. Then comes the N. It's a NO, and it's me, too. Only it's kind of hidden behind the A. Now the singing of the N, the soft rolling sound, made me realize I can say No in a soft still way and it doesn't have to be rejecting aggressive. This will help me say no (I need it).
On working on the glands:
It's like a cliche: "Lay your hands on your heart and let it sing. Listen to the sound". And I start crying. It doesn't scare me anymore, it's like a ritual I guess. To open up and clear things out. I think it was about my sister this time.
On listening to a roomful of sound: I had this supersensual feeling of the soundwaves shaping my body, making my hands float and my head jolt. Mmmm. I like!
.Anna.
It was like a roomful of glasses all filled with different levels of water. The room resonated with sound like the ringing from rubbing the rims of all these crystal glasses.
.Alice.
I got the image of a tree in autumn, all the different unique colors of the leaves and these leaves all moving, shimmering. Everybody has their own vibration.
.Judy.
A glass trunk with very thin glass leaves hovering around it the sound drains upwards through the thin, thin shaft.
.no name.
Grosses bises ma grosse memere.
.a southern indian.
thank you readers for your time.
thank you writers for your writing.
(due to time I could not type all of them out, sorry)