Missing –

I have been thinking about a modified daily practice.  A solo version that modifies the idea of the doer and watcher.  In this case it is still a series of 3 minute physical practices but between each 3 minute physical doing practice is 3 minutes of meditation or inward watching to compliment the doing.  The 3 minute aspect is arbitrary.  I enjoyed it in the realm of trading off 3 practices in 3 sets.  But like the video daily practice, time – the determined limitation of a length – is definitely adjustable.  Maybe the doing is not the same length as the inward watching.  My sense is the ‘meditation’ aspect would be longer then the doing but maybe that is just my need for more time to focus.

Where dp meets performance work

Performing in Tami Stronach’s “But it’s for you… ” at Danspace Project this weekend I am begining to really see/feel the impact of daily practice in a performance setting. Although the concepts we explore in daily practice come from our experiences performing, this is the first time I have really felt them effect my approach to and experience performing. It is a most exhilerating experience to have pulled particular questions from performance and explored them outside of a formal performance setting and now feeling the deepening of performance because of it. All of the work to find something genuine in front of “eyes”, even in it’s exploratory or unknowing stage, played a large part in my entrance into and journey through last nights performance. As I have been negotiating the relationship between improvisation and set material for some time now, I discovered a clarity in their relationship through these notions of feeling my way through something, as we have been examining in the daily practice. The notion of negotiating my way through set material rather than “dancing the steps” is not a new developement for me but can be well articulated through the seeking of that physical place where one is fully present in a moment and not “performing” but rather dialoging with a watcher with an honesty and awareness that comes from an internal sincerety and an external acknowledgement of ones environment which includes an “audience”. The obstacles are slightly different, in daily practice we are improvising and the uncertainty comes, in part, from a place of “what to do”. But the same kind of detachment from a genuine place can come from the opposite – of “knowing” what you will do.

Some thoughts….

The following is an excerpt of writing I did to try and understand what it is I want to research as part of my doctorate thesis in Performance Studies.  It is a reflection on the Ann Arbor Daily Practice sessions earlier this year with Christian and Lindsey.  I decided to start from the beginning of this wild adventure I am embarking on to see how my current thoughts relate to the initial creative and intellectual stimulation that birthed this craziness.  I know that some of what is written has been posted already by both Lindsey and Christian but I wanted to share my take on it as well.  And I definitely invite clarifications on any of these thoughts from C&L as I realize my memory of that time is becoming less clear.  And I apologize for the formality of my writing, it just reflects where my writing brain is right now and maybe it is something I should be aware of ……  

—-notes—-

The root of my interest in this thesis comes from a creative research project with 2 other performers (Christian Burns, Lindsey Dietz Marchant).  For a month and a half we engaged in a daily physical/performance practice.  Monday through Friday we would meet at first inside a studio and later outside in a park.  The final structure of the daily practice evolved over the first couple weeks.  The daily practice was a bridge in many respects between technique class and rehearsal.  It wasn’t a practice focused on training the body in the way that technique class does and it lacked the goals of a rehearsal process.  We were not building a dance.  The original process started out with a ‘warming up’ of the body that would include the usual chit chat that is common during rehearsal and then we would turn to improvisation.  At first we started with solo improvisations that had a specific length.  The task of the improvisor was to have complete freedom to do ‘anything’ in a set amount of time.  Those not doing would watch and wait their turn.  In the first couple weeks this first task of the solo improviser would build to 5 minute sessions with two people improvising, or 5 minutes all improvising (no watchers), or 5 minutes without contact, five minutes all with contact.  For reasons I can’t remember now the 3 of us ended up settling on a structure of 3 minute solo improvisations rotating into the performing space 3 times for a total of 9 minutes of improvising and 18 minutes observing/watching.  The practice would last no longer then an hour and we would time it in such a way that we never went over.  It became important to me to stick to this structure and abide by it regardless of weither we wished to do another round or not. No matter how ‘good’ or dissatisfied we felt about the practice on a particular day.  The daily discipline of following the same practice became very important to me and it was fascinating to observe the initial feelings or sense data when we finished each session.

Some observations about daily practice. 

- I prefered to start the day with a daily practice and felt although without any data to backup my ‘feeling’ that it was important for me to engage in the daily practice before my mind got filled up with the responsibilities of that day and the greater responsibilities of my life.

- At the time I was teaching at a university and there was always a positive creative after effect to every daily practice.  My mind was open to new possibilities and my class became more creative and in turn more satisfying to me.

- After the end of some daily practice sessions I felt what I called the ‘two scotch’ effect.  That feeling of clarity, optimism and relaxation that I have only felt through artifical stimulation such as drugs and alcohol.  It was something that  would sneak up on me, that I could never recreate if I tried to recreate it consciously.

- Being on or off.  The phrase or question, “am I on?” grew in meaning and by the end of our daily practice sessions uttering the words ‘am I on?” meant volumes of exploration.  During the three minutes I struggled mostly with being physically honest in what I was doing.  It was a constant struggle of mind and body, conscious thoughts and unconscious impulses.  I enjoyed the struggle of ‘finding myself’ below the layers of taught craft and manufactured self-awareness.

- The doer and the watcher.  Daily practice didn’t click for me fully until I completed the loop of investigation between the doer and watcher.  It was one thing to do, but it was another thing to watch.  As the doer knowing the watcher was there was important, trusting the watchers to watch and building that trust as the doer increased my own sense of self trust to explore in those three minutes sessions.

-The way in which I watched changed from the first second to the last.  It was similar to warming up the body physically.  I went from an un focused mind to a more focused mind and with every second of watching my mind and attention became more focused on the doer.  This took a lot of concentration at the beginning of every daily practice but my ability to be distracted became harder and harder and my ability to focus and ‘watch’ and take in what the doer was doing became easier.  I sometimes felt that the ‘two scotch’ feeling started to creep into my system not when I connected as a doer but when when I connected as a watcher.

scale and seeing

Images from august practice sessions in Holyoke, Ma. 

Seeing our movements within such an open setting was in itself a practice of concentration. Not due to content but due to the eyes willingness to follow anything in its path, or unwillingness to want to fix on a human within an inhuman scale of place. Perhaps this notion of scale is something to consider for further investigation. What is human scale? What is inhuman scale? How is scale in and of itself playing itself out within these sessions or within any dance creations/presentations. Can scale be danced? How do we direct the outside eye into varying degrees of scale within the body – another landscape. 

To both dance and watch dance with an outdoor environment can feel like pushups for the eye, but when the muscles begin to respond, there is an ever wider view to appreciate. 

I appreciate my partners dancing in this particular endeavor.

ambient intimacy

As I begin work on our new piece, “ambient intimacy”, I am thinking about the space between us, near, far, physical, emotional, psychological… the distance we can see between our bodies… the distance we can’t see but can feel from those far off.  the closeness we can feel to someone whose physical presence is not visible but felt.  the real intimacy and the imagined intimacy that these close and far distances BOTH allow for.  Imagining this space as tangible and full.  How does that change, inform, redefine my own bodies edges, my emotional boundaries, and my physical sensations?  While these questions are examined in a much broader context for this new work, it somehow carries me back to what is a central question and exploration that keeps popping up with these daily practices.  the boundaries and edges between us as doers and watchers and the impact, both real and imagined, that we each have on one-another in both of these roles…  there is something key, keen about that space between us that is felt and permeates our own edges to blur what is you and what is me.  it is a connectedness that is both engaging and essential while also probable cause of the fear and walls that keep such a strong desire to maintain our “mask” and to keep a delineation between ourselves and others so clear.  how much are these “distinctions” necessary in order to have a real dialogue and how much must they dissolve?  what is the balance between the thickness and mobility of the space between us and the potency of our own edges…?

DP 8-28-08, Holyoke MA

again, many of the same questions are always emerging within this practice.

how do we act with our alloted time, what do we do with it. when does giving, as an impulse to create through emerge. what are the motives to create through – for us, for them…

this is a list from my notes taken during our second day of DP. 

 

asking permission

feeling watching

arrivng into deep state immediately

when we stay with one idea throughout

is this the right answer?

moment of entering in, ’sensation takes me in’ – lindsey

looking for the feedback state

its not the ‘what’ that matters but the ‘quality of the what’

doesnt matter what you do, the action of the what is what reads

will committing fully in the moment yield the ‘right’ choice

 

reflecting after a deep session

3 Days of Daily Practice in Holyoke

 

Photo of Christian by Lindsey.

It was a re-connection of sorts with a new friend and a practiced idea.  Guided by Christian we went to three very different parks over three days in and around Holyoke, MA.  It was thrilling to jump back into the Daily Practice structure with Lindsey and Christian.  Although it felt mostly awkward and discombobulating for all but one of the 9, 3 minute explorations I was happy to live in that awkwardness listening to my editing voice, and my patterned voice.  And like my three minute explorations, I also found the watching difficult as well.  My mind wandering while I tried to gain the focus and thought to be in the moment as a viewer and provide that important watching feedback to the performer/explorer/improvisor/dancer who was in the middle of their 3 minute practice.  A couple thoughts were brought to the surface during these three days.  Some dealing with how I felt about my 3 minute moments, mainly trying to understand when my ‘thinking’ mind is guiding me, when my body is guiding me and when they are working closely together.  Sometimes it is the little comments that spawn a host of other thoughts or epiphany’s.  I struggled to get ‘out of my head,’  and allow the rest of my body to have more of a voice in the choices I made.  And although a relatively simple and known idea I was most satisfied physically when I acknowledged to myself that the intellectual thinking brain is still very much a part of my body and not some separate entity from the rest of my body.  Instead of fighting to turn one off and another on I just allowed them both to be on and communicate with one another.  It might sound hippie/dippy but it started to work for me.  I felt a dialogue emerge physically and mentally.  Another performative decision I made was to use some of the mediation structures that I have learned and applied them to what I was doing.  One of the meditation ‘helpers’ that I used is to acknowledge thoughts if they enter my mind while meditating.  I should put a disclaimer first that I am by far a regular meditator!  When I do meditate as soon as I realize my mind wandering I would say to myself, ‘thought.’  It is a very successful way to acknowledge what the mind is doing and it usually makes the thought disappear and clears/focuses the mind.  I applied this during the 3 minute practices but rather then acknowledge thoughts, I was acknowledging craft, choices that I was making that have been learned.  When I noticed what I was doing I just said ‘craft’ and immediately my choice became apparent to me and I broke from it.

back to the work

back to the work in Holyoke, MA with Jason and Christian.  feels good to be embodying more of the practice again.  it had started to live in my head and we attempted some video exchange (more on that another time) which turned into a solo practice for me – but it really truely lives in the body for me and in the energetic exchange that happens with real bodies in the space both watching and doing.  this session I was fascinated with observing when it “begins,” where am I?  In some sort of feeling state that asks for a presence in the now and a sensation based starting point that allows room to take in that moment and the environment and energy in the room.  also intrigued by an observation of christians after watching me, this notion that “nothing is wasted”.  what is happening when through negotiating both the environment and the moment, a heightened presence allows us to find that continuity where every action “counts”. this feels like an interesting way to stay present but somehow also simultaneously requires being present.  nothing profound but as my body enters back into this work I feel as though I am observing a creature negotiating a familiar environment where things have shifted slightly but none of this is exactly new either.  it is that moment of getting in and then the system or secret for staying in that seems highlighted in this process of RE-connecting or RE-discovering this process and investigation.  and mostly it just kicks ass to be back working in this way with these guys finding this set of questions as they reside and shift about in our moving bodies.

Starting New

I started Daily Practice again in earnest today.  It is not like before.  There are some differences.  I am alone without realtime watchers, but I didn’t feel like I was doing a solo practice although I also didn’t want a real watcher.  I do want to share though…..

The idea is to record with video and post for Lindsey and Christian to watch and respond with their video posts.  It probably won’t or can’t be a strict ‘daily practice’.  Today it felt rough, not just because I was working alone in front of a camera but I was also starting again after 7 weeks of not wanting to do any moving or rehearsing or art making.  I unplugged into my thoughts as I tried to understand what I just did, what that meant and where I am now.  I guess I needed to recharge or maybe it is refocus or re-understand.  I feel more in my skin now since returning to New York.  I missed the place.  Now, I look forward to seeing how L and C respond and how successful a ‘daily practice’ can be configured in this way. It feels good to start the dialogue again.

on and off

on or off.

i am here in a far off location trying to remember my experience of the daily practice. obviously not the formal framework of it, that has been clearly articulated by j and l. but the rest of it – the physiological dimension. the memory dimension. the body fleshy dimension. the experience of coming clean with the truth of a particular moment or three minutes of moments strung together, our theater and performance.

were we on, within the experience of expressing a period of our lives. at times we succeeded and were real with one another and at times fell short and hid, perhaps just a little behind clever moves. going to the silent place of dance – as known territory, veiled in exploration. and many more times, beautifully articulating the raw state of ‘egg on face’. dont know what to do – AND – am not going to try to pretend i do – BUT – staying with you. the vulnerability can be palpable and then in an instant, complete recognition of the obsurdity of all of it. hysterical laughter. i loved those moments. not knowing and communicating not knowing. but i observed, and experienced, that only by doing that do you really have any control. and then something occures that tickles the soul dimension.

because really, its all over in an instant anyway. like a great photojournalist who can capture that one passing instant on film, we as performers also do the same – we read our environment  - and monitor our sensations – and report on our experience, in an instant – many instants in a row until times up.  thats it. 

having spent years perfecting my acting skills of illustrating being in control (often in white tights or sleek ass shorts as a classical/contemporary dancer), i see i am still a student at living within a certain dimension of my work. 

the performer practices saying – I DONT HAVE A CLUE (when they really dont have a clue). but in that admission, is everything.  that admission is truth, in most cases, but it is precisely that admission that is culturally denied, especially in presentational dance. 

 this two month long period of daily practice with j and l, was a form of ‘articulating’ the ‘i dont know’ – and celebrating that. 

its weird even to say it that way – “articulating not knowing”.