My friend, the brilliant Claire Porter just won a Guggenheim! Congratulations Claire!
DanceNOW 2012 – Porter from Dancing Camera on Vimeo.
Apr15
Category Archives: the dance
Mar24
light coming through
For the past three days I have been working with my autistic godson Jacob. Because my new grand baby daughter Laila has been visiting for the past month, I have been revisiting the developmental and systems work of Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen.
Body-Mind Centering® is an integrated and embodied approach to movement, the body and consciousness. Developed by Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, it is an experiential study based on the embodiment and application of anatomical, physiological, psychophysical and developmental principles, utilizing movement, touch, voice and mind. Its uniqueness lies in the specificity with which each of the body systems can be personally embodied and integrated, the fundamental groundwork of developmental repatterning, and the utilization of a body-based language to describe movement and body-mind relationships.
I have been using touch and movement focusing on the fluids and on awakening some old developmental patterns that are missing in Jacob. The results have been breathtaking over the past three days. Jacob has started to be much more intentional and specific in his use of focus, much more deliberate in the way he walks and has begun to modulate the speed with which he moves. It is like seeing the sun come out and illuminate the landscape in new ways.
The other half of this is that it requires us – his parents and me – to be softly and clearly intentional and aware of what we are offering with touch, voice and movement. So all of us are awakening to ourselves in new ways – a beautiful,breathing, improvisational reciprocity and opportunity moment-to-moment. An invitation to see thing from a different perspective and invite ourselves more fully into the dance. Thank you Jacob!
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Mar19
tested
http://sangbleu.com/2009/12/14/painted-knees-of-a-moulin-rouge-dancer/
Sometime during the rehearsal I felt it happen. I did a sudden snapping movement with my leg and my knee hyperextended. I stopped and looked at it. “That’s not good,” I thought. It didn’t hurt, so I kept going.
It wasnt good. I ripped both the lateral and medial meniscus and popped a big cyst out the back of the joint capsule. My knee doesn’t bend. I can’t climb stairs. One of my dancers watched the performance of my solo and said she wished I had included some movement on the floor. I said that I would do that as soon as I could bend my knee.
My osteopath looked at me yesterday and said, “You are being tested.” What is being tested? My patience, my endurance, my resourcefulness, my tolerance. And more.
In my studio, I tried doing some of the movement. I noticed that I initiate much of my movement with quickness, which at the moment is unsafe for my poor knee. Quickness is my “lane,” my “wheelhouse” in the language of American idol. It is how I get my body places that it otherwise doesn’t know how to go.
The point of all this is that I have to find some new ways of moving while I am healing. Linda Tellington-Jones always says “isn’t that interesting” when she encounters something problematic in a horse she is working with. I am looking for that attitude – curiosity instead of frustration, willingness instead of fear. Learning to try new things, looking for other ways of seeing and doing. Being improvisational. Not waiting for the end point, but being in the journey, one step at a time.
In the meantime:
http://www.sonotaprincess.com.au/journal/2011/3/26/put-to-the-blush.html
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Mar19
body of work
Body of Work: Dances with Horses from Paula Josa-Jones on Vimeo.
I put this up on Facebook and have been thrilled with the number of people who are generously sharing it there. I am still so passionate about this work, and look forward to more. Please enjoy and pass it on!