Category Archives: the dance

Dec8

OPD, OPW

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Other people’s dreams:

This year I got a major course correction.  A gigantic error message.  I had been spending too much time helping with other people’s dreams.  My efforts, which at first felt fluid and lovely, began to get tangled, murky, and then ultimately the situation became ugly.  

Others around me  could see that The Message was appearing with increasing frequency and that I was not seeing it, not wanting to see it.  I just kept slogging along, pushing, until the discomfort became overwhelming.

Finally I detached, unhooked, walked.

Other people’s work:

Similarly, as a new blogger, I was scanning for guidance from The Ones Who Know. As it turns out, they are actually me.  I have to decide what makes sense.

For many years I have practiced and taught Authentic Movement. It is about listening to the voice of the body – allowing the body to move without the judging arbitration of the mind.  It is about feeling, not thinking.

What I am learning about writing is how to let the body speak into the words.  My friend Nancy Stark Smith once called it “bloodful” writing.   Here’s how I feel it:  I get a flush of excitement, a little storm of synaptic activity; thoughts and ideas refracting, connecting – spinning together in a new way.  It is physical, shivery.  Then I write.

There isn’t room in that moment for other people’s words, preoccupations.  I am interested in them, but they do not have a place in that moment of inspiration.  It is all in my body, my heart, my words.

I am writing about this:  how do you feel your inspiration?

I am also writing this week about the beast, the performer and being animal.  It’s another little, ragged memoir.  It’s in The Journal.  It’s a monthly subscription (and you can opt out at any time.)

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Dec8

the work

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Again, for those of you who have not visited the RIDE site. These images are from the production called “Flight.”

Three years ago, I became obsessed with blending aerial dance with horses.  In the first production of RIDE, we had used low-flying swings. I wanted more.

Around the same time, my friend Tamara Weiss, the owner of Midnight Farm on Martha’s Vineyard said, “Well you know Polly flies, don’t you?”  I didn’t. She was talking about the magnificent Paola Styron, dancer and aerialist extraordinaire.

And so, with her help and that of Flying by Foy, we created a workshop performance. We have not done it again but are open to that possibility. (Are there any angels out there?)

The other performers are the beautiful dancers, Ingrid Schatz, DeAnna Pellecchia and Dillon Paul; riders Brandi Rivera and Nicole Muccio; and horses Capprichio and Sanne. The images at the end are of Sarah Hollis and Escorial. The music is by Robert Weinstein.

This is a big part of my Great Work; the thing that wakes me up at night and in the morning, fills my journals and makes my heart sing.

postscript:  This week in The Journal, I am writing another ragged little memoir, this one called The Beast.  You can receive it by subscribing here. (As always, you can unsubscribe at any time.)

 

Dec6

horses and humanity

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“If we see cruelty or wrong that we have the power to stop, and do nothing, we make ourselves sharers in the guilt.”  (Black Beauty by Anna Sewell)

Pam White posted a beautiful blog yesterday.  It has inspired me to look at the horse slaughter issue through the lens of the words of Chief Seattle.

This is a video of Joseph Campbell reading from Chief Seattle’s letter of 1854.  To me, this is sacred text.  And, it is no mistake that the horse is featured so clearly in the mythologizing of our land.

The ASPCA opposes horse slaughter.  PETA has adopted an odd position that decries slaughter of any kind, but approves the slaughter of horses in the U.S. as a way of keeping horses from being shipped to Canada or Mexico for their grotesque deaths.  I don’t think you can have it both ways.   Watch this video only if you have a strong stomach. 

Slaughter is never, never humane.  Euthanasia is humane.  If Congress is actually concerned about the welfare of our horses, they should make a provision for humane euthanasia by a veterinarian.  But in fact, this is another issue driven by greed and other countries’  appetites for horse meat.  And greed is never compassionate; it is crude and expeditious.

As I said yesterday, in the burgeoning storm about horses and slaughter, there is this:  horses possess an extraordinary  sensitivity.  They are defenseless.  They are companion animals, like dogs and cats.

I am weighing in on this because I spend time every day with horses.  This is not an abstract issue for me.  I write every day about how horses can help us to become better humans:  more aware, more embodied, more conscious.  It is their gift as prey animals who have played and continue to play a major role in our civilization as workers (in war, in the fields, on the streets), entertainers (the racing industry)  and partners in sport, work and life.

The pro-slaughter lobby says that the horse issue has been hijacked by emotional arguments on the part of opponents of slaughter.  And what, I ask, is wrong with emotion, with feeling?  (Do I smell an old sexist argument here?)

Here is my hope:  That millions and millions of people will see the film War Horse, and get, viscerally, something heart-opening about the horse.  I am doing what  Abraham suggests:  pivoting from something I abhor  (horse slaughter and its inevitable cruelty) to point myself toward what I want:  a shift in public consciousness and policy.

More reading:  http://www.manesandtailsorganization.org/vicki_tobin.html

Dec4

Capprichio!

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I’d like you to meet my ride and my friend.  This is Capprichio, the black Andalusian stallion that is the great (equine) love of my life and my favorite dance partner.

He is ridden here not by me but by his former trainer, the brilliant Sabine Schut-Kery.  If you watch the video on her site, he is the one wearing the yellow polos.

We don’t live in Florida.  This is just where he and I got to know each other a bit.  That was six years ago.  He is nearly 20 now.  Sexy as ever.

Our riding these days is shaped by how he is feeling. That means that I have to pay attention, to wake up to the being that is carrying me, and to work within his limitations.  That is another piece of the ongoing dance.

In the burgeoning storm about horses and slaughter, there is this:  horses possess a sensitivity and delicacy that is beyond our comprehension.  They are defenseless.  They are companion animals, like dogs and cats.  They are our work and play partners.  Slaughter is never, never humane.

I am feeling despair and a deep sadness about this issue.  I want us to do better, as humans;  to be more feeling, more loving in our choices.