Category Archives: writing

Apr2

the deep end

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Dominique and Malou in Cafe Muller by Pina Bausch

On Sunday when I was teaching in Boston, I challenged the dancers in the workshop to open the doors to their movement obsessions.  It is an idea that the great Bessie Schonberg opened to me.  I was already doing it, but she identified and crystallized it for me.

It takes a certain amount of courage to go there.  Many dancers would rather play in the safer end of the pool and not get emotionally overheated.

Obsession is what I especially love about the work of Pina Bausch, and more recently, Crystal Pite.  I admire the ferocity of their dancers, the sense that everyone is all in, all of the time, even in moments of exquisite stillness.

To my deep pleasure, the dancers in my workshop took up my challenge and dove deep.

Beyond the dance studio, I think opening to one’s obsessions – listening to them and allowing them to take form  – is what is required to live a full life.  Not following, not embodying those passions is like a series of little deaths, one moment, one dream, one day at a time.

One of my obsessions is the writing that I do weekly in Little Fictions & Ragged Memoirs.  This is writing that dives deeper than I do in the blog.  It is a subscription, which is one of the ways I support myself.  The current offering is a surreal story in four parts.  The next is going to become a part of my new dance solo.  If you subscribe mid-story, you will receive the story from  its start.  I hope you will join me!

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Mar7

diving deeper

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I want to offer a bit more information about my eBook.

I developed Breaking into Blossom:  Moving into an Improvisational Life as an online class because I wanted to offer some fresh ideas on how to close that gap from my perspective as an improvisational movement artist.  It  is designed to inspire you to become more daring, more visionary, more playful and improvisational in all aspects of your life.

I am now offering the materials that I developed for that class in an eBook that contains ten carefully designed chapters integrating photographs, writing and movement prompts, guest artists and specific strategies to help you find a deeper creative engagement.  Here is what you will find:

  • Change:  Developing a vocabulary for making change from subtle to dramatic.
  • Underscore:  How to develop an intentional underscore for your day or for a project.
  • Segments:  How subtle shifts in activity and attention throughout the day can create greater focus and engagement.
  • Play: From meandering to galumphing, how to foster a playful attitude and practice, including specific strategies for play-making.
  • Practice:  Discovering your meta-practice and how it can support your work and goals.
  • Moving and Listening:  Delicious strategies for engaging the senses and the body.
  • Movement and Stillness:  The power of attention and recuperation.  How to develop a movement/stillness score in your work and play.
  • Letting Go:  Learning how to drop it (even if you are going to pick it up again).
  • Flow:  Observing and harnessing the interplay of improvisation and flow.  How to cultivate a consummate creative state.

The book is available at the end of this month.  You will receive the book as a pdf.

The cost is $15.  You can pre-order it here.

For those of you who are interested, I am also offering one-to-one creative jump-start sessions.  To learn more,  form.

Mar3

my first eBook!

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What I have become aware of is that for many of us there is a big commute between our creative work and the rest of our lives. As It is hard to maintain a sense of living wide-awake in a body when we are so tethered to the digital world and disconnected from vibrant, physical experiencing.

I developed Breaking into Blossom:  Moving into an Improvisational Life as an online class because I wanted to offer some fresh ideas on how to close that gap from my perspective as an improvisational movement artist, a teacher and a coach.  It  is designed to inspire you to become more daring, more visionary, and more playful and improvisational in your daily life, relationships and work.

I am now offering the materials that I developed for that class in a beautifully designed eBook that contains ten chapters integrating writing, movement, guest artists and specific strategies to help you find a deeper creative engagement.

The book will be available at the end of March.  You will receive it as a downloadable pdf.

The cost is $15.  You can order it here.

Feb26

falling

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I took this photograph after the recent light snow.  When I looked at it, I felt a bit queasy – the orientation to gravity, light and the lines of the tree were disconcerting.  I felt myself falling. Falling from what, I wondered?

In recent weeks, I have felt my orientation shifting as I move into some new work.  It started with my morning 750, which I now write in Scrivener.  I began writing, and a piece of fiction (a short story perhaps?) emerged.  I felt a bit like Alice in Wonderland, falling falling falling into the well of this piece.  As if I was taking dictation.   I loved the story and wondered where it was going.  I still don’t know. I have no plan.

When I was in the third grade, my family lived in London.  Part of what we did in school was to write stories.  My teacher, Miss Sherman, loved my writing and encouraged me.  I felt a sense of pride and excitement.  But when we moved back to South St. Paul, my teachers were not interested in writing.  They like penmanship and numbers.  I put the writing away, could not hold the thread of it.  It went underground with the rest of me.

Later, my writing became stodgy and correct.  Dead.  Nothing kills the writing spirit like grant proposals.  And so now, starting right here, every day, I am recovering my writing self.  Recovering myself.

I have had an offering called The Journal (and the deep end) for some time.  I knew that this new writing didn’t fit that old description.  So I changed it to Little Fictions and Ragged Memoirs.  I like this title – the openness and possibility that it holds.

It is a subscription, which means that it is one of the ways that I support myself as a writer.  It also helps give me the resources to make dances.  You see, I don’t write grants anymore.

It has come to my attention however, that many find it hard to pay for a subscription at $20 a month.  I hear you.  I am lowering the cost of the subscription to $13 a month.  I like the number.  It feels lucky. (If you are already signed up, your subscription price will lower.)

If you sign up now, I will send you the first two episodes of the story that I am writing now so you will be up to date.  As always, you can unsubscribe at any time.  If you would like to try it, you can sign up here.