Tag Archives: Pam White

Jan26

pentimento

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Ryder Cooley and Lady Moon (Ngonda Badilia) in Xmalia

Pam White and our friend Suzanne were talking about pentimento, the practice of over-painting – basically the artist changing his/her mind.  Pam had some examples of her own pentimento on her Google+ page.

That got me to reflecting on the past two days, when i have been directing and making new movement for Xmalia. The process of choreographing, standing back, and then going in and layering in different or denser or richer movement is painterly in a similar way.  Sometimes the hint of a first rendering is there, other times I obliterate it completely, but even so, some trace remains.

Maybe I just like the feeling of the word.  It reminds me of another favorite word, palimpsest, the difference being that in that case the layers of a manuscript or scroll or painting were scraped or washed away, say with milk and oat bran.

I think what I really like is the idea of underlayers – of something earlier either concealed or revealed by what has been put down later.

When I went from being an actor to being a dancer, the actor was still there, shining through in the dances.  Now that I am writing, the dancer is still there, because the words are gestural – like movement to me – they have a physical resonance that I can feel.

And sometimes I have scraped things away – old text, old selves.  More about that in The Journal this week.

I am interested in how you are feeling your layers.  Over-painting or scraping away with milk and oat bran?

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Jan24

the attic, the basement

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Photo:  Pam White

Teaching often brings me into a state of heightened awareness and vigilance for sources and new connections.  I was talking to Pam this morning about how setting up the “Books I Love” page on my site has done this as well.  The idea to post my reading list came from Linda Stone’s site.  I love the way that resources can be passed and shared digitally and physically.

So I am culling, diving into what is old, what is new, what is still exciting. (By the time I finish, all the books will be linked).  I feel as if I have been visiting the attic and the basement of my mind, my library, my study.  The attic is a place of storage and the basement holds a different kind of energy.  I was thinking about the body and the chakras, and the relationship of the supportive holding of the basement to the lighter storeroom of the attic.

When we moved into this house, the attic was what it was originally when it was built in 1790.  Old curved chestnut beams and low ceilings.  The previous owner had put in skylights, and we insulated under the eaves and put in lights.  At first it was a playroom for the kids and held their treasures plus out-of-season clothes.  Now they are in college but the remains of their play is still there:  shelves of children’s books they elected to keep, toys and dolls they have not yet surrendered.  The basement is an old stone cave, and holds the workings of the house.

I like feeling the relationship between the two:  what sits below and above – the roots and the branches –  and feeling the relationship of all of that to my own body.  Because the body is also an archive:  a breathing reservoir of thought and movement, earth and air, above and below.

How are you feeling all (any) of that?

 

Jan5

the archival warrior

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Photo:  Nick Novick from White Dreams, Wild Moon by Paula Josa-Jones

I have been culling my digital files.  And the day before I went through my costume archive.  Emptying the trash is a theme.  I want my waters clear, not muddied by what I no longer need.  Not even what I thought I might need some day, maybe, just in case.  I feel like an archival warrior. The digital files are easier.  One click.

The costumes are harder.  I remember who wore them, the feel of the movement that they held, the passionate conversations that resulted in their creation.  I have probably ten large plastic bins.  I emptied two.  You never know when you will need those Creon headdresses, or a pig’s nose . . .

In my digital culling, I found this, written about ten years ago.  It was from a letter to a friend.  “I read this morning in the book In the Lap of the Buddha by Gavin Harrison, that Chogyam Trunga Rinpoche talks about the idea of warriorship as that which is sad and tender, because with those qualities the warrior can be very brave as well.  ‘For the warrior this experience of the sad and tender heart is what gives birth to fearlessness. Real fearlessness is the product of tenderness.  It comes from letting the world tickle your raw and beautiful heart.'”

I feel like this sifting review is just that:  looking at the ways the world has tickled my raw and beautiful heart.  Letting that in again, in a feeling way.  I found, for instance, the words that I spoke at my mother’s memorial.  Sad and tender.  A couple weeks ago, Pam wrote a piece called my mother’s ashes about finding a heart shaped ashtray that she had made for her mother when she was eight. There’s the fearless part.

I am interested in the way that memory and memento shape what is blooming here, now.  I wrote a Journal piece about that last week called “An Archival Being.”  This week I am taking a dive into what Pico Iyer, writing about Graham Greene, calls “fundamental trembling.”  Another ragged little memoir.  (If you subscribe this week, I will send you last week’s Journal free.)

Speaking of Pico Iyer, I also found this jewel:  The Joy of Quiet.  I think, actually, that may be what all of this culling is about.  Stillness in all of that movement.

What are you holding?  What are you releasing?

Dec7

occupy life

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Photo:  Pam White

This morning I read the article in the New Yorker about Ray Kachel and Occupy Wall Street.  I thought about gifted, desperate people like Ray.  The photograph of him is arresting, haunting.  He is looking straight into the camera.   There is both a challenge and a softness in his eyes.  His story is horrific.  His story is common.  I want to be angry.  I don’t want to be angry.  I want to do something immediate and helpful.  I don’t want to do anything.  I am powerless.  I have choices.

One choice I am pretty clear about: I don’t want to be in Zuccotti Park.  I don’t want to visit, I don’t want to feel what it is to camp on tarps, to be hungry and wet, and surrounded by sounds and humans over which I have no control.

Another choice: I want to show up, in my way.  To shine a light.  To do my best today. Even when I am not sure what to do, there can be a grace in that.   Maybe to just sit with my despair, my confusion and my love.

Yesterday I also read Jon Katz’s eloquent post about animal rights.  Another light shining.  More grace.

postscript:  This week in The Journal, I am writing another ragged little memoir.  The working title is The Beast.  You can subscribe to The Journal here. (As always, you can unsubscribe at any time.)