A long time no blog

On Monday I attended the launch of the new UK body for dance newly named, One Dance UK. The new larger organisation comprises of the merger of four already established groups. Dance UK, ADAD (The Association of Dance of the African Diaspora), NDTA (National Association for Dance Teacher’s), and Youth Dance England. It was held at The Royal Society of Medicine in London. It was a fantastic exciting affair, yet for me a little daunting. As I work independently it is sometimes challenging not to feel I’m billy no mates! It makes me chuckle to myself at times but luckily it’s not stopping me from putting myself in many situations completely out of my comfort zone. The more I do this it seems to be getting a little easier. A tiny bit easier. One thing I have realised is that ‘something’ always comes of it. Weirdly… like I am on a moving walkway that is central to the Rhizomic (thanks Adesola 2015) choices I make. . Then again something always becomes of something, as just being here in the now (oh it’s gone again) I mean ‘now’ (oh it’s gone again) is something our bodies/us are always moving through, happening and experiencing. The more I take a moment to land in my body and give it time to move, rest, eat, share, be uncertain, communicate, negotiate, feel, reflect, be… the more this life seems make sense to me…this moving life. I didn’t know anybody that evening. Well that’s what I told myself, then as I arrived the first person I did know Hooray! Erin Sanchez from Dance UK who is lovely! Then I got myself a glass of water and was working out how to be! Should I just wander around, sneak out and run away or just be cool and sit down, being cool. Then again I did have a sticker on with my name and I had a title Independent Artist/Educator. Hey yeah I had arrived. So whilst I was glued to my seat admiring the beautiful building and ornately decorated Christmas tree I stood up. In that second a lady spoke to me and that was it! One of those moments that seem to be happening a lot: A connection, a communication. She was Avril Hitman from http://www.magpiedance.org.uk it was so inspiring to hear of the work she has achieved over the last 30 years and she came from a similar dance teaching background as myself, previously, before starting Magpie. It gave me permission (Thanks Helen 2015) that it can be done. My hope is to start an Inclusive charity based Dance Company delivering site-specific projects based on simple movement scores. It will be visual (obviously) It will be three dimensional, It will be endeavor to be ethical. It will take artistic risk and I don’t mean this in a way that I’m going to move mountains but in a way that to take artistic risk for some might be just to dance in public. It will be intergenerational and we will be a community. That’s all I know for now. Back to the evening! Many speakers’ spoke from the dance world. Drums were played, questions were asked and I sat next to another interesting person from The Lowry Manchester, then I saw Ginny Brown from ISTD/NDTA, Then I saw Adesola on one of the clips from the ADAD Conference 2015 then I saw me on the screen as one of the Mentee’s on the Dance UK Dance Teacher Mentorship scheme. It was all quite surreal. But great! One of the speakers a Head teacher Geoff Barton from King Edward School, Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk made a moving speech of how dance is experienced by all of the pupils at his school, whether they go on to a career in dance or not. He advocated dance and its value; he stated “ When we dance we take ourselves from the mechanistic world and it reminds us we are human”. I loved this! Another inspiring quote from a young male student who spoke at the NDTA Conference was “ when I dance the world works for a few seconds.” I have also been working with my Mentor Helen Poynor in Devon on the programme mentioned above. Something that has come from my first meeting with Helen is the need for me to have a space, a space for me to develop my work and myself. I have found a beautiful wooden room at the Quaker Meeting house in Warwick. I spend three hours there alone (as far as I know there may be a few ghosts around as it is 400 years old) every Monday morning and I never know what is going to happen! The first time I placed myself in the room I spent the first 30 minutes thinking “this is so expensive what am I doing?”. Then I lay down. Then I fell asleep. Then I woke up and moved and some stuff happened, movements, emotions and stories emerged. I didn’t know what to do with this stuff. I spoke to Helen Poynor and she reminded me of what Anna Halprin does. She draws. She draws as a way to use the resources that have come from her body. So next time I drew and then I worked in a process of cycles to see what came, this might be in movement, writing or drawing. So to finish off my blog I am going to San Francisco on Boxing Day. I am so excited. I am going to meet Anna Halprin and work with her on her Dance deck. If you look back in my blogs I mentioned this last year when I was writing up mu Module 3 of my MA. I never actually believed I would dance on that deck with Anna and now I am. I have always felt that our experiences are what make us and this is one is going to be very significant to me and my work.