Landing in Kentville

The actual physicality of transporting me/my body from the ground to thousands of miles up in the air. To crossing thousands of miles over land, water, clouds, ice! Plus going back in time 8 hours and having the chance to have a second Boxing Day, has really thrown me.

Following that, "me" got in a car with the steering wheel on the left. Everyone driving on the right, I drove over a really famous big red bridge and was lost and I really was petrified. I breathed and talked to myself a lot! Everyone honking me and me thinking what the hell have I done? Disorientation really is a reminder of how I am my body my body is me or I live in it? There is no escape. I had to attend to it and the surroundings. I was part of making decisions to keep me safe navigating my way through so many unknown instances. I felt so out of sinc. 

I am in San Francisco as part of Anna Halprin's Winter Workshop. 

Two years ago I mentioned (in a pre Module 1 hand in blog) dancing on Anna Haprin's Dance deck not really thinking I would, not knowing how I would? so many obstacles. 

So the fact I am here, has been a piecing together of small stepping stones connected with a common thread.
The motivation and belief in what she practices.

Day 1. 

As I arrived at Ravine Way, Kentfield, participants were escorted by an assistant to the top of some winding wooden curved steps that trailed down the side of the mountain to the Mountain Home Studio. Lawrence Halprin (Anna's husband) chose to work with curves not straight lines as to reflect nature in his work as an architect.
Lawrence was very involved in Anna's work and built her this deck so she could have a place to create.

The "Entry Score" greeted me at the the top of these weathered steps.  

WALK SLOWLY

PAUSE PERIODICALLY

LOOK

LISTEN

BREATH

SMELL TOUCH

This was quite an emotional moment for me, what with the long journey in all senses of the word.

We then de-baggaged so to say, taking off coats, shoes, socks leaving them at the door. We just took journals and water bottles into the room.

Anna appeared "Howdy" she said...she is a funny lady...and went on to say how she was impressed reading the biogs of the attendees all with this and that PHD and joked she had five but only two were real? It was funny. She also joked how she was Famous "now" and where was it when she needed it back then. Then to a more serious note she moved round the room and took time to engage in conversation with each of us separately and naturally.

Most interesting was the stories of the Pomo Indians native to the area and Mount Tamalpais  and and how the story of the mountains evolve constantly. The redwood trees died which made the blue jays disappear and the Oak trees found their way to the mountains that brought the Hawks.

She talked of the body as instrument how it could  liberate you or inhibit the you. That she prepares the body/instrument in her class and has a strong attitude on how to prepare that body, so it does not support imitated ways of creating art. She said everyone is a choreographer and that we would learn how to score. Anna wanted to empathise with us not on a decorative level. 

Also understanding how our bodies move, mentioning she studied human dissection for a year. A strong element of the day was internalising not externalising. Feeling the universality of the muscular and skeletal systems.

There were three parts to the day 

We worked with a Scores. The first being.

Principals of Creative process

Firstly

Where am I?

Who are you with?

What am I doing?

Always ask, why am I doing this? What is my intention?

We drew self portraits and worked systematically sharing and dancing them with a partner.  This extended to journal (free writing) and into a Haiku which is a Japanese poem. To the structure of 5,7,5 syllables in each line.  Dancing and speaking our own dances then our partner speaking and us interpreting through immediate movement. Finally Valuaction sharing our experience. I could see how this scoring was stemming from using the R.S.V.P cycles. 

The RSVP Cycles: Creative Processes in the Human Environment (Halprin, L. 1970)

In the afternoon it was performance time. We formed support groups of five dancers in each. We worked with our names, movement and sound, then through several stages we ended up in a group improvisation performing to the larger complete group and Anna and her assistants Wow did I have fun. Also I think we found out more about each other. Looking forward to tomorrow. 

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.

http://stanceondance.com/2013/11/25/a-way-of-life-an-interview-with-anna-halprin/