2 posts tagged “dancing”
Work on Wake (or whatever it will be called) continues fitfully. The clouds briefly cooperated yesterday afternoon, so after class we went on a field trip to the sculpture garden. I messed around with a borrowed Hi8 video camera (thanks, A) while the dancers improvised in between the sculptures and curious passers-by. We got in a good 45 minutes and then it started to rain again. I was hoping to extract some still shots from the footage but it seems I first need to purchase a driver to extract the footage from the cassette tape. I'm feeling too technologically inept at present to deal with that. Instead, here is a poorly cropped photo of a small child who was having great silly fun running between the rusty canyon walls (Fig. 1).
In other dance-ish news,
... I took some pictures of the main Velocity studio last weekend that have been waiting for an excuse to post (Fig. 2).
... Saturday night I saw the SCUBA show, which is a collaborative “touring exchange” showing edgy dance works from multiple cities, which I think means these works tour together to the cities from whence they sprang.
- The first piece of the evening, Kate Watson-Wallace's HOUSE, took place in the former Reel Grrls offices, on the fourth floor of the building from which the arts organizations and other tenants are emptying out to make way for gutting and redevelopment. The dance started at a large table near the office kitchen sink, with six dancers entering and exiting the room, exploring the possibilities of support and balance using the table, chairs, walls, and each other, in various combinations. The audience was then led into a second smaller room in which a woman emerged from a closet in which she was supported door by the inside doorknob, stepping onto an electrical outlet box and onto another doorknob, to do some gravity-defying shifting and reclining on a couch had been secured sideways up a wall. (Earlier in the previous room, the same dancer had crept out of a kitchen cabinet, like some sort of spirit which occupies the cupboards of this house and comes out when no one is watching.) I like it when dances happen in real people places; the surreal furniture use was a bonus. I felt sad when we left the space and passed by the Chamber Theater’s closed doors, theater no more, on the way back downstairs.
- The second piece, in the Velocity theater on the second floor, was comprised of the six astounding solos from Scott/Powell’s Geography, which I had seen last year in its entirety at On the Boards. I am in awe of this company. Now I know why those gongs were in the studio last week.
- The third piece, Navarrete x Kajiyama Dance Theater's The Revenge of Huitlacoche, was over-the-top clownishly weird. The program notes described a fungus that lives in living ears of corn that is considered a culinary delicacy in Mexico and persecuted by U.S. fungicides and genetic modification. I think the piece might also have something to do with border patrol and immigration. Near the end, after hurling corn kernels all over the stage and tumbling and stomping upon them, the solo performer (costumed in body paint and a skirt constructed of corn husks) distributed handfuls to audience members (Fig. 3) and chanted “A fungus has no seeds but it is the ferment of things to come.” I walked away from that work wondering “What the f…?” but that didn’t stop me from feeling entertained.
... and lastly, in the wake of the weekend’s classes and this morning’s extra-laden-backpack commute, it seems my right shoulder has decided that any rotation at all is to be painful enough to override my aversion to doctors. Thursday I have an appointment for the shoulder as well as the lingering hamstring attachment issue. I punted tonight's class (Fig. 4) but figured I should do Wednesday’s full on, so the shoulder will be good’n’torn for the x-rays, and as a last hurrah, in case the doctor tells me to stop dancing for more than a couple of weeks. I really want to do Strictly Seattle this year, but need the full use of my arm more. Grumble. Ouch. Whimper. Repeat. Of course this might just be the ferment to develop that ambidextrousness I’ve always dreamed about.
Today was my first dance class after a two-week hiatus, begun on account of illness and extended to see if a chronic injury I've been postponing addressing would heal with the extra rest. It feels good to move again, though hindered by tiring easily, a residual cough, and the extra layer of flesh that grew back after only two weeks (damn that was fast!). The injury (left hamstring attachment) actually seems to be mended, though a lower back ache that started just before I stopped, perhaps as a result of compromising alignment to compensate for the first ache, is still lurking. Bodies sure are tricky.
Returning to the dance studio after a break always feels like a homecoming for me. There is a sense of intimacy developed over hours of floorwork, feeling my bones and tissues supported by the floor, seeing and sensing the surrounding space, moving through the sunlit dust motes stirred up by moving bodies. The really special ones have satiny floors I've caressed with bare feet, had full contact rolling all over, flown from.
I have a particular gratitude and fondness for this studio (the big one at Velocity). During the winter of 1996-97, while my mother was dying and I was living in the Seattle area for the first time, this room was the only place in which I could feel happy. I was working part-time to spend more time with mom, and not working 40 hours gave me the freedom to take KT's weekday morning class. Her classes were my therapy and provided a life-affirming space and time even as I was losing my mom.
Since moving back here from the DC area last May, Velocity has again become a home of sorts and the only community I really feel part of so far. These past two weeks of being sick and not taking class compounded the bad-enough isolation of my home-based job, and it was such a relief to be back in the studio among friends.
There was also the homecoming of getting back into my body -- reawakening what it feels like to curve this way, fold that way, to lengthen, invert, quickly change directions and regain my bearings. To breathe. And breathe deeper. To find my center of gravity and will it to go that-a-way, shake it up, swirl it around, let it go, and enjoy the ride. Gasp! (cough!) I'm so happy to be back! Now let's see what it feels like to get back on my sadly neglected bike ...
