very last first time
This is the title of a book my mom read to me. The complexity of this notion, and the whisper of sadness that it carries, has stuck with me.
Something about it rings very true in thinking about day two of my residency. The adrenaline, excitement, and activation that comes with something new — it wears off. And what is left? Something a little less new, with increasingly more weight. A tinge of burden as the reality of discipline, craft, work, accountability and decision-making comes into focus.
So what now? In searching for answers in familiar music, I slipped into the habit of over-checking emails. I was grateful to happen upon a powerful piece of writing in a newsletter by Dawn Serra entitled ‘Pleasure Matters So Much Right Now’. In the context of many threatening and destructive forces, she wrote about the power of ritual, and the importance of pleasure, in supporting our ability to hold space for challenging truths while also imagining more joyful and just ways of being.
Two sentences gave me the needed structure for my time in the studio:
“Ritual provides sufficient intensity to help access the emotions that are present.”
It is easier to be numb. It can be less painful to engage. But what if these emotions could be our teachers?
This is what I miss the most in pandemic times - the shared ritual of modern dance, as hosted by David Earle, within a compassionate community of dedicated movers. A connection to history, to other bodies that have done these movements and passed through these forms countless time, to an opportunity that invites you to feel into both life and death (if you dare to go there).
What rituals can I now invent for myself? Can I be alone without the nagging of lonely? The constant reminder of the temporary yet undetermined pause on community?
2. “Your pleasure is the experience of being in your body, of feeling what's true for you.”
This is what I chose for the day: committing to feeling what is true, for me. The pleasure of moving in pockets on sunlight on the floor, the delight of moving my feet in ways that only smooth wood will allow, the simplicity of small actions and deeply felt subtleness.
What non-cognitive things are happening when we seek and practice pleasure? The way hands feel on face, fingers through hair, pausing in tension, finding the apex of momentum. What embodied lessons are carried into other parts of life?
Through my improvisations, and the building of emotion while listening to U2, David Grey and Alanis Morrissette, I experienced humility yet again. Where my body wanted to go, and where it was able to go, were not the same thing. And this frustration, too, can be transformed into a great teacher.
I have been renegotiating my relationship to technique for some time, and that negotiation continues. Tools can build, and tools can cause harm. And I have found, in keeping this paradox present, I can choose the way I want to engage. What I want to build is my capacity for expression and communication. To be able to take these huge sensations, and be able to have them move through each part of me, so that others might see and feel themselves in me. Building stamina for what is now and what is to come.
Ritual, pleasure, technique… and whatever else shows up.
