Friday, September 23, 2011

Talk about Solitude and Community

Talk about the necessity of bees for life.

I just finished watching Vanishing of the Bees, a documentary about bees and epidemic that spread between 1994 and 2007.

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Contemplating improvisation





1. Chaos. Openness. Not-knowing. How do you feel? What do you do? Describe.

Chaos- I enjoy it. Openness- I enjoy it. Not-knowing- I enjoy it.

With Chaos, depending on where I am in my moment of body, mind, spirit, I welcome chaos, yet at other times I feel overwhelmed. Although I welcome the edge and pushing limits, I also notice when the chaos becomes too much, if that is such a thing. Chaos feels pleasantly wild and an abandonment of fear surges through my body. Other times, chaos feels pressing and heavy, asserting itself with a spirit of dominance-- and I search for order and stability.

I am a contradiction. My heart opens and I welcome the world with eyes and hands wide open to receive and give all the life that flows through me, in me and among everything else. Then I think, and the moment has shifted into thought and separation. Discriminating who I want to give to, who I turn away from. Who is the other?

Not-knowing-- as if that is the state of my life. For all the experience and life that has traveled along my twenty six years, I am foolish to assert knowledge. And yet I do know. Experiences that I have partaken in, lived through, witnessed and participated in, all give me a first-hand knowledge. I have lived. I live now, therefore, I know. And yet this state of not-knowing is all too familiar, especially in dance. It feel free; free from responsibility over someone else, free to be in that state of not-knowing, to flow and explore, how autonomous.


2. Limits. Structures. Rules. Do forms inspire or frustrate you? Describe.

Limits-- what are they. I truly partake in the inquisition. Have I gone too far, what is far enough, what are the edges, boundaries, limits?

Structures-- they are necessary. They put us in the physical world, and they hold us upright. We are bound to them. Our bodies, our houses, are social systems-- all structures, with frames and supports, balancing and counterbalancing.

Rules. Oh, the rules. This one I have trouble with. What are they and can they be broken. Again that is when I begin to question the limits and limitations to the rules. Yet I consider them necessary as well. They create play. A game without rules is chaos. Chaos without limits is too chaotic for me.

I think all three have their presence in dance and are essential. I believe in the exploratory work that allows us to push and pull on all three, while appreciating them for what they hold.


Forms inspire me until they become pretentious; they become pretentious when they are no longer genuine expression. But that is subjective. How can I assert that my judgment over genuineness? How pretentious.


Perhaps its more important to stay humble within the dance forms. Humble in the sense of being open minded and experimenting with form while staying non-attached to the outcome or the process. I think that will help.


There are also particular forms that dancer own, which I respect and want to acknowledge. In ballet, the turn outs and pointed feet; in contact improvisation there are physical patterns that develop, as well as the ability to absorb weight; in tango there is a very particular form, agreed upon rules and choreography. I think once form is learned and technique established, then comes the improvising and expanding outside of them. The saying “you need to learn to walk before you can run,” comes to mind. But I do appreciate the school of thought in the dance community that says, simply by persistent improvising, form can emerge.



When you are improvising do you 'capture' forms and give them names? Describe.

Yes. But after the fact. I try to move my body in what feels good, sometimes what feels bad. In the kinesthetic delight. That is my reference point. However, the mind is present, and sometimes it interprets movements by “capturing” them. For example, I bring my palms together in front of my heart and my mind thinks, perhaps ever so quietly, “oh, prayer hands.”


When does the movement research become Dancing? Is Dancing different from ordinary/pedestrian movement? Describe.


When it feels good. When it is expressive or emotive. When it heals. When there is intention. When there is genuine interest and willingness. When it is conscious.


Dancing is different from from ordinary movement only if one thinks it is. What's harder is to live every moment in dance. I am interested in that research.



Advances in Group Processes vol. 25 JUSTICE

Karen A Hegtvedt and Jody Clay-Warner editors


JAI Press of Emerald Group Publishing Limited

First ed. (08)


British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

ISBN: 978-1-84855-104-6

ISSN: 0882-6146 (Series)


Ch 3- equality and inequality after the Civil War

Ch. 4 inequity among intimates: Applying equity theory to the family.

Ch 6 Injustice and emotions using identity theory

Ch 7 system justification theory- emotional distress. social hierarchy and society

palliative |ˈpalēˌātiv; ˈpalēətiv|

adjective

(of a treatment or medicine) relieving pain or alleviating a problem without dealing with the underlying cause : short-term, palliative measures had been taken.

Palliative effects of ideology.


Ch 8 what makes people participate in social actionQuest

Ch 9 Identities- ideologies, group membership and perception of justice

Ch 10 alternative dispute resolution


11 transgression- break out of the terms- moving toward unifying frameworld of justice restoration

transgress |transˈgres; tranz-|

verb [ trans. ]

infringe or go beyond the bounds of (a moral principle or other established standard of behavior) : she had transgressed an unwritten social law | [ intrans. ] they must control the impulses that lead them to transgress. Geology (of the sea) spread over (an area of land).