Day 16: Spine

#16 Improvisation for spine: flex, extend, side bend, rotate

This would be a nice one to do on a regular basis. Made me feel gooey like a freshly baked cookie. Working with the spine came from a surprisingly muscular place for me. Not bound, but lots of activation in the muscles from head to tail. Maybe there is a way to approach this more skeletally.

Day 15: rabbit hole

#15 Follow each chosen moment down a "rabbit hole". Don't sequence/combine. Call each "thing" something = name each. File for later.

For anyone who is keeping score, I took a few days off while I was on vacation in Portland, so the chosen items from days 13 (make a phrase) and 14 (simmer) have been on the back burner for awhile. I treated myself to an hour of studio space to jump back in today.

The first rabbit hole I ventured down was 1) the beginning movement on the knees with hands creeping slowly around. I started with the movement as I remembered it from the phrase and let it evolve from there. And it did move through a few different phases. The unifying element turned out to be the hands on the floor, carefully placed or sliding, feeling their way along. Maybe because this was the first moment I worked with and "rabbit hole" suggests a spiral, this "thing" also keeps winding around and around through the different iterations. Since there are several distinct vocabularies here, I gave each part of this thing it's own name:

"creeping circle", "dead shoulder", "twister"




The next rabbit hole started with this: "Viewed from the back: starting with elbows together, pinky fingers together, the hands separate and spread outwards becoming visible on either side of the head." I stayed anchored in one spot and focused on the back of my body. The original movement was symmetrical, and this became a longer study in symmetry. This ground has been well-trod by Jess Curtis in The Symmetry Project, of course. That didn't stop me! The prompt led where it led and this project seems like the perfect time to not despair about whether something has been done before. I could even view this like a scientist validating another scientist's results by reproducing the same experiment.

When I realized I was moving symmetrically - that that was where this particular rabbit hole led - I committed to it. And as I dropped in, I really felt the allure of symmetry. It's both familiar and not. It made me feel my movement initiation habits (I really want to pop one hip up, shift my ribs to the side, lean off balance). But it didn't feel too restricting for most of the 10 or so minutes I played with it. There was something deeply pleasing about moving symmetrically(ish), both in the doing and the watching.

"symmetry"



And my goodness, there is one more. All of that simmering boiled over. This rabbit hole began with "A hand in the opposite armpit being awkwardly pulled out against resistance". This one was hard to find. It kept getting stuck. I left it and did the symmetry thing above. I came back to it with something looser. Slapping, pushing, and pulling initiate most of the movement. It's kind of a lot of flailing. The video here is a bunch of very small fragments from that improvisation that I think might have the potential to be interesting.

"slap happy"

Day 14: simmer

#14 Choose 2-3 events or moments from (13). Let simmer.

The moments that will be simmering:

1. The beginning moment on the knees with hands creeping slowly around
2. A hand in the opposite armpit being awkwardly pulled out against resistance
3. Viewed from the back: starting with elbows together, pinky fingers together, the hands separate and spread outwards becoming visible on either side of the head.

Day 13: make a phrase

#13 Make a phrase from (12) writing(s)

There is a little talking in this movement phrase. I might hate it, but I left it in.

Another day 12: expanding the lenses, part 2 - spirituality

#12 Choose 2-3 angles/lenses from (10) and expand on each

Yesterday was day 12, but I only got through one angle/lens, so in Groundhog Day fashion, it will be Day 12 over here until I'm done.

Spirituality lens (take 2)
Yesterday, when I was ostensibly writing about this dance phrase through the lens of pop culture, I didn't get to the bottom of what makes me feel kind of squicky about it. The biggest part of the discomfort, I think, comes from the narcissistic element that lurks deep in most performance work, particularly in solo work, and seems prone to amplification through the media of youtube video and blog/social media. The look-at-me factor. The ego factor.

Dear solo performance artists, I don't necessarily think you are narcissistic. It is more that I don't make solo work because I don't know how to approach in a way that isn't just feeding into my own narcissism. Among other reasons. It's not you. It's me.

Approaching creative work as a kind of spiritual practice is, I think, a potential antidote to the narcissism/ego squick factor. It's not how I've approached my performance-making work in the past, though my last large piece was partially about prayer (and also primates). I don't know whether I'll approach my future dance-theater making processes as spiritual practice. Maybe yes, maybe no. For the next piece I'm planning, about 2 couples and the way their relationships follow seasonal and extreme weather patterns, I'm trying out working less experimentally. Start with a structure and fill in the pieces, rather than building a whole bunch of stuff around a concept and trying to figure out where it leads. The more structured approach itself is an experiment in it's own way. Will the work be more focused? Will it be limited? Will it go deeper within the defined boundaries?  None of this necessarily cries out for a process or product more connected to spirituality. At least not beyond the sort of general Buddhist ideal of everything being meditation. Washing the dishes is meditation. Biking to work is meditation. Rehearsing is meditation.

This 100 days thing, on the other hand, falls naturally into the realm of spiritual practice. It is a daily practice with a bit of the "do it just to do it" ethos of Zazen. I hope I am not misrepresenting Zen Buddhism here. Avalokiteshvara knows, I know nothing. I will say that one of the things I like about Zen Buddhism, at least as it is practiced at Zen Center, is that there is a kind of practicality. If you sit for hours looking at a wall every day, don't be surprised if you are sometimes just looking at a wall. There are no promises of mystical experiences. And yet, the practice does have real effects, one of which is maybe getting glimpses into the true nature of things.

There is something similar in this. 100 days of responding to prompts. 100 days of moving and exploring and writing and just doing whatever it is, has the potential (I think, I hope) to clear some channels and to reveal something inside. And maybe that will also affect the world outside in some small positive way.

Day 12: expanding on the lenses

#12 Choose 2-3 angles/lenses from (10) and expand on each

Pop culture lens (take 2)
I didn't dig too deep into this on day 10. Not sure I'll like what I find.

The format that I've chosen for the documentation of this 100 day practice, namely this here blog right here, intersects with a segment of pop culture that I have conflicted feelings about, which is basically social media and youtube. It's this realm in which anyone can potentially be a STAR, by force of personality or weirdness or falling off of something in a hilarious way or even actual talent. And wow, internet, you have shown me some incredible dancers. You have shown me beautiful things. It's great. It's democratic. It's accessible. You can put yourself out there and be liked and viewed and shared. What performer does not want to be liked and viewed and shared?

So is there a problem? Not inherently. This project/process/practice is... well, I was going to say an experiment, but I'm not exactly sure that's right. I'm not testing any particular hypothesis. It is a practice. I am practicing. Each day I open the booklet and read the prompt and try to respond wholeheartedly. Documentation is part of the process. "Document EVERY prompt however you like." I embrace it. On some days the documentation and the response to the prompt are one and the same, like today. And I've chosen to document publicly for some reason. And this part does feel like an experiment. There is no hypothesis, true, but there are questions. How will it feel? What will happen? Who if anyone will read and watch? Will it have any effect?

This feeling around in the dark seems totally valid as an artistic exploration. Oh! Exploration! That's probably a more fitting word than experiment. And artistic exploration is a kind of a shield against popularity. No one wants to see exploration! Or rather, some people very much do, but most people do not. It's not going to be popular. "Experimental Theater" is never going to be popular theater, by it's very nature, although things that become popular emerge from it. Am I right about this? Just trying it out. So, the artistic exploration shield is also protection against, for lack of a better way to put it, success in the marketplace. But I wasn't trying to be popular! I'm experimenting! Because I am a serious artist!

But seriously, I am exploring and experimenting and not making something. So I am totally not trying to compete with Honey Boo Boo or whoever.


Out of time! I'm going to have to come back for the other lens/es. Maybe late tonight. Maybe tomorrow. 

Day 11: shedding

Throw out (9) movement of phrase. Do a shedding dance.


It's a good day to shed.

The shedding dance felt necessary today. Necessary and elusive. I started moving. The need to shed got stronger as I moved. The detritus of the past week clung to me in bits and strands and I tried to shake and fling and slap it off. I kept going. There were tears. I may have shucked off a layer of surface muck. It's still settling now.

I did record video. I did manage to move without thinking much about the fact that the camera was there. I did not want to watch the whole video. I did go into the video and mark each minute, then cut most of what was in between.

So here you have a 22 minute shedding dance in about three and a half minutes: