Tuesday, November 15, 2005

Polyvocal stuff, movement, release technique, one reason why I am not a Christian

Enjoyed the reading/performance by Jessica Smith, Thalia Field and Jamie Jewett. Am really intersected in Jamie Jewitt's company, Lostwax. Washington Printmakers is a small space, so they couldn't bring dancers, etc, but I enjoyed the piece.

The last time Jessica read, she didn't "read," but instead had an installation piece called "veil." Tom Orange and I read. "Veil" was beautiful. I think this poem from Dear [Blank] I Believe in Other Worlds is about that evening:

"Tempting to create a veil through which we walk, are beaded in code and forgotten, against lyric where there is no physical geography, an exercise in subjectivity becomes vulnerable and we are trying to sound human, believe that not all movies move me but only hopeful romance and dramatic soundtracks and Rod says I don’t believe you, but not about that. The impulse to kiss anyone speaking of birds, to love those who live away or move away, envy the cold. How easy it is to go crazy says the one who has gone crazy to the one who will not, which is how we operate. Click open envelopes."

The themes of Jessica's reading included "pink" and "China," so I was happy. I know that polyvocal work is difficult to perform. But in performing it, the entire evening made me interested in ways of being more polyvocal.

Am more interested now than I used to be in incorporating movement and physicality into my work. Jamie mentioned that he'd studied release technique. Their (Thalia Field and Jamie Jewett)'s work was vertically dense but horizontally, um, alternately spaced and rapid. And Thalia has lived with parrots--a lovebird, an African Gray, and Amazon, and a Cockatoo--so I like her.

Release technique. In practice, I like the idea of movement that minimizes tension and searches for clarity, for efficient use of energy and breath. This is ashtanga yoga at its best. Asanas are meant to be practiced in a series, with each asana balancing the previous one in a specifically therapeutic physical way. This is nothing like my poetics. Not that I have a poetics statement, as such, but if I did I don't think it would be about clarity and balance. Maybe it would be about longing for clarity, vulnerability, and taking stupid risks. I'm into longing lately. Probably always. But I wonder if anyone has worked with choreography that projects vulnerability and struggle with fluidity, or questions the possibility of fluidity. Probably. Dialectics of tension! (Uh. A dialectic is tension, I guess). I've been working on my statement of interest for graduate school applications and so have theory words in the brain a bit more than usual.

Movement based on inability seems intellectually interesting but I wonder if it would be in practice: Look, there's Lorraine, she has really tight exterior rotators! Wow, look! She can barely lift her leg!

Like many girly girls perhaps I wish I'd never taken a hiatus from dancing and piano. I didn't know an artist was something one could be until I was 23. Yes. I know. 23 sounds young. But it's not if you're a dancer.

I have 266 messages in my inbox. Recently, I've started receiving messages from a Christian dating service. I've never even been baptized. I was conceived in Iran. I am not Christian.

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