Last Days

We ate dinner Tuesday night at Djerassi director Margot's house, which is the former house of Pamela Djerassi, founder Carl Djerassi's daughter who took her own life many many years ago.  Beautiful house, but quite isolated - not a good place to be if you are depressed.  The dinner was lively and funny - chemical engineer Curt told stories about the kind of food he grew up eating in Minnesota, with doctor/biographer Charlotte chiming in about her mother's cooking in Tennessee.  Lots of jello, spam, canned veggies, white bread, fake whip cream in a can, dreaded lima beans (they both had to eat everything on their plate or stay at the table until they finished).  We laughed through the meal.  Visual artist Meredith gave a surprise performance lying on the table (cleared of dishes) with projections on the ceiling - a hilarious send up of "what is art."  After returning to our property, we gathered in the artist house and Jim gave us all surprise gifts - etched plexiglass tiles with one of his physics symbols on it - quite beautiful.  We all gathered round talking about this art/science residency and what can be done to truly start a meaningful conversation about the intersection of the two.  Then on to the artist barn, where we danced until 1:15, letting our joy flow out.  Our Indonesian residents, Budi and Andreas, had to leave on Tuesday at 8 am, but they partied along with us.
Last day, getting everything together and trying to sear the beauty of the landscape into my brain. The day starts with fresh baked scones by Sasha.   I am sitting in my studio writing this, enveloped in peace, quiet and serenity looking at the vistas beyond.  Basket making workshop this afternoon with Sasha, final dinner, then sharing our favorite poems with each other after.  A fitting end to this time together.
This has been one of the most fulfilling, enriching and inspiring experience I've ever had.  I am beyond grateful that I got to live it with this amazing group of people - each so unique and so memorable.  I will cherish my days here and hold them close to my heart.

I Danced

Sunday, 7/27, was Open House at Djerassi.  Once a year they invite the public to the property for hiking and artist presentations.  300 people (the maximum) showed up and wandered the grounds, packing into performances and gobbling down pizza made by Dan (our amazing chef).  There were about 10 plein air painters from the local community scattered throughout the property painting the beautiful landscapes they saw before them.  For my presentation I danced both of Pireeni's poems that I had choreographed, and did a few short improvs similar to what my dancers did recently - I handed out slips of paper and people wrote what they desired on them.  I put them in a big bowl, drew out a few one by one, and then improvised on what was written.  Imagine this one:  I desire unlimited sex with multiple partners with no social consequences.  That was a doozy!  I haven't performed in public for probably 20 years and surprisingly I really enjoyed myself.  The poems spoke to me and the improv was great fun.  As I danced I remembered the feeling of every part of my being coming together - body, mind, emotions, spirit - this is what I always loved about it.  As I danced I felt my spirit rise above the audience and settle on them in a benediction of gratitude. 

 

Tools

Feeling stuck in my studio I decided I had to go for a walk.  The minute I started walking thoughts began jumping around and colliding.  I walked to the gate where I got lost before and saw that if I'd only pushed open the gate I would have been so close to my studio.  Argh!

So these are the thought crowding my brain as I sit on a redwood stump in a forest that feels centuries old with ferns scattered like bits of lace and the sun filtering through sentinel trees that reach up forever to the sky.

Last night one of the scientists, Curt, gave us a presentation of how he looks at art from a chemical viewpoint, analyzing the types of paint, surfaces, colors, etc.  He gave us the chemical composition of some paints used in famous paintings and where they historically have been derived from.  I was particularly interested when he said he is now looking beyond Western art to other cultures to examine the materials they use and how they have stood the test of time.

I am drawn to masks of different cultures and particularly to totem poles.  In British Columbia and Alaska I have gasped at the magnificence of these poles, standing in clusters or as a solitary witness. They are astonishing.   The elements have taken their toll on them, particularly because they are in wet, rainy climates.  Some list like drunken guardians, some are partially decomposed.  The ones that are painted are faded and weathered.  I asked Curt if he knew what kinds of paints they used, presuming they were derived from nature - plants, insects, etc.  He didn't know but said the key to retaining the color would be the type of sealant they used, and there were a few that could be made from natural materials.  It would be interesting not only to know what was used, but if certain tribes used certain materials or if it was shared knowledge.  Also do present-day totem carvers follow the old ways or use newer materials.

I've been exploring tools with collaborators Michael Masucci and Kate Johnson, using tools as one of the connecting themes in our recent project Fly By.  Scientists and artists both have a set of tools that we use.  In Fly By we used a flying camera as a metaphor of sorts for the Hubble telescope.  The Hubble offers us views of the cosmos that we would not otherwise see.  The flying camera (mounted on a drone) gave audiences views of the dancers (overhead, circling them from different angles) that an audience would not ordinarily see.

Tools can offer immortality.  A painting can exist for centuries i.e. the cave drawings in France, the sarcophagi in Egypt.  The images from the Hubble presumably can survive throughout time.  The dancer's main tool though is the body, which is not immortal.  Dance can be preserved through digital documentation but it is never the same as when experienced live, unless it is specifically made for film.  It is a live art because it involves an exchange of energy - between dancers and between dancers and audience.  That energy is not captured as a living, breathing thing on video.  Dancers learn of impermanence, of constant change, of loss, it defines their art.   Because the body is the tool and the body deteriorates.  That is both its beauty and its tragedy.

Whimsy

whim-sy (hwim-zee)

noun

1.  capricious humor or disposition, extravagant, fanciful, or excessively playful expression

2.  an odd or fanciful notion

3.  anything odd or fanciful, a product of playful or capricious fancy

Yield to whimsy is the motto of Djerassi.  I've always been attracted to whimsical artists - Miro, Kandinsky, Calder.  There's something childlike and magical in their work -playful.

I wouldn't say my work is whimsical, but I am interested in exploring how to make it so, imbue it with a sense of play.  I think I myself have lost that and become too serious.  How can I loosen up in a way that isn't too uncomfortable.  Because you can't force whimsy, you can't make playful happen, can't jolt it out of you if you're uncomfortable.  It has to just move out, like a child.

So I'm taking baby steps.  Dancing around my studio to music and just letting the movement happen, not judging if it's good or not.  Not wearing a watch, which is like a third arm to me.  My wise and wonderful friend just wrote me "white man's time will give you stomach cancer," which she was told by an indigenous elder.  And not writing one single grant while I'm here - something I haven't done in I don't know how long.  I usually write grants every single weekend of the year.  Again my wise friend said "let the universe work on granting you things now."  So I'm going to try and be open to that.

I'm inviting whimsy in, leaving a space in my being for it to enter and swirl around.  I'll see what happens.

Time

The gift of time becomes evident when you step out of your familiar routine.  Time approaches the fluid state, evolving from the linear progression in which we normally view it.  I have been given the gift of time while at a residency at Djerassi, the time to "just be".  What does it mean to just be, to let whatever bubbles up be the impetus for any actions that proceed from it, to be as comfortable sitting gazing out at a landscape as in "doing" anything.  To let go of expectations, plans, "shoulds" and everything else and try and connect with that kernal of inner being.  That is my quest at Djerassi, to listen, to pay attention and to let go.  My mind is churning at it's usual speed and I am trying to find a slice of silence.  Within that silence is the key to my residency.

On a whim this morning at breakfast I picked up a book about an artist I knew nothing about - Naomie Kremer.  Don't know what drew me to this book, but it held a treasure trove.  In a commentary about Naomie's work, written by Eleanor Heartney I came across this:  "In his 1888 treatise Time and Free Will, French philosopher Henri Bergson provides a remarkably prescient description of ... perception.  He delineates two ways we experience time.  One is the ordinary perception of linear time, leading in a straight road from a remembered past to an anticipated future.  Bergson sees this as a flawed perception, because it treats time as another species of space.  He contrasts this with "duration," a more nebulous and mysterious notion.  Duration, or lived time, is the experience in which time and space, past and future are fused with the continual present.  Bergson likens duration to the perception of dance, where prior and future movements are implied at every moment in the sweep of the performer's gesture.  Thus, instead of making the present disappear, as happens when the linear experience of time rushes us along a prescribed path from past to future, duration creates a consciousness of our unity with the dynamic nature of the world."

I happen to be talking too another artist, Doni Silver Simons about a collaborative project.  Her work is greatly concerned with time also.  The confluence of all of these seemingly disparate elements related to time is at once both astonishing and completely natural.  This is what I imagine can happen when we just have the time "to be".

Intoxication by guest blogger Amanda Adams

As the company enters into a new phase of the creating process we are exploring the sense of intoxication, which relates to many aspects in our lives.  We can be infatuated with a new presence in our lives, babies, relationships, etc. or in its most literal sense of being "under the influence." I have watched from a distance incidences of intoxication between those passing by me on walks or even as we rehearse on site and it seems that this is a sense that plays a huge role in our existence, even if we do not recognize it as such.  Our emotions play a big part in this.  As humans we relate to our experiences through feelings, because the way something makes us feel is a determining factor in how we react to certain situations.  No person experiences an incident in the same manner, we all have different perspectives and situations affect each one of us differently.

The tough part is taking this idea  of intoxication into the creative process and relating it to plants.  Can intoxication be the same in a human and a plant?  How do they relate and how do they differ?  What induces intoxication and what role do plants play?  Do plants experience intoxication?  Of course we have to state the obvious that a human is a human and a plant is a plant and unless the ds dancers become plants in the most literal way then we will never know if plants becomes intoxicated.  Adding to this challenge is how to put all of this to movement.  One of the important things to remember is that intoxication takes many forms in all beings, so we begin with what brings on the sense of intoxication. Each of the ds dancers has been presented with numerous movement excercises in rehearsal relating to this topic and each one of us interprets it completely differently from one another. The most interesting thing about the process that Donna leads us in is being able to watch and see how different each of us are as individuals and how differently we all experience intoxication in our lives. Surely, if seven dancers interpret this sense of being differently, then plants, if they experience intoxication at all, must also experience it differently from one another.  If only we could have a conversation or hold a forum with a representative of every genre of plant.....

The Flowering of Desire

"We grow like flowers, and bear desire, The odor of human flowers"  Richard Henry Stoddard

The color, shape and perfume of a flower, the sweetness of a fruit reflect a plant’s desire for propagation by drawing in other life forms that will spread its seeds. The Flowering of Desire examines desire from the plant’s point of view as well as the human desires that connect us to plants.  Inspired initially by the book "The Botany of Desire" by Michael Pollan I began to research the fascinating and complex world of plant biology.  Humans have such an intertwined relationship with plants, both affecting and being affected by them, and desire seems a perfect gateway to explore this relationship.  Man and plant share the desire for propagation or procreation, and they fulfill this desire in similar ways.  A flower lures insects to it using whatever means it can, even by appearing to be something that it isn't, such as another insect.  Similarly, humans use a variety of methods to attract mates including attire or lack of, perfume and certain types of behavior.  Working improvisationally with the dancers we began to explore topics such as nourishment, territorial possession, the search for light and allurement.  We presented our first performance of the work in November, 2011 in an urban park, using the site of the park as further inspiration for the dance.  Composer Ken Christianson collaborated with us and performed live with other musicians using a mix of prerecorded and live music.   The creative process was extremely rewarding and the performance was very successful.  We're gearing up for our next incarnation of The Flowering of Desire on March 3, 2012.  More on our current process in the next blog post. 

The Night Before

The night before a show is always an in between time.  All the choreography is done, the lights have been set, tech and dress rehearsal have come and gone.  If the tech/dress has gone well, you go home with excitement and expectation.  If there are problems, you go home with dread and anxiety.  But it's really out of my hands now, it's up to the dancers to work their magic and make the choreography come alive, to the lighting designer to add his expertise and make the space sizzle and to the musicians to smash the atoms of sound to create a sonic wonderland.   It's a lesson in giving up control and trusting that all the hours of rehearsal will carry everyone along in a groundswell that builds into a tidal wave of perfect wonder and awesome power.  I have experienced performances like this, both as a performer and an audience member, and this is what I crave when I go to see live performance.  Something that takes me out of myself or conversely something that brings me deep inside,  that connects me with a force or energy, that touches my heart and stimulates my intellect.  Tonight when I watched the dancers in dress rehearsal, they transcended their everyday personas and became archetypal, a fascinating transformation that is possible in performance.  This is what we all want to give to an audience - a moment in time that encapsulates timelessness, that unites everyone in a shared adventure, that speaks of the human experience and leaves one hungering for more.  More art, more life, more, more, more.  So that's what I'm left with, the hope that this work will touch both the audience and the performers and leave them with something more than when they first sat down in their seats before the curtain rises.     

Homeostasis

Homeostasis usually refers to the physiological state whereby the body seeks to maintain an internal stability or balance and will work hard to return that state if something brings it out of balance.  I think there is also a desire for emotional homeostasis wherein we seek emotional equilibrium and are very uncomfortable when a situation threatens to disrupt our balance.  This presents a dilemma when delving into the psyche for material for a dance. 

How do we explore personal topics that are potential emotional minefields to get at the material that can be transformed into something that speaks to an audience?  This problem presented itself during our recent rehearsals for our new work on perception/memory.  In mining their pasts for material, the dancers found it painful to continually return to emotionally charged memories when rehearsing and it negatively affected their feelings about the rehearsals themselves.

 However isn't it possible to use the past to come up with initial material, and then let the kinesthetics of the movement itself become the point of attention in subsequent rehearsals rather than the original memories?  The movement then becomes imbued with emotional intensity and honesty as the dancer hones and works on it, so that each movement has an emotional resonance.   And what about holding a state of uncomfortableness while continuing to work and not having that state negatively impact you?  We're called on in life to endure feeling uncomfortable and to learn how to function while in that state.

 It requires that we be able to be in the state of unease and at the same time maintain a certain detachment, not denying what we are feeling, but at the same time not immersing ourselves in the feeling.  I think a lot of learning can happen in that kind of situation and that ultimately it is a tool for growth.