Lost

Today I started out eagerly on a hike, a simple 5 mile loop that progressed from grasslands on the top of the world where I could look out and see all the way to the ocean - if it wasn't fogged in - through a forest and back to my studio.  I saw some very cool art along the way that past residents had placed along, amidst and semi-hidden on the trail.  I was breathing in the fresh air and thinking how extraordinarily lucky I was.  When I came to a fork in the trail, a sign with HOME on it directed me in the right direction.  A second sign, again on a fork, directed me.  Or so I thought.  I had a rudimentary map with me provided by Djerassi with all of the artist installments on it, how hard could it be to follow the trail?  Hard enough for me apparently.

After the 2nd HOME sign and the fork, I walked downhill until I reached a locked gate with a fence around it.  That couldn't be right, it didn't seem like I should climb it, why would they have a gate on their own property?  There are several other properties that abut Djerassi, so I naturally assumed this was one of them.  I climbed all the way back up the hill and searched again.  Clearly the sign pointed the way I went, but there was another fork in the road, so I followed that.  It took me to what I thought, and still do, was an artist creation.  I kept walking, the trail stopped.  I looked for another trail and saw one so followed it uphill.  At some point I was keenly aware that I was walking through poison oak, not good.  I had a bout with poison oak a few years ago and it wasn't pretty.  How could this be the trail?  I passed a large dead bird, looked like a huge turkey, though how in the hell a turkey could be around in a fairly isolated forest puzzles me.  I wasn't about to stoop and make sure what kind of bird it was, needless to say I wasn't overwhelmed with joy to see it.  So I retraced my steps back to the HOME sign and went the other way, which was all uphill.  That didn't seem right, so I went back.  I walked around and around that area for I think at least an hour and a half, checking and rechecking that damn map.  Then I stood at yelled "Help, I'm lost!" to nobody - over and over.

Anyone who knows me well knows that I hate to get lost.  It brings up all kinds of feelings - vulnerability, stupidity, out of control, frustration, impatience.  I hadn't reached fear yet because I knew I could retrace my steps - all up hill mind you - but I didn't want to go back.  Forge ahead, that's what we all want to do.  No luck.  I'd started out at 8:30, it was now 11:30 and I did the #1 no no for hikers - I had no water with me.  I was getting pretty thirsty by this point.  So I started back, retracing my steps. Defeat, but at least I knew I'd get back before dinner.

After putting special liquid on my clothes and skin to hopefully get all the poison oak oil out, I am sitting here contemplating the idea of being lost, metaphorically.  As an artist I am often lost, not knowing in the middle or even beginning of a piece where I'm going.  Usually I trust the process and just plug on, letting whatever comes out come.  I've learned to let go of trying to steer a project in the direction I think I want it to go and let it instead just go.  That's when it works the best.  I'm not always successful, but I can see the wisdom in it and try to let it direct me.  But I can't do that in real life yet, and certainly not today.  So maybe it's time to try applying some of my artistic process to my real life and see where it takes me.

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.     

The Changing Nature of Memory

We think that our memories remain unchanged, that they are permanently engraved in our brains.  However neuroscientists have shown that our memories are constantly remodeled, changing with new circumstances and events.  In order to change, memories have to be conscious and become the focus of our conscious attention.  During rehearsal, when the dancers consciously recall past circumstances and we focus on them as inspirational material for the dance, this presents opportunities for change. 

The neural connections in the brain can be rewired as a result of working with old memories, old connections can be weakened and new ones made, resulting in new ways of responding to certain circumstances.  Besides the memories existing in the brain, I believe that we store our memories in the muscles and cells of our bodies also, and working through old memories with movement provides a powerful catalyst for change and healing.   This is one way that the process of making art becomes transformational for the artist and one reason that the process is both difficult and rewarding.  Artists often talk about the process itself being more important than the final product.  I have found that the process has its own direction and logic and that the more I try and impose a direction the harder it gets. 

At some point I have to release control and let it go where it wants to, and I have to be comfortable feeling like I don't know what I'm doing or where I'm going a good part of the time.  This doesn't mean that I don't plan and think about my projects, I do a lot of preparation before beginning a project and during the project itself, but at some point I always seem to have to let go and follow some kind of intuition that is often not conscious on my part.  On good days the dance makes itself and I step out of the way.  It sounds very mystical and mysterious, but it doesn't feel like that when it happens, it just feels like everything clicks into place and the source of inspiration and ideas keep flowing.  Then of course there are the days when nothing seems to come and my mind is a blank slate.  That's when I have to push and plow and struggle.  Sometimes the dancers want to know where we're heading in the dance, and I have to tell them that I don't know but by working it will eventually become clear. 

Not surprisingly, imagination can also change the structure of the brain.  Every thought we have alters the physical state of our brain synapses at a microscopic level.  While it's not yet understood exactly how thoughts change the brain structure, it is now known that they do, which has both positive and negative potential.  Could it be that the spiritual mystics and gurus were right all along when they stressed the importance of each thought and the effects that they have on each one of us?

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.