You may have noticed that I have changed the name of the blog to Paula Josa-Jones/ride dance write. The “sub-title” is “living a moving life.” I needed to broaden the scope of the title to include my three “big rocks.”
I am focused on the dance part at the moment. After seeing Soledad Barrio at the Joyce, I bought tickets to see Crystal Pite’s brilliant company Kidd Pivot in December.
But that is not the real story. The real story is that in this video of Crystal Pite improvising by Brian Johnson and in the poem that follows (thank you to the Writer’s Almanac) are two of the reasons that I want to live to ninety. Movement that is common and uncommon. Both ravishing. Both essential. It’s about living a moving life, living wide awake, riding the moment. Start that now.
To Ninety
by Robyn Sarah
A city sparrow
touches down
on a bare branch
in the fork of a tree
through whose arms
the snow is sifting —
swipes his beak
against wood, this side
then that,
and flies away:
what sight
could be more common?
Yet I think
for such sights alone
I would live to ninety.
“To Ninety” by Robyn Sarah, from Questions About the Stars. © Brick Books, 1998. Reprinted with permission. (buy now)
from cinematographer Brian Johnson: I was commissioned by Knowledge Network in 2009 to create 19 short pieces in collaboration with the same number of artists across BC. These were then assembled into a kind of cultural survey of the province – mapping the diversity of those who live and create here. It can be seen in its entirety on the Knowledge website.