Author Archives: Paula Josa-Jones

Jan7

war horse

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I went to see the film War Horse last night.  In a blog following the horse slaughter debacle, I had expressed a hope that millions would see the movie and be moved to act on behalf of the horse.  Sadly, I don’t think this movie will do it.

I had seen the play several months ago. There is something infinitely more moving about the relationship of horse to human in the theatrical production.  Not just the relationships between the human actors and the horses, but also the breathing animation of human bodies inside the horses, creating each of the subtle equine articulations of these marvelous puppets.  The horses feel more fully there because of the intricate, detailed attention to how they move, breath, respond.

And the play does more to engage us in the horror of this war that took the lives of 8 million horses and 35 million humans.

The horses in the film are beautiful, no question.  But there is something stomach turning about seeing a real horse run though “no man’s land” becoming hideously entangled in barbed wire. Here I would have to agree with Kat Murphy:

Maybe the puppets used in the Broadway play eloquently expressed the horror of beautiful, dumb beasts brutally done to death, even more expendable than the millions of young men wasted in WWI. And perhaps a puppet Joey racing across no-man’s-land, mad with terror, to fall tangled in barbed wire worked as shattering metaphor for the nightmare of war. But movies can be cruelly literal; it’s living horseflesh we see beaten, maimed, dying in Spielberg’s endless outtake from “All Quiet on the Western Front.” There’s no masking the smell of slaughterhouse.

But hey, in the very next scene after Joey’s gut-wrenching steeplechase, enemy soldiers join forces to cut him out of the barbed wire, cracking wise and milking the moment, as hushed as church, for every drop of schmaltz — served up on Joey’s bloody back. Trust corn to take away the sting. That corn, followed by a prolonged, self-indulgent descent into bathos, turns the suffering of an animal into a cinematic lie (the exact opposite of the sanctification of the battered donkey in Robert Bresson‘s “Au hasard, Balthazar“). That lie feels like the callousness of a child, unable to grasp what pain and death mean to other living things.

 The difference for me is between feeling manipulated versus awed and moved.

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Jan5

Nelson’s dance

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This morning when I was grooming Nelson, he rested his head on my shoulder and I could feel his soft breath on my cheek.  We stood like that for almost a minute in the cold January sun.

I have been working with Nelson on going away and coming back.  On being able to respond to hand signals to ask him to walk around me in a circle, change directions and then come back to me, turning toward me.

This may sound like no big deal, but it is.  He is saying “OK, I feel safe to come back to you.”  What I especially appreciate is that he is calm throughout.  Even when I asked him to move off more briskly (not on this clip), he was still not anxious.   How I can tell is that he settles immediately on a subtle hand signal.  He is more interested in reading my movement than getting upset. (I was not able to be so clear with my signals because of holding the camera.)

This is a yoga:  opening to more movement, more awareness, more attunement – one breath, one day at a time.  Laying down a path of trust and communication, in what feels like little improvisational dance phrases.

Did I mention that I love this horse?

Jan5

the archival warrior

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Photo:  Nick Novick from White Dreams, Wild Moon by Paula Josa-Jones

I have been culling my digital files.  And the day before I went through my costume archive.  Emptying the trash is a theme.  I want my waters clear, not muddied by what I no longer need.  Not even what I thought I might need some day, maybe, just in case.  I feel like an archival warrior. The digital files are easier.  One click.

The costumes are harder.  I remember who wore them, the feel of the movement that they held, the passionate conversations that resulted in their creation.  I have probably ten large plastic bins.  I emptied two.  You never know when you will need those Creon headdresses, or a pig’s nose . . .

In my digital culling, I found this, written about ten years ago.  It was from a letter to a friend.  “I read this morning in the book In the Lap of the Buddha by Gavin Harrison, that Chogyam Trunga Rinpoche talks about the idea of warriorship as that which is sad and tender, because with those qualities the warrior can be very brave as well.  ‘For the warrior this experience of the sad and tender heart is what gives birth to fearlessness. Real fearlessness is the product of tenderness.  It comes from letting the world tickle your raw and beautiful heart.'”

I feel like this sifting review is just that:  looking at the ways the world has tickled my raw and beautiful heart.  Letting that in again, in a feeling way.  I found, for instance, the words that I spoke at my mother’s memorial.  Sad and tender.  A couple weeks ago, Pam wrote a piece called my mother’s ashes about finding a heart shaped ashtray that she had made for her mother when she was eight. There’s the fearless part.

I am interested in the way that memory and memento shape what is blooming here, now.  I wrote a Journal piece about that last week called “An Archival Being.”  This week I am taking a dive into what Pico Iyer, writing about Graham Greene, calls “fundamental trembling.”  Another ragged little memoir.  (If you subscribe this week, I will send you last week’s Journal free.)

Speaking of Pico Iyer, I also found this jewel:  The Joy of Quiet.  I think, actually, that may be what all of this culling is about.  Stillness in all of that movement.

What are you holding?  What are you releasing?

Jan3

xmalia

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On Sunday, January 8, C. Ryder Cooley is bringing her show, Xmalia, to the Silvermine Arts Center in New Canaan, CT.

I first met Ryder when I interviewed her for my book.  A friendship bloomed, and I have since been helping her with direction and choreography for her lovely show.

Ryder is a serious artist who creates and inhabits worlds that are both whimsical and deadly.  Xmalia explores themes of extinction in film, song, movement and trapeze.  Among her subjects are deer gigantus, tiger, butterflies and the tragic dodo.  Joining her onstage are her band of musicians and the exquisite Lady Moon.

Ryder calls her work “tragedy cabaret,” a description I find apt and provocative.  Showtime is Sunday at 5:00.  You will not be disappointed.

postscript:  Breaking into Blossom begins January 23.  It is an online, five-week meditation on moving into an improvisational life.  There will be assignments, conversations and surprises.  Join us!