Category Archives: improvisation life

Dec20

the heart of the matter

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Mary Muncil wrote a lovely post today that spoke about the holidays and the “big day phenomenon,” or the ways that the holidays can trigger high hopes and disappointment. She urges us to have a welcoming heart, no matter how things show up.

For years I would weep at Christmas.  I had a bad case of the Big Day thing.  I missed my father, who passed in 1993.  I missed my childhood. I missed Minnesota, which in fact I had left as soon as I could (no ocean).  In the process of all that weeping, I also missed what was there.

I still have twinges, but they are milder, and there is more joy, more appreciation.  I still miss my father, but I can feel him here in a deeper way now.  I can feel myself more deeply as well.

One thing that has helped me is letting go of some of the rigidity around the Christmas rituals:  The Formulaic Christmas.  How things should look and feel.  Where they go.  When they happen.  Not that there aren’t rituals, they just don’t have the big urgent charge around them that they used to.  My Christmases now have a more improvisatory swing to them, which helps me to connect to the heart of the matter.

ps.  the price for Breaking into Blossom goes up on Friday. $75 until then.

 

 

 

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Dec14

into the wild

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Paula Josa-Jones in The Messenger, Photo: NIck Novick

There have been  some interesting responses to my post on performance, an imaginary audience.

As a performer who is also writing daily, I am interested in the nature of the digital audience, and nervous about the ways that the hungry ghost of SEO & keywords drives the conversation.

How does the hunger for numbers and the distraction it offers shape the work itself?  My own WTF moment came earlier today when I re-upped my Twitter account, and then remembered why I turned it off.  I find it overwhelming, this river of tweeting.  I tried a shy tweet, a toe in the river.  Cold, fast, a little self-conscious.

Yesterday before The Sting, Pam and I were visiting with our friends Gillian Jagger and her wife, Connie Mander.  For them it is all about The Work.  Gillian, at 81, is the fiercest artist I know.  She is fully immersed 100% of the time.  If she isn’t building it, she is visioning it.  The Work itself is the place where her most potent, fearsome interactions take place.

Into the wild means hearing my own cri de coeur.  When that is clear, the audience that I want will appear.

Does the performance exist without the audience?

Dec8

OPD, OPW

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Other people’s dreams:

This year I got a major course correction.  A gigantic error message.  I had been spending too much time helping with other people’s dreams.  My efforts, which at first felt fluid and lovely, began to get tangled, murky, and then ultimately the situation became ugly.  

Others around me  could see that The Message was appearing with increasing frequency and that I was not seeing it, not wanting to see it.  I just kept slogging along, pushing, until the discomfort became overwhelming.

Finally I detached, unhooked, walked.

Other people’s work:

Similarly, as a new blogger, I was scanning for guidance from The Ones Who Know. As it turns out, they are actually me.  I have to decide what makes sense.

For many years I have practiced and taught Authentic Movement. It is about listening to the voice of the body – allowing the body to move without the judging arbitration of the mind.  It is about feeling, not thinking.

What I am learning about writing is how to let the body speak into the words.  My friend Nancy Stark Smith once called it “bloodful” writing.   Here’s how I feel it:  I get a flush of excitement, a little storm of synaptic activity; thoughts and ideas refracting, connecting – spinning together in a new way.  It is physical, shivery.  Then I write.

There isn’t room in that moment for other people’s words, preoccupations.  I am interested in them, but they do not have a place in that moment of inspiration.  It is all in my body, my heart, my words.

I am writing about this:  how do you feel your inspiration?

I am also writing this week about the beast, the performer and being animal.  It’s another little, ragged memoir.  It’s in The Journal.  It’s a monthly subscription (and you can opt out at any time.)

Dec8

the work

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Again, for those of you who have not visited the RIDE site. These images are from the production called “Flight.”

Three years ago, I became obsessed with blending aerial dance with horses.  In the first production of RIDE, we had used low-flying swings. I wanted more.

Around the same time, my friend Tamara Weiss, the owner of Midnight Farm on Martha’s Vineyard said, “Well you know Polly flies, don’t you?”  I didn’t. She was talking about the magnificent Paola Styron, dancer and aerialist extraordinaire.

And so, with her help and that of Flying by Foy, we created a workshop performance. We have not done it again but are open to that possibility. (Are there any angels out there?)

The other performers are the beautiful dancers, Ingrid Schatz, DeAnna Pellecchia and Dillon Paul; riders Brandi Rivera and Nicole Muccio; and horses Capprichio and Sanne. The images at the end are of Sarah Hollis and Escorial. The music is by Robert Weinstein.

This is a big part of my Great Work; the thing that wakes me up at night and in the morning, fills my journals and makes my heart sing.

postscript:  This week in The Journal, I am writing another ragged little memoir, this one called The Beast.  You can receive it by subscribing here. (As always, you can unsubscribe at any time.)