Tag Archives: Crystal Pite

Sep25

living a moving life

Posted on by

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

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.

http://www.knowledge.ca/program/cartographies

SHARE & EMAIL
Apr2

the deep end

Posted on by


Dominique and Malou in Cafe Muller by Pina Bausch

On Sunday when I was teaching in Boston, I challenged the dancers in the workshop to open the doors to their movement obsessions.  It is an idea that the great Bessie Schonberg opened to me.  I was already doing it, but she identified and crystallized it for me.

It takes a certain amount of courage to go there.  Many dancers would rather play in the safer end of the pool and not get emotionally overheated.

Obsession is what I especially love about the work of Pina Bausch, and more recently, Crystal Pite.  I admire the ferocity of their dancers, the sense that everyone is all in, all of the time, even in moments of exquisite stillness.

To my deep pleasure, the dancers in my workshop took up my challenge and dove deep.

Beyond the dance studio, I think opening to one’s obsessions – listening to them and allowing them to take form  – is what is required to live a full life.  Not following, not embodying those passions is like a series of little deaths, one moment, one dream, one day at a time.

One of my obsessions is the writing that I do weekly in Little Fictions & Ragged Memoirs.  This is writing that dives deeper than I do in the blog.  It is a subscription, which is one of the ways I support myself.  The current offering is a surreal story in four parts.  The next is going to become a part of my new dance solo.  If you subscribe mid-story, you will receive the story from  its start.  I hope you will join me!