Tag Archives: dance

Sep25

living a moving life

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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

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Jun12

the poetry angel

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Photo:   Jeffrey Anderson of Paola Styron in FLIGHT

My friend, the beautiful dancer and aerialist Paola Styron sends me poems.  This is her latest gift.  She is the one who took me deeper into Rumi and Hafiz and whose dancing is like poetry – a thing of essential wonder and mystery.

Horses at Midnight Without a Moon   by Jack Gilbert

Our heart wanders lost in the dark woods.
Our dream wrestles in the castle of doubt.
But there's music in us. Hope is pushed down
but the angel flies up again taking us with her.
The summer mornings begin inch by inch
while we sleep, and walk with us later
as long-legged beauty through
the dirty streets. It is no surprise
that danger and suffering surround us.
What astonishes is the singing.
We know the horses are there in the dark
meadow because we can smell them,
can hear them breathing.
Our spirit persists like a man struggling
through the frozen valley
who suddenly smells flowers
and realizes the snow is melting
out of sight on top of the mountain,
knows that spring has begun.


					



		
		

	

		


	
Jun10

	

					
the swan, a gift

		
		

			
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I am so excited to see this work.  I keep starting to write that I RARELY see work that touches me and excites me this way.  But that is not really true.  I do see it, and every time I do, I share it here.  Even so, those finds are treasures, surprises, gifts from the big sea of the world washing up on my shores.  This is a gorgeous gift from French choreographer Luc Petton.  Aren’t we lucky!  This next one made me weep!




 


					



		
		

	

		


	
Jun5

	

					
earth dance

		
		

			
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How do you think of dance?


Is it shapes?


Is it steps moving across a stage?


Or is it the aged body


steeped in its years


on earth?


Is it the body inseparable


from everything


it touches?


Are you dancing now?


If you are breathing,


that is the start.