Pam White and our friend Suzanne were talking about pentimento, the practice of over-painting – basically the artist changing his/her mind.  Pam had some examples of her own pentimento on her Google+ page.

That got me to reflecting on the past two days, when i have been directing and making new movement for Xmalia. The process of choreographing, standing back, and then going in and layering in different or denser or richer movement is painterly in a similar way.  Sometimes the hint of a first rendering is there, other times I obliterate it completely, but even so, some trace remains.

Maybe I just like the feeling of the word.  It reminds me of another favorite word, palimpsest, the difference being that in that case the layers of a manuscript or scroll or painting were scraped or washed away, say with milk and oat bran.

I think what I really like is the idea of underlayers – of something earlier either concealed or revealed by what has been put down later.

When I went from being an actor to being a dancer, the actor was still there, shining through in the dances.  Now that I am writing, the dancer is still there, because the words are gestural – like movement to me – they have a physical resonance that I can feel.

And sometimes I have scraped things away – old text, old selves.  More about that in The Journal this week.

I am interested in how you are feeling your layers.  Over-painting or scraping away with milk and oat bran?

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Ngonda Badila is Lady Moon.  Her song, Speak to the Light, is one of the most lovely pieces of music that I have ever heard.  She sings it during the performance of Xmalia, the show created by C. Ryder Cooley.

The first time I heard it, I did not think that the sound was coming out of a human body, it was so etheric, so wildly beautiful.  When I watched her performance last weekend with Ryder on trapeze, it moved me to tears.

You can listen to it online, but better still, you can see and hear Lady Moon in person at the upcoming MCLA performance of Xmalia on January 25 at 7:30 in North Adams, MA.

 postscript:  This week The Journal is about callings.  How we feel them, and a few ragged ones of my own.  Breaking into Blossom starts next week.  This is an online class about moving into an improvisational life, about lessening the commute between what you think of as creative and everything else.  I hope you will join us.  You can register here.

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