Thursday, April 28, 2011

Ongoing Exchange



One of the sweetest parts of the MomoButoh Dance Company is the ongoing creative exchange, mutual inspiration and support we cultivate with one another as a team. I've been lucky to have ongoing check-ins with each member as I coach their butoh and life/art processes individually. In addition, with our group blog, "buddy system" and monthly conference call to check in with every member; we are ALL now able to develop intimate ongoing intermodal arts exchanges and keep current on the latest with one another. This kind of cyclic art dialog is surprisingly supportive and fun. Here is a delightful film by Patricia that shows innovative use of media to facilitate the process with this type of exchange. Some of Lees recent posts also focus on this "riffing" off of one another's inspiration.

Last moon Patricia told me a dream she had wherein she was watching me lovingly emerge in and out of a pool of water. We gazed into one another's eyes as I surfaced and submerged. When I was on the red rocks in Sedona, AZ recently I wanted to dance this dream image. The film below is that dance.
Patricia also sent me a fantastic little hand illustrated graphic storybook (see photo above). Today, I wanted to dance with that as my Significant Other...it is an imaginary journey with an imaginary insect. The other film below shows that aesthetic response.

This moon Patricia and I are butoh "buddies." We both want support and accountability for our daily Significant Other practice with plants and animals so we are partnering up to exchange in this way with one another. We will be reporting to one another and on the blog about how it is coming along. Yesterday was our first S.O. plant dance for the month. Coincidentally we both had just gathered "sticks:" hers, two echinacea stalks topped with dried flowers that looked like huge insect antennae; mine a sensual piece of driftwood I'd gathered some years ago on a remote Pacific Ocean beach. We entered S.O. practice and she danced with my stick and I with hers. It reminded us that the intention and usual result of this practice is awakened attention and deepened connection with others in relationship. After we danced today, we checked in and her response to her own SO practice was: "the little and the big, parallel lines twig, last year's growth, this year's promise of seeds. tightly packed and all is promise, all is future....in a seed pod."
http://youtu.be/nxCF41LtDmY
Music: Philip Glass
Music: Kitaro
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2 comments:

  1. Am I dreaming this, too? I'm overwhelmed. Blushing and babbling in joy over this. Laughing and crying too. Thank you, Momo! Thank you all.
    Thank you too to Don Marquis who wrote the words.

    (We watched this together with friends projected in our studio. Surreal and powerful for all of us.)

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  2. How beautiful these dances of significant other connections between you and Patricia and you and insects!
    Love your dance of her watery dream of water 'baptism' while you were on the arid Sedona red rocks... the water in your imaginal realm and your body connecting deeply to earth... the immensity of human spirit - soul and yet the insignificance of it all in relationship to the ancient others in the stone sculpture beings...
    The insect book is a joy! The commitment of intention to being insect - the relentless be-ing-ness is inspiring! Thank you, Momo and Patricia - love XO

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