"Significant Others" Workshop in Boulder
"Significant Other" (S.O.) is one of the MomoButoh training practices. It is a way of revealing the soul through the flesh and spontaneously devising meaningful improvisational dance & choreography. It intentionally enhances relationships with a11 beings through active artful engagement and conscious exchange of energy. These Others could be living human beings; any beings in the natural world; or (seemingly) "inanimate" objects who each have an essence that moves you in some way to an aesthetic response.S.O.s can be in physical or imaginal form....such as drawings, dream images or characters.
You can go out looking for an S.O. to dance with OR....when you happen to MEET an Other that feels Significant or meaningful for you in some way.....
The 7-step practice works like this:
1. Sensually pay attention to the Other in a way that feels honorable & comfortable. This could be as simple as witnessing with eyes or more deeply engaged like touching or sharing breath.
2. Receive something tangible from the Other through your senses and imagination.
3. Offer something tangible to the Other with your body and voice.
4. Allow a free conversation and/or dance of exchange to emerge between you spontaneously.
5. Thank the other for sharing this experience with you.
6. Continue on; carrying some "jewels" & "seeds" in the form of gifts and/or challenges from the exchange.
7. Freely draw, dance, write, speak, sing, sculpt, make a film, etc... about these "jewels" & "seeds" to re-cycle & re-member. Continue to embody & share this experience as an offering to your greater community.
Please try this and let us know how it goes with a comment below!!
This coming May moon our MomoButoh Company theme will be Plants & Animals. I am encouraging all of us to regularly, even daily, dance with at least one Significant Other plant &/or animal. Then to develop a special intimacy over time with ONE plant and ONE animal that holds particular meaning for you.
This dance in film below happened when arriving to prepare for the "Significant Other" 3-day workshop I co-led with Melinda Harrison in Boulder this past February. I was very "wound up" and ungrounded after a long car/plane/bus trip from Seattle that day. This dance allowed me opportunity to intimately engage with the Significant Others (sky, stones, mountains, plants) of this new environment, ground myself here and unwind some of the tension from the journey.
Hope you enjoy! Feel free to contact me if you want to explore these practices further AND leave any comments about your impressions below. Thank you.
music by Serena Tideman.... support her "Serene Dream" Kickstarter Album Project HERE!
looking forward to this exploration with s.o.'s! inspiring dance of connection to other... spectacular vista and connection to that which grounds and to that which transports us into infinite space of sky... the grass 'cord' dissecting the poles of opposites between the earth and the heavens... thank you for transporting me!
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