seven seven eleven moon

"Heart is like the moon. Don't keep sorrows in it. Cast them off in waters deep." Rumi

After spending a few days alone in my childhood home one month to the day after my Dad passed (7/7/11), I could feel his presence as I left. Unexpectedly, the motion detector lights at the far end of the house turned on mysteriously as I was packing up my car. I was reminded of the ritual Dad and I had of him standing at the door, waiting and waving as I backed out of the long driveway after visiting with him

.

Missing him, tears began to flow and I felt inspired to dance my grief, so I threw on a sweater and hat that belonged to him, and just as I set up the camera, a thundercloud overhead began to send rain to the earth - the hugest drops I have seen in a awhile, feeling like they were my tears, washing my spirit's grief...

Driving home, I was inspired to pull off the highway onto a deserted country road to take a photo of the moon, which suddenly appeared through a crack in the clouds. As I pulled to the side of the road, a white barn owl flew across the moon's light and onto a nearby barn roof. Once again I felt insipred to dance, feeling my Dad's presence in the infinite night sky, reminded of the connection I felt with the moon and his passing...

Right after Dad passed in the hospice a visitor in the lobby began to play Debussy's 'Clair de Lune,' a song that I remembered hearing waft through our home as a child. Hearing the song so soon after he passed, felt like Dad was being serenaded into the spirit realm with the sounds of the moonlight...

Connecting to my Dad, the moon, the owl, the cosmos and the mystery...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpLQUO9fsJM

Music: Clair de Lune

Grateful for our deepening connection here to one another... dancing our souls... thank you, Momo, for bringing us together in this most meaningful way....

Lee

dance, prayer, ceremony, life...

While dancing daily in 2009 inspired by Momo and her idea of a daily dance practice honoring her sensei, Kazuo Ohno, I realized and experienced deeply that there is the potential for no separation between dance and daily life, and daily life and dance... Whatever was being experienced internally or externally in the inner / outer environments could be sources of inspiration to dance. And often the practice became therapeutic, as an outcome, not as an intention.

The following three dances were water ceremonies. After the earthquake in Japan, Momo, several women and I took part in a water healing ceremony - sending prayers into water that was being distributed to rivers and ocean's around the world.

The first two offerings here were local - Skagit River and Oyster Creek. The third was Capilano River in Vancouver, B.C. - a dance offering with my sister.

After the earthquake in Japan, I read the following quote from Atsushi Takenoushi regarding the role of butoh dance from his perspective -

"What is dance for us? " It concerns a lot with prayer. A prayer is releasing and purifying our inner soul. A prayer is beyond the life and the death. I feel it as a dance itself truly.

This time I will perform in Tokyo "Hane no Ki" and "Vers l'Autre Monde" in Kyoto . These pieces were made with theme of "releasing and purifying soul beyond the life and the death."And in Shizuoka, we perform imprivising piece "to the memory of the sea" and "from the memory of the sea," which is reminding the memory of life carrying music and dance from ancient time. Music and dance should have been a prayer since old time.

I hope to dance to resonate a prayer with audience, to send this resonance to the earthquake stricken area, nuclear accident area in Japan and the place of any kind of nature disaster, human disaster, battlefield in the world. And I hope to dance to dedicate the life of now.

Here from my heart, I am sending deep prayer for the people suffering from this big disaster, the people who lost life. As spring comes after winter, I hope the time will come that one can love a tiny flower even in the pain.

Wishing dance and music to be able to become this flower....

Atsushi Takenouchi

2011 Mar 24Osaka Japan

Atsushi's quote resonates so viscerally with me in regards to how I feel about the practice of butoh as taught by Momo - that it is a practice that connects one so deeply with your innermost soul that feels ancient, ancestral and on a certain level seems to alter, if not purify the soul...

Are the films below dances? Ceremonies? Rituals? Prayers?

The experience of these dances was one of soul connection with other, the element water, and are offerings for the healing of the waters in general and in particular around Japan.

Thank you, Momo... for your inspirations... and all! Grateful for this connection of dance and life :~)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0k7rgjuRhPU

Music: Mountain Man

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHWp8YIyQdA&feature=related

Music: Jennifer Berezan

clown love

Last week I completed the Clown through Mask workshop with Sue Morrison, and in the process, I've fallen in love. I've always felt the deep connections made possible through movement in my own private practice, but now I'm in love with sharing love--exposing my own vulnerability-- with an audience.

This new love is a huge leap for me. The stage has always frightened me, literally choking me into terror-filled silence. And though the thought of sharing my bare naked soul on a stage in front of strangers still makes me wheeze, I'm thrilled by the possibilities clowning opens for profound human connection. As a newborn baby clown I'm now able to take a glimpse of what it is to share a deep dialogue with others through performance.

During the course of our five-week workshop Sue tough-lovingly guided me (and 13 other baby clowns) in creating six masks representing the six directions. Through a process developed by Sue's teacher, the late Richard Pochinko, we explored two sides of each of the six masks: one of experience and the other innocence. The work included movement, color, games, paint, and imaging. Each mask revealed its own mythology and personality, its own neuroses, its own wisdom. With each mask I learned to release secrets I didn't even know I was keeping.



Through work with the masks I'm learning to claim space. I'm learning that a mask does not hide. A mask reveals. I'm learning in performance to create a story in conversation with others. I'm learning to stand strong with a wide open heart. I'm growing impatient with old habits and anything that keeps my actions small, superficial, artificial or pretentious. I'm learning how powerful naked vulnerability can be.
I'm learning to share my love.

I hope to work with the wisdom of clown in my dance practice. I am calling on the masks to inform my movement, and to dance with me. I'm also very curious about the connection and overlap of butoh and clown. How might I dance as a clown? How might I clown in dance? What might the masks reveal if allowed to come through in the dance? Who else is working with clown in butoh and butoh in clown? There's much love to explore.

I feel deep appreciation to my teachers Sue Morrison and Maureen Freehill and all the dancers and clowns in my life. And thanks to Dexter who shot the video. My heart is open and full of love.