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

http://youtu.be/t3oUUkAzNzw

Music: Kitaro

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dreaming of balance

"The best thing about dreams is that fleeting moment, when you are between asleep and awake, when you don't know the difference between reality and fantasy, when for just that one moment you feel with your entire soul that the dream is reality, and it really happened." Unknown Author

My art of Patricia's dream (above)...

Patricia and I shared our dreams once again via 'skype' - drawing each other's dreams as they were being shared...

One of the images I drew of Patricia's dream was of two columns... with a whirlwind (nourishment - a green blender drink :~) swirling in the middle... books and furniture being moved... In another, there was also a strong concrete column supporting an overhang...

Patricia's art of my dream below... a dream of concern - once I made it to the top of the slippery snow covered mountain, how would I descend?

The undercurrent of the dream (and both of our dreams), however, was one of trust and letting go, and in that process, 'all would be well.'

At my last mentoring session with Momo she spoke of 'Hitobashira' - that which creates a framework, bridge, or pillar. When one dances 'Hitobashira' you gracefully enter or touch the space around you to begin, then establish your axis between poles of opposites - such as above and below, life and death, etc... From this place, you can open gateways of exchange with other beings around you (animate and inanimate) and then explore the poles of opposites... and in the uncertainty, shaking and imbalance might ensue... with the potential of eventually finding balance...

There is a also an element of stepping off into the unknown through this practice... a surrendering into the flow and / or an acceptance of a burden...

Momo's dance performance is incredibly moving, danced post the earthquake in Japan, a dance evoking the unstable earth beneath us and feelings within us....

In a friend's garden, with her outdoor furniture strewn about (aka Patricia's dream of furniture moving), I had an opportunity to dance Patricia's dream combined with elements of mine... the 'columns' becoming unstable, the desire to climb up, while being challenged by the slippery 'slope' and the final surrender into the flow...

Feeling grateful for this practice of connection and this means in which to embody the literal challenges of finding balance in life... heart-full thank you Patricia, and Momo...

Lee

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPB1vj3q5xM

Music: Yungchen Lhamo

Filmed by Momo