Art Museum Style Spontaneous Aesthetic Response

Today MomoButoh Dance Company met on a conference call to discuss our process, challenges and breakthroughs since beginning this YearOfCo11aboration on 11/11/10. We also brainstormed ideas for our current project: The Styles. We agreed that it would be a beneficial practice to enter collaborative dialogue with one another by responding with our dances & blog articles to other member's prior stories, dances, poems, images, etc. Although the dance I share here was done before our discussion today, it coincidentally happened in the same location on the same day just an hour or so before Lee Atwell filmed & was inspired to dance about Style. I did not know that she had be there till afterwards. So, it leaves me wondering whether my "aesthetic responses" to these exact same costumes, style and spaces here were influenced by Lee's prior presence and dance here. In any case, this all makes me smile and feel somehow connected and naturally in the company of MomoButoh.

Speaking of collaboration, the music for this film is "Oni Gorshi" by Degenerate Art Ensemble; a group that I admire for their awesome STYLE and I know to be committed to artistic multi-discplinary collaboration. Thanks Haruko for your inspiration and all the best for your upcoming show at the Frye Art Museum! See more about that (and a bit about collaborations between Haruko and I) at her blog here: http://redshoebutoh.blogspot.com/ and the

Maureen Freehill Dance blog here: http://maureenfreehill.blogspot.com/2010/04/moving-discovery-with-haruko-nishimura.html

FreeSTYLE on 1/1/11 and beyond

Kazuo Ohno used the term "FreeStyle" very often when instructing us in butoh dance at his studio (photos here of Momo dancing "freestyle" in the Kazuo Ohno Dance Studio by Nobuko Shiga).

Now that we are investigating The Styles with MomoButoh Dance Company from 1/1/11 till 2/2/11; echos of his directions are repeating inside me. What is it to dance "freestyle?" On 1/1/11 at 11:11 am I initiated a dance improvisation ceremony to celebrate this New Year of E11evens. It included appearances by invited friends moving in all speeds, levels, styles, emotions and directions. It included passers by like a bird pecking at the vomit likely left by someones New Year's Eve revelation and a coffee cup carrying crow who knocked it percussively on the pavement; providing a soundtrack for our dance along with a jumbo jet flying low & slow over 11th street (we were on 10th & Pike) in Seattle. At about 6 min in, I encountered an unused cigarette and crumbled its contents in a circle on a dumpster, offering tobacco with prayers for a good year for all my relations. It was a magical and totally unplanned 11 minutes that culminated with dancing in an underground (literally) painting studio of someone I met right there on the street during the dance. It was all filmed.

Sadly, I did not immediately dowload the footage of this event and now must learn from my delinquency & mistake. My flip video camera broke on 1/6/11 just before I attended the Picasso exhibit at the Seattle Art Museum. I sent in the broken camera for a replacement (Technical Side NOTE: They are doing this for me even though it is NOT under warrantee anymore because we found the original receipt and they say I am a "valued customer", cool!! --this is ONE reason I suggest all DailyDance practitioners get a FLIP camera). I asked them to retrieve the films "stuck" on the camera, and will post it here if they do. But this will likely never happen. So, please use your infinite imagination to re-create in "freestyle" what this dance ceremony might have appeared like there in the bright sunshine, in front of a horse trough turned bamboo garden planter and a drive shaft handled metal doorway with a wooden barrel for a light fixture and sheet metal for a sign closed club entryway. A very urban STYLE place to begin 2011 for sure. One of the few human passers by happened to be my good friend from the dance community -Louis Gervais...what a blessing to have the likes of him be one of my first spontaneous dance partners for 2011!! It is going to be a very fine and WILD year of FreeSTYLE indeed. Can't wait for 11/11/11 of course....

And, regarding the "Freestyle" that Kazuo Ohno would regularly call out for, I believe this may be the MOST difficult thing to do in butoh, dance and life. How can we truly be free? What does that even mean? How can we dance and act free of conditioning, ideas of right/wrong, good/bad, self imposed constraints on our spontaneously emerging actions and creativity? It would be as if we were unrestrained and totally available puppets of unfolding Creation. On 1/3/11 I may have experienced a tiny and ecstatic glimpse into this while sharing a trio improvisation score with improvisational dance luminaries John Dixon and Karen Nelson. After an afternoon of Contemplative Dance Practice we discussed an experimental score whereby the only "rules" were to follow your "embodied impulses" and when finding you were NOT doing that (such as following a mental thought or idea of what to do/not do) then to PAUSE and begin again only from an embodied impulse. This may sound quite vague but what emerged was a rare revelatory and amazingly fulfilling experience for all of us. We shared a freestyle dance for about 30 minutes of what we agreed was almost total presence and direct communion with BEING (self, each other, god?) self-emerging in action through the body. I felt perhaps that this was what Kazuo had been trying to convey when he would repeat "FREESTYLE!!" (in English) over and over while we improvised during his lessons.

I would love to hear/see what you think/see is "FreeSTYLE"...I would love to hear what happened for you if you try the meditation/movement improvisation score I explained above. please offer a comment or blog response if you are moved. Thank you.

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MomoButoh Sessions; YearOfCo11aboration + MORE Films of 11/11

Today we welcome a new member to our MomoButoh Dance Company inner circle. Her name is Misty Hannah and she currently hails from Cork, Ireland. I am very happy about her joining us, please take a momomoment to greet her as soon as you can.

Today also came a new clarity about the MomoButoh YearOfCo11aboration that will span 13 moons and was initiated on 11/11 this year. Each month on a double digit day (12/12, 1/1 and so on); I will initiate a new "project" for that moon. The first one was our Salmon Restoration Project at Mile 11. The next two will be The Elements Project (12/12) and then The Styles Project (1/1). The specific scores, practices, performances and aesthetic responses for these projects will mainly arise out of the monthly individual practice sessions that each member shares with Momo (and one another if desired). In the past 3 days, during sessions with Art/Rev, Me Ha and Misty; 3 new scores for DailyDance practice with The Elements have emerged. They each will be exploring these scores daily and posting results, we then can in turn respond through our own investigations and postings. What fun!

Today in the session with Me Ha I simply asked her to take a few minutes to investigate her unique relationship with The Elements. Her reply came in the form of a Talking Dance. I wrote some of the wise poetry she spoke while dancing and post that here for your further investigation & inspiration.

"Water is VITAL!...Water is VITAL, so much a part of LIFE!!

I AM Earth--it grounds me.

The Earth is my roots.

I root into the Earth.

(she shows me a stone sculpture and will post a photo of it here soon)

Like this.

I have worked with The Elements SO MUCH!

Catastrophe and Restoration was all about the elements.

Wind at the top of mountains is so important for diversity.

Forest Fires are important for forest to be healthy.

Buffalo trampling and stirring up the Earth....is important.

The importance of Flooding!!

Fire is scarier than Earth or Water.

It is in my astrological chart; my Aries Moon.

I have danced with fire and love it.

Air is furthest away for me ---wind/tornado/100 mph winds here.

I can use Air/Breath in lungs and bring it into my dance.

It is essential.

When I focus on my breath--I enter into my body.

It is essential!

Space-- I long for it.

The Space.

As Yoshito says, 'For a dancer, God is Space.'

Wood --

Did I show you the sculpture we made from the wood you gave us?

It is perfectly balanced in the 'relationship' area of our house as a primary focal point.

(she shows me a wood sculpture and will post a photo of it here soon)

Wood is the strongest BEING in nature for me-- it calls me again and again to dance with it.

Trees, roots....."

Wood is the strongest BEING in nature for me-- it calls me again and again to dance with it.

Trees, roots....."

wood "core" sculpture found by momo and offered at david's birthday at Me Ha's place

11/11 Mountain Stream Prostration (Part 3)

11/11 Gambaru (Part 4)