Vacuums

Hey all,

Margaret facilitated a lab last week focusing on creating space for and being pulled into vacuums. I'm hungry for more.

Matthew

Outsiders

Hi all,

How do we feel about visiting dancers coming to Juicy? The jam brought some intersting visitors to Chicago, and I want to know how we feel about transients.

Matthew

response

Hmmm.

I had brought up an interest at JUICE lab this past week about animal movement and the spine. I am enjoying looking at animal videos playing and animal movement.

Theres something so instinctual and simple about the act of play..and I love tapping into my animal side. For me, contact satisfies this need and urge to contact each other in this playful and explorative way which we often see in big cats (tigers), monkeys, dogs, and bears.

Thinking of animal movement, I remember a visit to the Field Museum a few months ago and enjoyed looking at an exhibit of the evolution of life. It was interesting to me to see how life in its simplest forms have evolved. The spine was at the base of support and structure for many life forms...which really fascinated me. Spinal movement to me is beautiful to watch and beautiful to experience.

I have also enjoyed reading Matthews writing about movements of contreaction and expansion in the movement of a tiger. I remember doing this tiger contact play with a teacher at Impulstanz. Its very simple but I remember writing it down because it seemed to connect to my love of animal movement and dance....

I also thought a little about Kelands connection to clowning and contact. He brought up this wonderful dual relationship of connecting to the audience with clowning and almost pausing to connect to the audience like "can you believe what im doing" (I might be a little off on the excat quote or completely off so forgive me Keland) and the relationship to contact of really having to be in the moment with the contact and feeling weight or you might miss the boat...it was really a beautiful insight and idea leading to possibilities.

But, anywho, I thought about what I say a lot of this past Wednesday as we were dancing...and I saw a lot of mirroring. Mirroring is an idea of following someones movement and trying to follow, trying to lead, trying to do alittle of both...and I wonder if we might try this out as an exercise on its own.
Well, thats all for now...

Here is an adorable video of orangutrans playing with a potato sack...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Upy6UIw8hWs


I am also interested in what Matthew and Keland have brought to the Lab...I

Directions for labs

Hi all,

I've seen a couple things over the past two labs that I am interested in exploring further. First is a return to basics--the rolling point of contact. I'm really impressed by our athelticism and our creativity, and I'm curious what happens when we stick to a basic constraint and play with that. I envision an exercise where we attempt to cross the length of the floor with the rolling point of contact as a constraint. Second is the prominence of personality. Keland may have touched upon this topic at Lab 1 when he expressed his curiosity about with what happens when the dancers put on clown noses. I'd like to offer a counterpoint to Keland's question and ask what happens when the dancers put on neutral masks. I often feel myself put on a determined face when I dance, which takes me out of the moment. A mask might offer a new experience of freedom for me.

I'm grooving on the opportunity to improvise with a mindful (but not too dutiful) emphasis on expanding and contracting. I've been dreaming about tigers recently, and I like the image of the tiger about to pounce and the tiger about to land on its prey. I notice dancers' contractions and expansions.

I saw some beautiful movement last night. Thanks for the gifts.

Sincerely,

Matthew

First meeting reflections

This is a beginning I hope continues to evolve. I had a blast. What I am curious about is what it is that makes me move and what is satisfying. This is a wide range of things. Connecting and discovery is something that fuels me I think. I want to find a new level of dancing where I feel like i can take the unknown to new heights, where when a beautiful and surprising moment happens, I find an even better one by responding with grace.

I also as Margaret is talking about-would like to investigate some of my habits and push through them. But I also want to find something in them that I can explore with a ceratin amount of clarity and understanding. Why do I keep doing this-is there something in this that I need to push further?

What makes contact so special to me is that it can be so different with different people. I often dance more "physically" with Margaret and I often dance somewhat animated with Matthew-for example..But I wonder if I can approach things diffrently sometimes-

I am not sure what exactly I would like to workshop yet. I really liked Kelands idea of dressing like clowns and doing contact-I really hope these things actually get some time in.

I think I need to follow my my responses with different people and see how I can begin to separate a little and find my own dance....

Margaret's thoughts from Day 1

What a warm and wonderful bunch was able to make it to the opening session!

We did a pinwheel series in which everybody got to duet with each person as a way of introducing each of us to one another's dancing. I noticed in myself a tendency towards fulfilling my expectation of what the dance could be with certain folks that I have danced with before--making it fun in a way that I am somewhat familiar with. I did this the first time I danced with Keland--very mischievously playful, quick, and with feeling like dueling. This approach yielded only what I was going for,because there just wasn't much room in it for the unknown. Because of this closedness, I feel like that dance was half realized. I halfway saw the Keland/moment/self of the present while seeking to recreate something of a past experience. There's a richness of access to feeling/though/response that's available when we're savoring the unique possibility present moment that is like nothing else. I had glimmers of this in subsequent dances, and later while eating a grapefruit, allowing my mind to flood itself with tasks from my to do list, and repeatedly reminding myself to be in the grapefruit eating. The grapefruit was delicious, and I almost totally missed it!

A habit I noticed yesterday that I want to break is finding myself in some super cool position, and getting my attention so caught up in that accomplishment that I lose the dance and disintegration ensues. Boo to that.

Many thanks to everyone who made it last night. See you next week!