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