A New Collaboration: Mini-Documentary

It's a new collaborative experience for me:  the creation of a mini-documentary.  In this case, I am the the subject matter,  Liz Roncka/Movement Improvisor.   It's my role to be me.  That sounds simple, but is it?  How to allow transparency, honesty?  How to open yourself and offer yourself as raw material?  It's a challenge and a gift to engage in the process.

When I am creating my own work, I hope to be honest and to offer myself to my audience.  Yet, when I create my work, I make decisions.  I make frames, lenses, costumes and characters to reveal what I want, the way I want.  On some level, I control the situation.    

In this situation, in being the subject of a documentary,  I must surrender.   I must trust.  I must let the film maker be the artist and free myself to be the material.  It is he who will sculpt, frame, compose and extract to reveal his perception of who I am.  I keep reminding myself:  let go, let go, let go.  I stay grounded in my essence and invite myself to release the rest.

I am fortunate to be engaging with a collaborator, John Manson, who is very open and receptive to my thoughts and input, so I feel I can express my preferences and concerns.  However, I must say that I am quite interested in how much I can focus my energy on being present and unguarded and leave the rest to him.  Although we have not worked together before, I have observed his own work as both a performer and photographer and there is a sensibility that resonates with me.  I feel a sense of curiosity and adventure to see what happens.  I feel that my development as an artist and a human hinges on these experiences of engaging and letting go at the same time.

A Look Back at the Beginning

This was the first video and entry to this blog.  At some point, I took down the video because I was having issues with copyright.  It's no longer an issue and I'm happy to share the inauguration of this blog again, nearly 6 years later.

The Original post:

"Here is Dance # 1 of the Dance-a-Day Project. Well, what is that you ask? The Dance-a-Day Project is me, Liz Roncka, creating and videotaping improvised dances on a daily basis. In 2007-2008, I did a similar project of writing a poem a day. It was a prolific and enlightening experience. The intent of this project is to deepen my practice of improvisation. The commitment to and repetition of this process will inevitably lead to the evolution of my work. I am seeking information regarding patterns and themes in my work; my personal responses to the dances; the viewers' responses; what is my technique/my method; what characteristics define my work; where are the blocks; where is the magic; where is the "truth"?!

This project began 4/19/09 and will go on every day until it does not."

The Space Between Separates and Connects

In the Flesh, In the Ether, Across the Ocean

We are not limited to any medium
Not to written words
Or spoken words
Nor to music
Or the dance

We sculpt Time and Space
Always and Everywhere
In the flesh
In the ether
Across the ocean

We are improvisors
We listen and respond
To the necessity of the moment.




(a new poem to an old photograph)

Improvised Piano Duet

Christophe Delerce and Liz Roncka

If You Want to Learn to Improvise, Study with a Cat

Here's an improvised quartet I made with my cats today.  They notice all the golden opportunities and take them, unapologetically.  Obviously, I have more to learn.

"Take the space of this time and place...."

As I said, the medium keeps changing.  Here's an improvisation I did with words on April 5:


Take the space of this time and place.  Forget the past and future.  Again and again.  Useless traps that halt your breath.  Go on.  Don't stop.  Flow forth and forward.  Holding only caused an early death.  Pull all the stops, they're broken anyway.  Push on.  Find the truth of "in between".   In between is all.  There is no here or there.  By the time you know the beginning and the end, the story is already over.

I can tell you this.   You may not understand, but if I tell you That to try to understand This, I've already misrepresented it and myself.  This speed is necessary.  Slower or faster is false advertising, a bastardization of the authentic velocity that is necessary to see things in the proper perspective.

That moment there, when it seemed the lights flickered, was the moment you lost me.  Now it's just you wondering exactly what happened when the lights went out.... and everything changed.

There isn't a moment to pull back, to pull out, that isn't too late.  No pause or replay without perverting all that was revealed.  Later, all is just a memory... the Now of the Then, but certainly not the Now of the Now.  

Just take it as it comes, in its most perfect form.  Let Desire and Fear be unto themselves, no need to stick them and mesh them with that which they are not.  Keep yourself free as well, it's the only way You Are.

Simplicity and Clarity

Christophe Delerce and Liz Roncka


There are two things that I particularly appreciate about this excerpt:

1)  The clarity of our timing.  This has been the focus of my improvisation class lately and it certainly came through here.  I often think that as movers, we are inclined to prioritize Space over Time.  In my own practice and in my teaching, I emphasize the importance of sculpting time as well. This is not the exclusive job of the music or the musician, but the mover must also accept this responsibility.

2)  Simplicity.  We make very simple and clear choices both in Time and in Space.  I feel there is often a strong drive to do more/move more/play more and to be complex in what we do.  Whenever I stop and watch from the outside, I am reminded of the power of Simplicity.

It has been nearly a year since I have posted in my blog.  When inspiration comes, I take it, so here I am.

My blog is just over 6 years old.  I should not let it die now, now should I?  And how much does it take to keep it alive??   Well, here is just one puff of air.

Today I thought this, wrote this when asking myself "why":

"The process, the practice is constant. The medium keeps changing. There are fewer projects as I am absorbed in the continuum. It's everything, all of the time. To break it down into pieces and parts with names and descriptions feels like a disruption of the flow."

I originally started blogging during my "Dance-a-day" project in which I made a dance improvisation every day and posted it on my blog.  After around 113 days, I stopped.  I decided to keep the blog even after the project.  Over the years, I have made entries less and less.  However, a catalog of my work does not exist anywhere.  While this blog is absolutely incomplete, it probably offers more in one place than any other source of my "artistic" work.  I really don't like this word "artistic" and quite frankly, I don't like the word "art" anymore, but ..... fuck that, for now.

So, lots of art has been made since my last entry in April 2014.  Perhaps I will share some of that work now or perhaps we will just allow for this gap.