To Practice the Practice ....

To practice the practice, I have to write this right now.  I may not know what I am saying or agree with it later, but I must skim those thoughts off the surface and say what needs to be said before the moment passes and it escapes.  Yes, this urgency is present but there need not be stress.  Consider urgency to be a matter of speed rather than stress, experience need as desire and remember you are a witness to all.
Tonight as I lay/lie/laid on the floor, I did not control my mind.  I let it go where it wanted and realized that in my previous improvisational practice, I was controlling it.  I was trying to coax my mind into the sensation of my body.  I was not letting it be free.  I was not letting it do what it wanted and needed to do.  Was there a conflict in my teaching?  What do I really want to teach?  To be present?  Is control necessary for presence?  Am I creating a hierarchy and putting presence above freedom?  Must one choose?  What is presence?  As I remained in an extreme position while stretching, wasn't it necessary to let my mind go where it went?  Perhaps in order to release that part of my body, my mind needed to process the thoughts it was thinking?  Maybe I did not need to feel the weight of my body at that moment?  Maybe I needed to think of that "other" matter?  There were many moments during tonight's session that "other things" were on my mind.  Did that mean I was not present?  Or merely that I am able to be present to many things at one time?  Has my ability to be present expanded so that I may attend to the person moving next to me, while attending to the sensations in my body, while thinking about someone who is not present in the room?  Perhaps I need not judge how far my awareness expands.  As the years of my practicing presence and improvisation add up, as I live in this body, this brain, this consciousness, it makes sense that my ability to perceive, sense, attend to would change and expand.  As I understand that I am not my body and I am not my thoughts only, that I may be constantly surprised how my awareness expands.  Why limit it to the constraints that others may suggest?  Why should my experience and my approach match that of others?  I trust my experience.
From an external perspective, tonight I went to a "dance studio" and "danced".    My "dancing" was the least interesting part of my experience.  Touché.

My Blood Cooling

                                                                                                  Photo by K. Diaz


Your best art is your honesty.  It's your truth that moves me, compels me.

I learned this from the animals.  They know what they need and what they want and they are clear and direct in their pursuit.  I can sit fascinated for hours by their clarity.

It's rare to see this in humans with their busy brains.  A thousand thoughts thinking.

It's your softness that softens me.  It's your openness that opens me.  It's your trust, vulnerability and willingness to feel that makes me feel.

I'm not so interested in your artfully woven cover-ups, your carefully constructed compositions of confidentiality.  While my brain twirls around your confetti of complications with agility, my heart sits waiting, my blood cooling.

On July 12, 2015, I ....

"We are incredibly excited to welcome two new artists into Miranda’s Hearth for our July Dinner, Art, + Music night

Performing artist and movement educator, Liz Roncka, will share her philosophy and personal practice of movement improvisation. Joining her will be sound artist, Jason Sanford. Since 2011, Sanford and Roncka have collaborated to create performance pieces exploring the inter-relationship between dance movement and sonic production.

On July 12, they will introduce you to some of their most recent sound sculpture objects and invite you to participate in a structured movement and sound improvisation exploring these objects. Everyone is warmly welcomed. No dance or musical experience necessary.

Learn more about Liz in #WhatIMake Episode 2 created by John Douglas Manson: http://mirandashearth.com/whatimake-episode-two-liz-roncka/

As always, tickets are $7 or you can get in for free if you bring a potluck dish to share. After Liz and Jason’s presentation, we will have our monthly potluck and jam session."

To visit the actual website, click here.

Please, Please, Please Be an Animal Today

3:30am
(Birds chirping and cheeping.  We've already wondered what they are talking about.)

I scroll around and watch a video that I don't want to watch, but I do too.  I want to see what I'm not missing.
There are gaps here, in these words, for you to fill in with your story and mine.

I'm awake writing, yes, because time is free and time is mine.

And in this video, two figures sing beautifully in black and white.  And soon I'm not interested in the beauty because all I hear is technique.  I watch these bodies move as they sing and I am unmoved.  I see prison and I see fear.  I no longer see beauty in these notes, in these tentative movements.

I want animals and I want souls
I want ecstasy and death
To move through you
And through me

Your animal skin and fur
Your fangs to howl and purr
Your bodies to perch, pounce, lurk
And then rest heavy

You are not on Earth
You are in the earth
Rooted to gravity

The measured pitches are lessons learned in school, a school that made you forget your animal self
You try to find it again
Seeking teachers and gurus to free you to be an animal again

Books and methods
Words and words and words
But, my dear, animals do not read

Take your body to the earth
The dirt, the sea, the bugs
And mucky muck
And feel it on your skin

Notice how you first tighten
Then let yourself release
Feel what you feel as if your life depended on it
Because it does

Then you can writhe and moan
Scamper into the bush
No, do not sit at your human desk with your learned words
Crouch and grunt
Find a safe shadow to sit in and lick your tail

Watch. Sniff.
Thump your hocks and hiss
Sleep safely up high or deep in your nest
Curl up with another animal for warmth
Feel the basic necessity of your actions

Return to your self and your animal body
There is your truth
There is your freedom
There is your essence, your art

Lay yourself down in a sunny spot to rest and heal
Then go find your next meal
Feel the hunger
Sniff your prey
Please, please, please be an animal today.

H20 Sonata

Bibiana Padilla Maltos' H20 Sonata in Two Movements (full version) from MobiusArtistsGroup on Vimeo.

Performed at Mobius on June 27, 2015