in meditation of triangles (which are not labyrinths)

summary

Performance — Emory Dance Company
Choreography — grace allerdice in collaboration with dancers
Costumes — the dancers

November 2015
at The Schwartz Center for Performing Arts
Presented + produced by the Dance Program Emory University

In this 15 minute meditative work, the dancers performed in immense vulnerability with no set timing but each other and in complete silence. Together we built phrases around preparation, the inhale of expectations and flying home towards new things.

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selected process notes

about preparation : so you walk up to a door + the door is your house. it’s locked. you know someone’s in there but you can’t knock. you have to wait for them to come out.

what does it feel like to think of it as something you already have? does it feel different? merely a space between instead of a No.

does this give where-you-are meaning?

is there a potential relationship, then, between waiting + preparation?

like cleaning a house for a guest. is one more passive than the other? does one give you more power as a person? as a woman? do you think of yourself as someone who has power? do you think or waiting and/or preparing as something powerful?

what does the ocean have to do with it?

a list of exercises :

• close your eyes + swallow a ball of light

• dew over your eyelashes

• meander thru tranquil waters

• simulate the experience of being water for the other person

• vastness: do the piece as slowly as you can

take the time to set a mental attention.

how is every repetition re-created?

find something to be in awe about or grateful for looking up there.

filled with light

covered in gold

your thirst.

what is seeing you +

what are you looking at ?

you have to simultaneously act like you are the only one being watched and acknowledge your relationship to the others.

exercises :

• imagine the parts of your body wanting to perform divergent movements, unable to form a cohesive plan. movement initiation is random, unexpected and without any spatial organization.

• think of being at home in your body. lights in rooms. light pervades every corner.

• heart beat… holler with your body.

• imagine a trace of your shape still lingers in the space you just occupied, like a translucent statue. after a while, the whole room is filled. erase.

• plow thru water / cut thru space. slice thru it. whatever body surface leads. the ship that cuts thru the water. move swiftly in any direction.

• stars approach + move past you on all sides. penetrate immense star-filled galaxies.

• lack of control —> still have intention.

• imagine yourself resting in a warm, sandy environment, like a beach. see the wind gently transform your environment. wind carries sand to different places, mound to an eddy, scrambled sandy to smooth. a whole new pattern emerges.

don’t suspend off your balance if you’re not in control of the timing.

make your walking the most important thing you’ve ever done.

you see something that makes you stop. look up.

YOU HAVE TIME.

you have choices. everything you do is a choice.

you are dancing for that Thing. it’s almost so good you don’t believe you can have it, but you can.

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