charlbury UK 2011

The studio is called Finstock Hall.  It was previously used for making gloves and now it is the town hall and meeting place for Finstock.  It is wonderful to be inside of because it is made of wood.  It has an A frame and its small and spacious and is elevated slightly at the far end of the room  where there is a small stage.

 

The first thing Miranda does is open the front and back doors so we can see and feel the outside landscape.  The draft is cool and is a reminder of something.  And so

I am thinking about wind, … and beginnings …  and the word window.

 

We warm up as all dancers do.  This is the time before we begin; each of us in our own specific way gather energy and warm up the body.

I am extremely happy to be here in this room with Guy and Miranda.  They have really just met.

·      Guy does Yoga Nidra and he walks and sounds in a circle.

·      Miranda does Tai Chi

·      Lin does Zikr dance with some chi gong and rolls around on the wooden floor

 

Guy and I then perform Repeating Distance for Miranda

 

Lin explains the history of Repeating Distance to Miranda, and so Guy begins and Lin witnesses.

 

It is very spacious performance.

 There are stories

…of gloves

…of hands

…of movie screens

…of stairs

…of wind

 

 

She, Miranda, is a bit overwhelmed when she realizes our offer is for her to join us.

 

We then re-begin with Miranda in the first ever practice of Rewriting Distance.

 

Miranda begins dancing

Lin witnesses

Guy is the audience

 

We then rotate this form twice through

 

The stories that emerge are stories about

religion

hierarchy

risk

stair sculptures

sweeping the floor with body

a field sideways

buildings … up … down

 

“she gave us our feet”   This is what I remember Guy saying referring to Miranda’s participation. It feels good to write this down.

 

Miranda was intrigued by the duet form and working on it more … (this is always something Guy and I are interested in) and she suggests the witness speak, and not the mover.

 

This is what we will do tomorrow.

 

In the evening we go for a huge long walk. Miranda mentions it will take an hour and a half and it takes three! We walk through the grounds of Blenheim Palace.  The huge old oak trees are majestic and look a bit like old craggy relatives; spirited and confined somehow to strange and elegant postures.

 

It is an adventure like much of the work we do in the studio.  There is a magical element that one feels when walking with her.  She brings everything alive by how expansive her vision is.  She sees many things.

 

 

We began with a suggestion from Miranda. The exploration addresses the space as a partner in what we are doing.

 

You begin by closing eyes, to disorient yourself a bit, and then open them and choose something in the room that attracts your attention. Then approach what you have chosen and spend some time looking at it and letting images well up around it.  Repeat this three times.

Then you gather together and describe to your partners what you have observed.  We walk around the space together showing each other what we have discovered. Each person does this in turn.

Then you return to one of the spots you chose, and re-observe this place and write about it. Then you read to your partners what you have written.

I read this

 

A Kitchen Window

 

window light arrives

by the door,

this frame of morning

spills gently onto the

smoothness of the wooden floor,

walking directly into the patch

of  sunlit gentleness,

it nudges my eyes

my whole body

to turn and face the window.

my whole body focuses

on the moving leaves

the trees

the other gentleness

the wind

shows the light green blind

is a quarter of the way down

on the kitchen window,

I am standing in front of a kitchen window,

and as I stand longer my memory

nudges to the

gentleness of a mother

her gaze out from so

many kitchen windows

 her attention framed

by her busy day,

a morning

an afternoon

an evening.

In this kitchen

there is a microwave underneath

the window,

beside that a sign that says

Finstock Toddlers 2009

and again,

the memory

of  toddlers

floods the room with

the music of constant toddling,

On the sign I now see

there are tiny handprints

clapping into the lines of

coloured paint and announcing

even now

their spirited markings into space.

 

We begin with Rewriting Distance practice.

 

Mover

Witness

Audience

 

The big change is around the questions Miranda has been asking about the duet.

We determine that the Witness can move into the Mover’s space which changes things quite a bit … a subtle and dynamic change.

 

Then the original mover leaves,  and then the Audience moves into the witness chair and the cycle repeats.

 

It is fascinating to watch Miranda’s way of entering from the witness chair.  She has a zany quality … and her curiousity in our duets together are full of musicality and trust.

 

Images

 

-finding a feather

-writing with it on Guy’s back

-singing while Miranda played the piano

-moving and making noise

-abrupt fallings and precarious balances

-the snail with stairs

-Guy with piano blanket wrapped around him and Miranda approaching gently from       behind

-Guy going up and down the little wooden stairs, speaking about his home, how climbing stairs reminds him of home

-the beautiful wood studio, how friendly it is to the body

 

 

We begin the work and including writing

 

There is

 

a table … ( Guy found an amazing card table at a thrift shop in Chipping Norton)

a sheet of paper

a pen

 

We do the trio form and the writing paper and place is available as a way to be in a duet, it becomes another way to be in relationship, another way to be in a duet.

 

Our first run is inspired. We immediately do a second run.

We make some rules.

Audience: only watches

Mover: able to write/move/speak

Witness: able to write/move/speak

 

It is a beautiful sunny day, Guy turns the chair to face the other end of the room.

The door is open to the outside, to the sun, to the valley.

 

 

Second run

 

I begin by walking straightaway outside of Finstock Hall to face the valley and

for the whole morning the wind was playing the doors of the studio like an instrument, blowing open and closing the doors at unexpected and surprising moments, the doors became gateways to sun, sound, light, breeze and green, always

with an incredible sense of timing … the wind and the room have something of their

own that we cannot control … how lovely. This room is alive and well with weather and breath … makes me realize how easy it can be to ignore a room … not this one!

 

We all sit down and write together after performing together.

 

This is what I wrote.

 

Somehow Arriving

 

this room so full of activity now,

of moving,

this scribe,

these lines are tracing and re-erasing

the sliding scales of time

 

the movie screen becoming a snowstorm

I am on the other side

my hand writing her words

and then

the wind

the wind

the wind

whirling

whirling

whirling

 

a plastic bag and

Guy called it a snowflake as his

hands reminded me of the gloves

the doves

the loves

of the dream of marriage as she approached

the portrait rolling

into this room

this room of wood

(why the constant buzzing of a cutting machine today?)

 

 

The doors of this room

like ears

the smooth brown floor

a skin with freckles

knots of wood

a constellation

a rearranged portrait

and how really important the floor is

softly greeting our feet

these floors

gloves for our souls

as we watch from so many perspectives

these dancing stories.

 

Oh

I write

Oh

she reads

and he too

Oh my the little kite

is in the air as he steps up on the wooden staircase

and crosses through a field

and goes up and around and through

a lifeline portrait …

 

She said grave and he said dead fox

he loved to dance in velvet and blindly she too

slow dancing until the place of paper

was found

 

A card table

Jack-of-All-Trades

and the Queen of Hearts

I bet, yes I just bet they like to dance too

ashes to ashes

and dusting, she was sweeping up … D.I.Y.

DO IT YOURSELF

and of course

why not remember how

she walked slowly up behind him

the piano cape a perfect envelope for his editing and her arriving

together so many times,

they made the most fragile bridge towards and away,

 a small second, minute hour,

in these entrances and exits of writing

of dancing,

of witnessing,

of suspending

(just about at the end of my rope with the aggressive buzzing sound)

 

This room like an aquarium

reflecting back the air of outside,

watering our voices,

the valley, the Evenlode, the community, the kitchen,

the memory of mother looking out over her life and family,

her love

her timing

and her gentle way of listening,

 

This room is full of heart.

So much activity and finally now,

so much silence.

(the buzzing has stopped)

Birdsong arrives,

a room

like a microphone

amplifying intimacy

and hilarity,

love the room,

Bless you.

 

Thoughts a week later at a small coffee shop in Charlbury.

 

In the Finstock Hall Studio

Miranda opened the front and the back doors

the front door opened onto the Valley of the Evenlode

and the backdoor opened

onto lots of leaves and their sunlit shadows …

 

Because she opened the doors,

the wind played through the

studio, the whole time

we were working … like an instrument,

the breath of the day blowing through and capturing

curtains, swinging doors, and papers and keeping our skin

alive with its surprising touches.

 

More than once, I thought about this breathing …

its wondrous surprises, its sighs ….

the precocious nature of its life that kept us all on our toes.