edmonton AB 2012
edmonton AB 2012
re-writing distance
Feb. 20
monday
(the following writing is from Miranda’s exploration of space that we did first off)
It starts with a soft red vase;
some small flowers and an invitation from this
space to notice how much red there is here;
red bowls
red roses
a tin that says
“Value Red”
perhaps this is the point
value red
as I look into this
domestic kitchen space at one side of the studio
I notice and
remember
that once upon a time
my nickname was Red …
haven’t thought of that in years
in fact I forgot completely until just now
“Value Red”
as I look up to a framed photograph
of parts of a body
with red tape through the center
on purpose
red tape
has another meaning not at all
like this
champagne box underneath
this framed photograph
Veuve Clicquot,
as I step into the kitchen and
notice the red fire extinguisher
and the red bowl with an orange
in it.
Rainbow cup is in
front of me,
by the sink,
and now,
I turn and sit at the
counter and see out the window
in front of me
an old Coco Cola sign
also with bits of red
there is someone writing in front of the window.
If I add an A to RED
it becomes
Read
February 21
tuesday
Yesterday …
I am amazed by how rich the edges of this space are.
Full of history … the notions of building something small, and then adding to that small thing, bit by bit, is something I find very attractive.
I remember the words of an architect who we worked with on “ The Belgo Building” project … her name is Stephanie … she asked us “ if this building were your friend how would you treat him or her?”
Also it is revealing how much is suggested by space; and so by first paying real attention to where we are; we discover more of who we are together in the space.
How different it might have been if we had just said to each other before we began …
“consider the space you are in”
But we decided, upon Guy’s suggestion, to invest more time to pay attention
to the space through Miranda’s exploration of :
- noticing 3 places in the room,
- spending time with these three places and then describing them to the other
- each person does this with their three places and then we each choose one of these places to sit and write about
- and then we read what we have written to the other people in the room
I remember something else
Paying attention is a form of prayer
Then I remember Stefano’s “Sacred Spaces” book and think back again to our practice yesterday. Guy mentions a book we have both read … it is called
The Geometry of Love and is written by Margaret Visser.
The writing began …
the door opened
the inside/outside
the outside/in
Notions of Navigation
where is
east
west
north
south
Where is home?
Home as the body we travel everywhere with,
and yet how does land affect the body and our thoughts … is imagination physical?
(the expression “a body of thought”)
Yesterday the room
became so noisey with
Spatial information
that I closed my eyes
to discover
my voice
perhaps my home
so the inside, the ouside
the writing, the watching
the conversations
and
the space that
connects,
the synapse that fires,
the instant I close my eyes
or open them
the flow between,
an interval.
Yesterday is now becoming
something else as I write about it;
there is no caging yesterday
it is a memory X 3
as we all, now
write it down together
sitting around a table,
and in silence.
When we speak, or read our writing,
it will become something else
again and
again and
again.
How potent a word can be
as it is driven by
gesture,
space,
time,
the three of us,
each of us,
Guy,
Stefano,
Lin.
I dive back into my memory of yesterday
… resistant…
How is writing erasing and dancing speaking?
How much does description really describe?
Stefano
- Spatial layering
- Orienting response
- Significance of Re-writing
- Mediate between the individual and the world
- The human being and the scholar
- Lin is reminded of the poetry of Denis Lee,
- Meaning is relational (Derrida)
- and so the interval is significant
- The word becomes abstract, adds a frame, for different readings
Lin writes sometime later in the afternoon
“ It is in the constant returning
that the meaning,
the connection is discovered, is re-discovered.”
and sometime later in the day
Afterwards/Physical Highlights
The dance inspired by the light on the floor at the end of the day … it was a kind of gold constantly and carefully turning in on itself like something being lit up and burning all at once … and (I) was compelled to move with this impetus, then it grew
into a dance that was full of marking meaning as it was erasing itself, the meaning was the act of dancing the erasing.
Then gently I repeated all the word phrases I could remember hearing from the whole day of practice from each of us … ( Guy, Stefano, Lin) while moving at the same time, and also repeating all the patterns of movement I could remember from all of us while speaking this repeating and then I added a chair to this as I was doing it …
Remembering to repeat the moving of the moving,
The phrases of the words, and
the moving with the chair.
Letting it all be gentle, as in a quiet discovery, not at all manic …
This is some kind of story …
February 22
wednesday
Yesterday,
I write this same word each day,
and even though
the word is the same as I write it down;
it refers to something,
Sometime,
that is always changing.
Green socks,
feet
clothing for the feet
making clothing for the feet
by hand
knitting
time invested in making
one yellow sock
that can never be finished
Yesterday
also the title of a famous song
Yesterday
something cozy and Canadian became Italian
and Dutch
and then
it was apparent how
we all travel with
bits, threads, yarns.
a yarn
is a story in old English.
how appropriate, this seems to me now,
today.
a line of imprint of laying down my head on a table and
your whole body on the floor …
this perspective of not
having a chair to sit
on
Who invented the chair anyway?
Must remember to look that up …
( I have since discovered it to be most likely the Egyptians)
How different a line becomes when it is shaped by the outline of a body …
what are the bodies inside the shapes of the letters?
I keep seeing the scroll
with all the history of its erasings …
the depth of something
that is so visible, so tangible, so erased …
markings as ghosts.
Shadows that mumble
the notion of a conversation
that goes on forever
and we tune into it sometimes
(like the notion of a drone in South Asian music)
just like the conversation in the office yesterday through out our practice.
What is held inside the word, the shape of a letter, and the acoustic of a sound?
yes (ter) day
Stefano
- embedded
- observing dance; a vision of ourselves
- epiphany
- interconnected memories change our vision … true communion
- the past/moody/slighted/familiar
- feel emptied
- drama therapy/dance therapy
Guy
- notions of liminal space
- re-member
- de-construct to re-construct
- the book called Remembering the Body
- non beat creates the rhythm
- spatial layering becomes chronological
- we read the historical layer of the place we are in with the acuity of our memories
February 23
thursday
Today is today …
beginning on the floor
‘floored’
this is a new word
from now on
Stefano has given it meaning
I see him
when I say it
and remember
and actually
re-hear
the word
it has a
sound imprint
in my body
whenever I say it out loud
it is in stereo:
Where do we remember sound?
Perhaps the heart
because,
it has the word
hear
in
it.
Teaching and remembering
walking,
an image of Stefano
against the yellow wall
with a coffee,
talking.
and then walking.
Guy and Lin,
going way back to the beginning and replaying the party;
remember the party? …
and the noisey wall,
and I could not sleep,
you are here with me now inside the story as
we tell it to someone who is writing at a table,
and together we re-play the stories we
both know differently,
but by heart …
we are in the same place, at the same time,
because of the person writing today …
the writer has given us another way to tell the story.
The writer is at a table; with a scroll of paper
and it is the writer that will
determine when we end;
And so once again I go
back to the beginning,
you are,
we are now
in the middle ….
and the Angels on top of the art gallery
fly all the way to America
Angels in America …
the story written by Klimt
and re-imagined and re-told through Kuschner,
in this very studio,
today!
You talk about remarkable walks
and I witness you doing one,
later on
I remember it
by heart
and re-play it to you.
(*this is what I remember)
I am walking for you
you are walking for me
these remembered gestures
become rainstick stereo
you hand me the reigns for the Angels and we
travel through the snakeskin of a scarf;
how it becomes a painting …
and how you re-play it back to us …
centuries of rain
and rivers
and beginnings and
endings
and the scroll of
paper topples to the
floor …
…floored…
I finish writing on the floor.
Guy
- his writing today is more discursive, Stefano’s becomes more poetic.
Stefano
- Incertitude
- warmth
- sleep
- transcendence just is
- Incertitude
- failing of absolute significance
- sleeping and dreaming of desire we don’t know
- the receptive mind
February 24
friday
the pen moves more slowly
my thoughts quiet …
an openness towards
what has been collected over the week …
my pen moves a bit with
trepidation
collecting something
that has already been
collected
in the library of
this body.
as I write
I leave the lover of my body
what lover longs to write?
( all of them eventually …
a lover writes to remember
outside/inside detail of body,
just like the first day,
the first words written down.
All writing is yearning.
this collection
these collections
my body
this library
the files are
skin
muscle
bone
and yet
this is
not
enough?
what is enough?
you saw me moving
you do remember me speaking?
I was speaking to you
remember …
my voice was audible
It made you laugh …
remember the pillow fight?
remember me watching you with a coffee
against the yellow wall
and you were reading the snakeskin and
I
I was
mis-reading you, out loud in fact.
How many people now are mis-reading us?
This labyrinth of proof … something to someone …
I danced
we danced
and I
danced
again
You said you have no memory of remarkable walks and yet,
I saw you walking,
remarkably through this studio …
you mentioned
incertitude; the word,
this word
I can still hear the way you say it,
this is written into my hearing …
and so:
I stop writing now,
because someone else has entered the space;
Is it you?
The keys are dangling
The dangling sound of wind chimes now silent,
returns with the keys,
the nature of moving allows
and
inscribes the body into space,
we try to nail it down
didn’t this already happen sometime ago … this nailing down.
why I return to words …
they are to speak to you,
my heart,
to tell you to keep moving,
to keep moving the pen
on paper of skin
the veins of ink and colour
that pour
into my brain
and calm me,
slows me enough to
remember
to again
move
writing off
the chairs and tables
why, why, why,
proof on paper
the scholar is the singer,
in languages we have forgotten
sounds of wisdom in
hearing the heart,
with no desire to
write anything down.
to give into the body and its own dance … move
the library of how/why/what/where/when.
All the angels looking over my shoulder now,
keeping their secret
and whispering
my own back to me,
dance.
I lay down on paper
I listen to paper rustling
I listen to someone writing
I hear a conversation in the other room
I wonder
where is the writing to you
where are you as I write
as I listen to the paper rumbling
my body is sitting down
now
at the table
sheets of you
spread all over the room
where are your secrets?
I cannot bear to read you.
It means you are no longer.
I cannot touch the page and pretend
It is your skin
I refuse to believe
I must now write you down
Will you come back dancing if I name you?
Lin decides this is a bit of a rant and she calls it Ode to Derrida.
(interval … always means what is not)
and addendum
Throwing pillows
through all the writing
hap-hazard the pillows
strewn among the pages
all of this writing
floored
in joy and gentleness.
erasing words as dance
creating words as dance
dancing words as writing
refusing as writing
incertitude as joy
erasing letters to discover shadows, secrets, deeply embedded.
photos are taken as proof
I am glad
Lin Snelling
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