DCDanceBlog

i’ve been meaning to post something here for a long time. something i realized at the wild meadows improv workshop is a good place to start, and the request a few days ago for some details about the event has got me mobilized.

the wild meadows dance workshop varies, but (i gather) usually involves a primary focus on movement improvisation, including but not limited to contact improvisation. take a look at the site for this years framing. i attended one other time, two years ago, where all the participants were responsible for leading classes/activities, making it more of a lab. the environment and situation is luscious. i enjoyed both workshops, thoroughly.

in the midst of this workshop i pondered the fact that i’m a dance dabbler getting a chance to dive in fully with intent, skilled people.

there i was, meandering (or leaping, or rolling) into a red-tape delineated box, or walking around the far pole to come back and greet the “audience” (my fellow participants) and then Do One Thing, or whatever structure - all to try to correspond somehow with what we, as a group, were doing at that moment. at times i had zero clue what was going on. but then, sometimes things seemed to really click.

again and again, i was with a bunch of reflexively rule-averse people, all looking for ways to follow rules so we could do something interesting with them - making or breaking them - together. and there were more than a few moments where it felt beautiful.

whether it was moments of intense gratitude that both i and my unappointed partners chose to stick with whatever we were doing long enough to converge and notice that we were in a dance together whose rules we only came to create and follow in that moment, and would not remember or be able to articulate moments after it eventually changed, but it was delicious while it was happening,

or noticing the myriad opportunities that a spindly bush in the woods offers to savor - lovely natural composition, or silliness of engaging with it by entangling myself, or heartfelt dedication to the careful grooming of it, while all entangled, that i had set for myself to do,

or moments where my attention was so much on questions and choices that i forgot my normal rules and moved in new ways, winding up in solos or ensembles that felt substantial, intriguing, maybe even graceful…

we did improv scores and movement practice and awareness exercises, concentrated on the tension between/presentation/performance and inwards/internal/interior appetites, talked sometimes too much and sometimes just enough - surprisingly, i did wind up feeling clearer about what it is we were doing, without actually defining it. doing stuff that felt beautiful not just as an internal experience, but potentially as seen from outside of its doing.

the thing that struck me, as a dabbler, is that this is a wonderfully human-scale way to disseminate art.

i would rather be spending my time and money to explore these realms, with people who have devoted themselves to diving in and bringing back some beauties, than just buying some art to hang on my walls, or watching a movie. not that those other things are bad - i like them, too - but there isn’t enough of this thing. i feel like i really got a chance to grapple with artistic choices, my own and others, how those choices interact, basically exploring stuff that works, sometimes getting to be part of something that works (or goes awry:-) beautifully.

i guess it’s not so easy to make this happen well - but i would like to see more of a critical mass for these kinds of participatory explorations (just i as i wish for contact improv jams), so it would be more tenable for those interested in championing it. maybe articulating it clearly - as a dabbler or as a producer or as a creator - will help that happen.

i mentioned my appreciation of this particular form of art practice to a few of the instructors, as the occasion arose, and am glad for the opportunity to stoke this fire, here. anyway, i hope that this also conveys some of the flavor of the event, subjective as it may be.