DCDanceBlog

i’ve been getting email updates recently from nicole bindler, an improviser from philly. i must be on the email list she uses to publicize her performances, though we’ve only met once, a few years ago. right now she’s in japan, or was, to collaborate with a dancer there. i kind of idly read the first update last week, then got hooked. there’ve been three so far. i wish they were online somewhere so that i could link to them, but no such luck so far.

i’d like to share them b/c they’re so great! she’s in japan, encountering an almost completely alien culture and environment. i love reading her observations of japanese life and people, and imagining what it must feel like to be somewhere new and feel so stimulated by the idea of living another way.

i really like her descriptions and how honest she is about herself–including the awkwardness she feels about being new and sometimes off-balance in a bizarre-seeming country. it’s always so great when people admit their insecurities; it lets you inside them a little more.

she took classes with butoh master kazuo ohno and her description of the surreal instruction made me remember all the trippy dance classes i’ve taken. that’s partially what i fell in love with about modern dance, that sense of being totally free, totally out there, not having to adhere to specific rules about how things are done.

and i envy her simply being there, an “experimental dance artist,” traveling to a new place to expand her perspective and meet other artists with whom she can schmooze and network and talk about art.

it’s not the traveling itself that grabs me. it’s the sense i get from her of being inspired and alive. i know that feeling and i think it’s possible to find it w/o leaving home, but it takes a little more effort and life-restructuring.