at the airport

Good morning dearest readers of this newsletter,

I am at the airport, on my way home from a most wondrous journey.

There is so much to say about what happened, but I cannot do it now, surrounded by my fellow travelers.

I will say more, at some point, when it’s all fallen into my body in a way that is more still than it is right now.

Instead, I want to share a few emails I got from some of you I met on my travels.

This one, from Åsa, in Sweden:

"Koster is the name of the island that I go to, on the west coast of Sweden.

I went there with my old friend (and dancer) and I looked forward to Dog Dance with her. But when I was to start it I didn’t got there. Now afterwards I realize that I first have to dive into it by myself and make my own experience of it before taking it further. So we opened a bottle of wine and had a good conversation instead.

She left the island before me, so I went down to the rocks off the sea under the sun. I sat down and listened to my breath. I sank into the soft warm rock, as if it was a living partner (and it was). I laid in down and as laying there I hear a sound a bit away from my ear. I turn my head and I see a orange hairy caterpillar, big as my index finger walking besides me. I let her walk her walk as I let myself breathe my breath.

And as dancing, little by little, my aching shoulder stops aching, my body fills with energy and I get soft as the rocks underneath me."

And this one from Martha, in Ireland. It’s a poem she wrote about Dog Dance:

Wolf Dance
In the harsh lands of the North,
They live with ice and snow.
Limbs are frigid
Thoughts are rigid
That is all they know.

The Wolf, not Dog, is known
In summers of eternal Light
If the Dog won' t growl
Make the Wolf howl,
Be the Wolf Dance in the Night,
Be the Wolf dance in the Night!

And lastly this, about Elaine Summers. A dedicated reader led me to it (thank you Alana!):

“In my memories of Elaine, she is a guide leading her students toward inner realms, where, like archaeologists on a dig, we explore in fine detail the mysteries of our bodies.” -Merián Soto in "How Does This Body Want to Move: Dancing the Legacy of Elaine Summers"

It is this question here, “how does this body want to move”, that I engaged with, over and over again, on this trip, in all different locations, and with all different sorts of people.

So maybe there is no more else to say about my travels after all.

Maybe it has already fallen, and landed, inside of me.

And maybe, among the rush and the moving from point A to point B in this airport, there is enough stillness to ask, "how does this body want to move."

With warmth, so much.

Joanna
of
Joanna and The Agitators
sweetly agitating/persistently upending
www.joannaandtheagitators.com