still sky
/The Sky:
Where my dancing finds itself now, that quiet place, that listening place, that still place where movement then comes.
There is so much inside, this sky.
As it gets more still, the sky, there is then, only dancing.
The Sky Inside was screened again last week, as part of The Sans Souci Festival of Dance Cinema, and it was good to see it again.
To remember this work I am engaged in with all of you, and to see the people on the screen who are creating the richness of this dance through their honesty, their care, and their connection to one another.
This way of dancing, at least for me — it touches the skin.
Not the outside skin that the world sees, but the inside skin that is never seen.
There is time and space — lots of both — for that touching.
And because of that, the body, while dancing, connects itself to the world.
It's like there is a sequencing that happens, that is detailed and precise. This precision allows for literally anything to happen in that space and time, of which there is a generous dollop, as I mentioned above, of each.
But no, it’s not a free for all.
God, I hate that phrase.
I hate that phrase because it feels disconnected to me.
It feels uncared for.
A free for all feels like no one would know if you were there or not there.
This dance, this sky:
It's rigorous, and it's held.
It's a form that is cared for and created by all who choose to engage.
It's a dance that calls on every single cell in every single body to notice and pay attention to all the moments — inside and outside of ourselves — that are taking shape.
It’s not meditation.
It’s not therapy.
It’s not like yin yoga — at all.
It’s an art form that is being built as it’s simultaneously being destroyed - always and every day.
Build, ruin, build, ruin, build, ruin.
It’s never done, this dance.
There's never anywhere to get to with this dance.
And no, no one will ever get a belt of a certain color for doing this dance.
Doing this dance, I’m only ever one step ahead before being swallowed, whole.
That’s why there's sky.
You dance mission for the week is the same as it always is, when we get down to it:
Lie down on the floor. Feel your back body imprinting into the earth as the earth imprints into your back body.
Notice your breath.
How long each section of breath is:
The inhale, gap, exhale, gap, inhale again.
Notice what you notice, and see where you go, in both stillness and movement.
10 minutes?
Let me know how it goes.
With Warmth,
Joanna
of
Joanna and The Agitators
sweetly agitating/persistently upending
www.joannaandtheagitators.com