MR Festival 2008: Frenzied Traveler on the Silent Ride II by Tonya Plank

by Tonya Plank
MR Festival Spring 2008: Somewhere Out There

I don’t know how much of a “review” this is going to be since,
unfortunately, I wasn’t able personally to partake of much of the
event, but I’ll try. I’d agreed to write about the Silent Ride II
workshop, which was to take place first in Battery Park then aboard
the Staten Island ferry. I’d been having problems with my home
internet connection and I don’t have a Blackberry or other handheld
device through which I can access the web, so between internet
crashes, I very quickly copied down information from the Movement
Research website before heading down to lower Manhattan. I knew only
that the event was to begin at 12 noon at the Labyrinth located in the
northwest corner of the park.

Because of a problem with the 1 train, I arrived at the South Ferry
station only ten minutes ahead of time (I am usually an
early-arriver), and nearly ran to the northern area of the park. I
looked for a dance group but, not seeing anyone who stood out, I asked
a park ranger where exactly the Labyrinth was. She had never heard of
it, but told me the northwest corner of the park was across the street
behind a large building. I followed her advice, crossed the street,
passed the building and happened into a yard bearing trees that seemed
to make a maze-like pattern resembling a labyrinth. Happily, I sat
down on a bench to await the others. Fifteen minutes later, it was now
after noon. I walked to the next door restaurant to make sure I was in
the right place but the waiter told me no, he’d never heard of the
Labyrinth and I was no longer officially in the park; the park
officially ended at the building I’d passed. So, I went back to the
park proper and asked a traffic cop if she knew of the Labyrinth. She
didn’t but told me there was a grassy area park across the opposite
street, on the northwest opposite the park. It might be there, she
surmised, since there definitely was no “Labyrinth” she’d ever heard
of in Battery Park. So, I made my way across the big four-lane highway
and headed to the green on the northwest corner opposite the park. No
dancers, no ground pattern resembling a labyrinth, I definitely wasn’t
in the right area. I headed back to Battery Park and asked another
park ranger, who’d also never heard of it.

“Well, is there an area for contemplation,” I asked, since that was
the Labyrinth’s sub-name. “Not that I know of,” he said shaking his
head. “But there’s Peace Park over there,” he said pointing to the
greenery surrounding the World Trade Center monument to which the
tourists flock. “Okay, I’ll try that,” I said.

But no such luck. From there I walked to the Northeast corner of the
park thinking “northwest” might have been a misprint. Nothing there,
but I did find a directory and map of the park on which there was no
listing for “Labyrinth” or “park for contemplation” or any such thing.
I was hot and tired and upset that something so easy had become so
ridiculously difficult, and I was getting worried the group may have
moved on to the Staten Island ferry since I was now over 45 minutes
late. Resigned to figure out this conundrum, though, I walked down to
the southwest corner, then the southeast to ensure I wasn’t just at
the wrong corner. On my way, I asked every single person who looked
like they may know something about the park – every ranger, every
vendor, every business-looking person who appeared to frequent the
park during lunch hour – no one had ever heard of the labyrinth or any
center for contemplation.

Exhausted, I decided to give up. I was on my way back to the
restaurant I’d first found to have something to eat, when, passing by
another lawn, I saw a group of about seven or eight people all moving
in unison. I decided this was it. These were my people!

It seemed like all the participants were in a very serious state of
reflection, so I didn’t want to ruin their concentration by barging
in. I just waited at the edge of the park and watched as they waved
their arms about, mostly in front but at times to the sides, felt the
ground with their bare feet, and walked very slowly in various
patterns – first in a circle, then changing direction, then in
different lines, then branching out on their own, making their own
way. My stomach began to grumble and I looked at my watch to realize
nearly an hour had gone by since I first saw them. It was so
mesmerizing and peaceful just watching them, I didn’t even realize how
much time had passed. I took out a bag of nuts to munch on and kept
watching the group. A male tourist who looked a bit like a frat boy
approached me. He wanted me to take a picture of him and his friends
at the World Series statue. But first, he looked out to see what I was
looking at and watched with me for a while. “Do they do this everyday
at this time?” he asked. “I don’t think so,” I said not wanting to go
into the whole thing. “It’s really kind of peaceful if you just stand
here and watch,” he said, unexpectedly echoing my thoughts.

Later, as the group members began to put on their shoes and gather
their belongings I decided I’d better make sure before following them
they were the right people. I asked the woman who left the park
earliest and she just kind of smiled and nodded. Remembering the event
was called “Silent Ride” I realized they weren’t supposed to talk. So,
I just followed them silently as they walked, then ran to the Staten
Island ferry, boarded it, and then returned to Manhattan. It was kind
of funny plowing through the crowd in order to keep up with the group,
only to have to group stop, one person pointing something out to
another. I had to stop behind them so I wouldn’t lose them, and the
people I’d nearly run down probably thought I was nuts knocking them
over just to stop abruptly!

On the boat ride back, the leader of the workshop, Melanie Maar, told
me she wasn’t supposed to talk but didn’t want me to be entirely in
the dark, so would tell me a bit about the workshop. Her purpose was
to explore movement in travel, what takes place in the space between
leaving a place and not yet arriving at the next. In the park she’d
given the participants exercises to enable them to listen to and feel
their internal body rhythms, their own heart rates, etc., so they
could explore what happens in their own movement rather than focusing
on the sounds around them and other outside interactions – the reason
they weren’t supposed to talk. People focus on arriving at their
destination and not on the journey itself she said. And more
interesting in arriving is HOW you arrive.

I was really sorry I didn’t get to experience the workshop because it
sounded really fascinating. I’m a nervous flyer and feel like this may
have helped me to calm down a bit on planes. But in a funny way I did
have my own travel experience in the park. I was so stressed about
arriving at my destination and had worked myself up into such a frenzy
over not being able to find it, that I couldn’t even see what was
right in front of me. The place where I’d eventually found the group
was in the northwestern area of the park (if you exclude the building,
grassy area and restaurant the original park ranger I’d spoken to led
me toward). And sure enough, the rocks embedded into the ground did
make a labyrinth-like pattern, as I found out when I went back to
explore. I allowed myself to get so overly harried about the fact that
no one in the park, not a single person, knew the name of what I was
looking for. And when the name wasn’t even listed on the park’s
directory, I began to get outright angry. So, I was obviously overly
concerned with outside stimuli. But once I calmed down and resigned to
give up and just go lounge at the restaurant, within seconds I found
what I was searching for. And I also realized about myself how literal
I am. If you tell me there’s a meeting at the Labyrinth, I’m going to
look for signs bearing that word, ask people for the word; I’m very
name-focused instead of using my intuition more by looking around for
a place that looked suitable for contemplation and a group of people
who looked like there were there for a movement workshop.

So, I actually had my own self-awareness experience with travel,
albeit not the one Ms. Maar had designed for me. I attended a potluck
at Judson Church later that evening at which people were supposed to
talk about their experiences with the workshop. I had to leave early
to attend another dance event, and didn’t get to hear much. But I
would love to learn more about how the participants found this
experience.

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