For me this process was most unique in how it simultaneously nurtured me as a person and artist and pushed me to reach outside my comfort zone with my perception and my body. I think this is an ideal state of process for any artist, and I don’t know if I’ve experienced it in such a satisfying way with any other facilitators/choreographers/directors. Both Michelle and Hope brought confidence in themselves as leaders and in their ideas for the project. However, that confidence never crossed a line into controlling or closing the space for dialogue and feedback. I think that the honesty of intention you both had, and all of the participants had, allowed that space to exist. Sometimes we believe we are being completely open in our process, but we actually have an idea of result or experience that we are clinging to and cannot release. Here I didn’t feel that either of you expected the participants to react in a certain way or to generate specific ideas or experiences, and that you were truly there for an open process. On a note of things-that-could-be-tried-if-we-could-do-it-again, I think maybe a 4 week schedule of Mon, Wed, Fri, and Sat soundwalks would be great within the built-in idea that on Tues and Thurs each participant would have their own 30 or 60 minute sound or sound/movement meditation and come back having processed deeply the information from the previous session. The everyday work was wonderful, and this would just be another way of digesting that might give space for different thoughts and reactions to emerge. Of course that would be a total luxury of time and all the other factors (money, space, schedules) with which we compete in our art, but I think it would be wonderful.
Sustainability has also become I word I use a lot more frequently since our many discussions. I feel that it has come to apply to so much more in life and surroundings that just environmental issues. I am striving toward my own immersion in sustainability somehow–and to be a part of create a sustainable world and environment. This process gave me many new ways to approach how my relationships to the ecosystem and to other people are all part of sustainability. That wasn’t increadibly articulate, and maybe because I still don’t have the exact vocabulary in my head–but I am thinking you all know what I mean and maybe that vocabulary will come soon enough that I can share with others.
I was on the subway last night and was on the most painfully screeching train for a good 45 minutes. It sounded like all of the windows were open for the whole ride and it was completely overwhelming. I think in the past I would have tried to feel like that awful noise didn’t matter, or that I should be tougher and not so sensitive, but I really understood, this time, what an assault that noise was. Unfortunately I was so caught up in it I forgot to assault it back or answer to it with my own noise, which has occasionally helped me a lot. But I was thinking of how our work together deepened my understanding of my aural perception, and also how I haven’t been tuning in as much as we were—maybe I need to check back in with my listening mediations.
