Monday, November 29, 2010

(e)merge (into, from) the darkness: dance!
















how about:
The Ocean Refuses No River
weekly Soul Motion practice
this thursday, 12/2, 6:30-8:00pm
Jeffrey Bihr Studio
5390 Miles Avenue
Oakland 94618

Soul Motion in Nevada City
this Friday, 12/3, 5:15-7:15pm
this Sunday, 12/5, 10-noon
South Yuba Club
555 Searles Avenue
Nevada City 95959

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

the way out is the way in
















dear teachers,
there is patience, and there is procrastination. {i know both}
there is acceptance, and there is complacency. {i know both}
there is fear, and there is love. {i know both}
there is solitude, and there is isolation. {i know both}

six and a half years of practice {ongoing, not ending}
a year and a half of training modules {ongoing, not ending}
two plus years of local weekly teaching (one to eight students), and covering for my traveling teachers (20-80 students) {ongoing, not ending}
ditto local special events (SM Odysseys, 1/2 day workshops) {ongoing, not ending}
ditto ditto advice and support from my teachers, students, fellows, friends
one daylong workshop

countless hours absorbed in class plans, music choices, marketing, blogging; reaching out, reaching in; shpilkis beyond belief. joy and satisfaction beyond the beyond.

and now i am a certified Soul Motion teacher.

thank you vinn, zuza, you, me, god, sky and earth and water and fire!

Monday, November 8, 2010

perserverance

inkBoat and AXIS dancers


In Limbo, Odd Nerdrom

Over the weekend, I saw ODD, a bracing collaboration between two dance companies (Shinichi Iova-Koga's inkBoat, and Oakland's physically integrated AXIS Dance Company), and cellist/composer Joan Jeanrenaud, inspired by the mythic, figurative work of Norwegian painter Odd Nerdrom. I was struck by the commitment to move, to express, to interact; how the use of internal and external propulsion looked from the outside, and what it "accomplished"; and by the dynamic, vital springboard of stillness. Sheer will to take space; perhaps not ironically, the "disabled," wheelchair-bound AXIS dancers telegraphed a strength and ferocious vitality that held and propelled them. inkBoat's contorting, convulsing motions carried them to the other shore, as it were, without consideration of elegance or conventional notions of prettiness. The routes were indirect and inefficient in the directional dimension only; the fuel was potent, true, unrelenting; the encounters between "abled" and "disabled" dancers were dynamic, brisk, startlingly crucial. And the stillness between gestures--Iova-Koga refers to them as "suspensions, holding points between actions..."--were "... alive, ripe for change and development." The Pause Presence, in the Soul Motion lexicon.
ODD moves to the Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Arts, 1428 Alice Street, Oakland, CA 94612 for another weekend of performances Friday and Saturday November 12 and 13, with an afternoon show Sunday the 14th at 2:00pm. Tickets here

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Freedom in the Framing

dear dance delineators,
can following what comes from the inside create freedom on the outside?
can working with a choice of shapes or qualities offered from the outside enlarge and enliven our inner dance?
what's the difference between moving with a goal in mind and moving within a soft and clear frame of possibility? on our own? with one or more or all?
Jeremy W and Vinn M dropped these inquiries into the personal and collective field this past weekend at Esalen, and what emerged danced with startling brilliance and joy. please join me in two rooms this week, and we will see and be with what happens, big or small, in, out or onward. thank you!

The Ocean Refuses No River
Soul Motion-Inspired Dance Practice 
Thursdays, 6:30-8pm
Pay what you can ($5-$15 suggested) until 1.1.11
Jeffrey Bihr Studio
5390 Miles Avenue
Oakland 94618

Soul Motion Experience
Saturday, November 6 (and 13)
10am-noon / $10
Movement Oasis
1808-B Empire Industrial Court
Santa Rosa 95403