Freedom in Constraints

Eunoia is a masterful layering of interconnected and uniquely individual elements. The intertwining of text, movement, video, and sound create a surreal absurdist playground full of lightness and delight. The dance of the layered production elements is almost as complicated and simple as the movement choreography in itself. 

Photo courtesy of Live Art Dance Productions

Fujiwara takes her inspiration and challenge of working within constraints from Christian Bök’s book Eunoia. Published in 2001, Bök’s book of poetry is written as a univocal lipogram, where each of the five chapters isolates a vowel and in doing so exhibits the vowel’s distinct personality. 

The word Eunoia is the shortest word in English to contain all five vowels ¬– meaning ‘beautiful thinking.’ Viewing Live Art Dance’s presentation of Eunoia on Thursday evening, I was struck by the craft and masterful thinking of Fujiwara and her collaborative team. Rendering the stage version of Eunoia as a beautiful embodiment of beautiful thinking. 

Entering the theatre we are welcomed by the performers and are invited to join in on a game of Hangman. Lightness and humour is introduced and the permission for active engagement is set. The stage is littered with various childhood games such as playing cards, Jacks, and pick up sticks; perhaps positioned as a foreshadow to the audience preparing us for the linguistic guess gaming we were about to experience. 

In her program notes, and during a pre-show chat that I was lucky enough to sit in on, Fujiwara explains her movement invention is restricted to univocal body parts corresponding to each chapter. For example in chapter A, the palm, the back, the jaw, etc. initiate movement. The composer, Phil Strong was also restricted to composing with univocal instruments; where in Chapter O we heard the sounds of spoons, Bongo, pots.

The seemingly nonsensical or unrelated but layered production elements of text, video projection, colourful costume changes, and task directed choreography, unfold into an engaging surrealist play and bricolage of events. However, equally as fun as guessing what each element was restricted by, I thoroughly enjoyed watching the piece expand and contract – breathing within its own beautiful thinking. Where moments of chaos are swept away by moments of calming space or a visual display of snowing letters. I shared in the game of categorizing and labelling the code of conduct but I never tired in the cognitive task of guessing the rules. I am enchanted by the unique pairings and immediately set at ease within the mystery of Furjiwara’s craftsmanship. 

In Chapter O the poetic resonances of all the combined elements came together for me in a touching moment when one performer reciting text based on gluttonous food, is engulfed by four performers mouthing (initiated by the pons – a part of the brainstem associated with facial movement) to the sounds of pots. The mouthing, the bodies sinking, the sounds of pots clanging, and hearing text of over abundance and disproportion move me. Throughout Eunoia the performers operate within the constraints of the work with a generous presence and they utilize the need to stick with a task to their full advantage keeping me engaged and with them in every moment. 

I caught 52 items of constraint, yet experienced 70 minutes of theatrical freedom. 

An example of Christian Bök’s Eunoia can be read through this online link, but you can only experience the mastery and delight of Denise Fujiwara’s Eunoia live thanks to our local dance presenter Live Art Dance Production. 

http://archives.chbooks.com/online_books/eunoia/index.html 

If you are curious, here is my list: 
Jazz, Palm, Back, Rap, Harp, Jaw, fatal, Dress, Wrestle, Referee, Heel, Knee, Bells, Temple, Whistling, Sing, String, Signing, Fish, Wig, Iris, Hip, Kiss, Shoot, photo, Fog Horn, Golf, Broom, Yoyo, Popcorn, Boots, Loop, Homologous, Mouthing (pons), Spoons, Bongo, Blow, Pots, Roll, Rock, Slow, Stop, Snow, Snowing Letters, Club, Cup, Upside down, Push-ups, Surf.

my most awake self

The practice of dealing with the unknown is deliciously delightful; especially in the case when the unknown is simply feeling the direction of down, knowing how far from the ground you are, and trusting you can survive the fall. 

I feel the most awake and present listening to the now in the dance of CI.  

In tonight's class I felt the power of the super moon, everything fell into place, a perfect flow of research, questions and play. I am savoring this moment, as there is no way this class and the flow of the evening will ever be reproducible. I am grateful for the dance, this dance, the dance that continues.

Acknowledging the curve of the lumbar, the thoracic, and the cervical spine. We play with this ribbonous landscape, the rise and fall and slippery nature of the spine. We explored the fold of the legs into the curve of the lumbar spine and the fold of the arms into the thoracic spine.

We practice not erasing ourselves, we blank out in the gap of flipping upside down and falling into the backspace. We do it again, this time time staying aware and following the moment. I see learning taking place. The practice of knowing (or not knowing) the moment and being brave enough to deal with the parameters we find ourselves within.

Meet, redirect, go through, retreat. Our vectors of truth and playful possibility.

I meet the room, I quickly prepare for an evening of trios - organizing my list of scores. One more arrives... my second moment of resiliency and draw on my resourcefulness again.  My dexterity is heightened.

I improvise, as one does in this form. I let my cells speak, I follow the dance of taking my cellular and perceptual knowledge and transfer it into words, so that it can be re-adapted for your dance. Food for thought to nourish the possibilities.  How do you pick up and follow momentum, how do you augment or extend the trajectory, how do you direct the felt flow without taking over, is going through simply shortening the time to the plum line? The students become my teacher as I transfer what I know, rich questions, I feed off the delight in the depth of our research,  you push me to give you more.  I do a silent happy dance with everyone in the room.

I feel the floor through the structural integrity of someone else's bones. Your legs become my legs.
This is why I dance.

The individual body (a day of personal reflection)

My Physical body is: Fluid Mass Elastic Here

My Emotional body is: Untitled Lost Potential

My Mental body is: Attention/Intention

expressions from the heart

******

Walking the edge of potential, but never breaking through
When really all I ever wanted was to snuggle and laugh with you.

Eyes of desire, a sweet kiss, and a soft touch,
I long to hear someone whisper to my cells
to tell me its already alright.

My cells porous and full of potential to love
Longing to yield to the warmth of a soft touch
Ready to fall into the sweet seduction of desirability

I want to lay next to the cells that make up your entity
Feel your breath and learn your knowledge through osmosis
I long to sit and drink coffee in the morning sun with you,
Or talk all night philosophizing about life past the stars and our small but perfect being of two.

a birth day reflection

On the eve of turning a new page...
I imagined running bare feet in a field, tending chickens, drinking home brew and laughing with you.

Instead I am blazing a trail to nowhere.
Hoping the next bend will bring Joy and a smile that will melt my bones.

I have chased the dream around the world and back,
To sit alone in my room with my cats.
Weighted by debt and a heavy heart,
Wondering if this is just another false start.

Life Lessons from Petey B

"give your attention to the preparation not the execution"

"why rush through the problem 

and bypass the opportunity to learn"

Peter Bingham, Contact Improvisation Class at EDAM, July 2015

A Harvest of my CI journey in Halifax

Fold, accumulate weight

Pivot, fly, spring load

Deaccumulate

slide, slide, slide into the centre of the earth

A supple form, absorb and redirect

Stack,

puzzle pieces that fit like glue or don’t fit at all.

Fall

Where did you go?

Spiral, Whirling Dervish

A breeze, my breath, your fascia, my skin

A combined power

Syntax of float, fold, slip

The form of space slips around you

You root and fly

I try…… falling is Fun

Feeling the fold of the skin

The grounding of feet and the fulcrum

Setting potential to fly

We are here

The dance is happening

Lets fall again. 

~Sara

CI Jam, Sunday Jan 25 @ the Citadel Recreation Centre Dance Studio

 

Haikus from the Heart

A leaf's turn reveals
hidden notes grow in the field
Whispers from the heart

Working digging dance
Paths far apart but hearts close
A season's cycle

-Heart shaped fruit-
Cucalemon glow
Smiles, desires, warm heart
thinking of you now

Flying high above
Two hearts intent to return
someday soon as one

Eyes close, breath softens
Dreams slip- memories appear
Longing to be close

Warm bread on the stove
A kitchen that is ours
We can make it true

Diligent work flow
Wonder with isolation
I miss you always

Shit in your head sucks
Together we are better
share your hopes and fears

Random thoughts of love
Even in the far distance
longing to hear you

Unsolicited
Reassurance is needed
Sub-thoughts will quiet

Is my love for you
Do I mourn the loss of dreams?
Who should I follow?

When your path crumbles
You can tumble with the stones
Or.....leap like a goat

Distance with distance
I feel a void without you
My heart hangs so low

Alone and not strong
Naïve faith testing limits
Broken and empty

Turn your heart to me
Once courageous you chased me
I will not let go

Fear clouds your sight now
Your heart isn’t as porous
Should we just part ways?

Is it time to go?
Expectations have fallen
Protecting myself

Both feeling so blue
Laughter and hope has left us
A sign to rejoin?

Once Afraid to love –
To admit we were perfect
Now apart too long

So busy it burns
I sacrificed you and I
Forever sorry

I will drop it all
Just to be held in your arms
With you is my place

My heart remains raw
your smile and glow pull me
still waiting for love

Reflections from Northampton

This post is a little late for publication, but as you read you can see where I may have gotten held up...

We did it!
A fantastic piece in full fruition on stage, a cycle of questions and reflections embodied in full form, presentation with many congratulations…it all happened here with the wonderful and…. yes I’m gonna say it…. the beautiful Mocean Dance team. (We discovered during our travels that Northampton loves the adjective: beautiful).

Photo by Derek Fowles

 
I am extremely proud and grateful for the inquisitive generosity, vulnerability and permeability that was tested and exhibited by all involved. Thank you to Jacinte Armstrong, Rhonda Baker, Sarah Rozee, Susanne Chui, to my collaborators Andrew Hawryshkewichand Phil Thomson and to my mentor/thesis adviser Chris Aiken.

Photos by Jessica Goudreault

I was proud to witness all the hard work and vulnerability that was exhibited on the Smith College stage:

From my cohorts: Shaina Cantino, Safi Harriott and Mat Elder – we each in our own way took our weight off-balance and tested our tilt in unfamiliar axes to seek disorientation and in this place we were able to find a new sense of clarity from our bewilderment. 

My loving cohorts and I celebrate!

To all the range and perspectives in performativity on stage; the enthusiastically green by talented undergraduate dancers, the local professionals from the community, past and present graduate students, and the professional dancers hailing from Canada (that’s us!).

***

As I digest, I realize that the first 15 days of February had been the most impactful and revealing days I have ever experienced in my artistic career.

During the first 15 days of February my schedule included the following:

• My MFA Thesis dance project with Mocean Dance was presented for all to see, 

Body Abandoned in performance, Photo by Derek Fowles

• I organized an outreach workshop (taught by Susanne!) and discussion with the Southern Vermont IBIT Dance Company Pre-professional Training Division, 

• I contributed my lighting and artistic improvising sensibilities for a performance of master improvisers that I deeply respect: Chris Aiken, Angie Hauser and Mike Vargas in Threshold, 

 

• and I taught and performed at the prestige conference loved by all at the American College Dance Festival Association. 

Teaching at ACDFA at Boston University

Photos (and below) by Troy David Mercier

Performing in "How Did I Get Here?" by Chris Aiken at ACDFA

Whirlwind doesn’t even begin to describe the intensity of the artistic craft, decisions and emotions that I have experienced….. just to survive each day. I am blessed, I feel set afire and I am wiped at the same time.  Pausing to do a rough calculation, from Feb 1-15 my artistic efforts reached approximately 1100 people.

The premiere came and went and now even March is coming to a close. Yikes! The end of the road is nearing. I have pulled myself out of recovery mode and push through to reflective mode.

It is now spring break at Smith and I am thick into my thesis writing, the final yet maybe the most difficult portion in this journey. Give me ideological questions and an empty studio and I can figure out the message physically no problem…. words on the other hand, this medium is a much different process.


I'm on page 22.... only 38 more to go....

Yours Truly, Sara

:)

Productive Instability: the art of fragmentation, coordination and creativity

In rehearsal with Sara Coffin and Mocean Dancers: J. Armstrong, R. Baker, S.Rozee

I am in the last leg of rehearsals with Mocean Dance as we prepare for the USA premiere/MFA Thesis Concert presentation of my new work entitled Body Abandoned at Smith College in Northampton, MA. The new trio will premiere on the Theatre 14 stage February 6-8, 2014 at the college. Then ten weeks later we will grace the Halifax stage April 24-26 at the Dunn Theatre with Live Art Dance’s closing show for the 2013-14 season.

  

Two-weeks after that the whole project will come to close/full fruition for me, when I defend the written portion of my thesis and I will be able to walk away with the letters M. F. A. following my trail!

…..I need to lay down …just by catching you the reader up on the logistical flow of the piece makes my head spin….. and I haven’t even got to sharing the content or the process yet.

Dancers Jacinte Armstrong and Rhonda Baker

But the fruits of this work is a real marker for all involved, this project encompasses a lot for both the company and for me personally. I am grateful for the commitment and the support that the new work and I have received from both sides of the border during its creation.

The content of the work is inspired by what I have been coining as my “blue period” – Picasso stuck with his monochrome tones, me, I am sticking with VGA cables and projectors! However, I think I have finally gotten to the essence of my ideological question, one that focus on our existence and the posthuman-machine connection. I may have come to my end point in the interrogation of the body’s relationship to technology, but I am happy, really happy with the product of my research.

 

The dancers: Jacinte Armstrong, Rhonda Baker and Mocean-founder Sarah Rozee have been real star troopers during the creation. I feel so blessed for the depth of research, commitment and literally the distance they have traveled with me during my inquiry.

Dancer Sarah Rozee

Wearing the two hats of graduate student and commissioned choreographer has been an interesting challenge in this beast of a production. However, I feel that a part of my MFA research and study have filtered through the process in an osmosis fashion and a bit of my experience has definitely been shared by all.

In our first working period, Mocean Dance was fortunate enough to host Smith Faculty members Chris Aiken and Angie Hauser for four days in June. During this time they offered master classes and workshops for the community while mentoring me in the studio.

Swell Contact Improvisation Intensive and Eco-Poetic Approach to Performance workshop participants.

June 2013

with Chris Aiken and Angie Hauser

MFA Advisor Chris Aiken in session "working the work"

    

During the second phase of creation Mocean Dance joined me in Northampton and we worked in an empty theatre all to ourselves for a week! Meanwhile my American cohorts were off relaxing on the American Thanksgiving break.

In this phase of creation multimedia collaborator Andrew Hawryshkewich and I worked remotely, sharing files back and forth, and I stayed up late for technical coaching on skype from the west coast.

The dancers were able to test drive the performance space and the sense of the bigger picture or the 'ness' of the piece started to sink in for both me and the dancers. Like the regular star troopers that J, R and S are, the dancers patiently waited and diligently kept working as I tracked the five components: the action/movement, the mediated image, the space, the music and the gestalt of it all.  

  

Now - here in the third leg of creation, back in Halifax, all the hard work is really resonating and vibrating in the studio. We ran part of the piece on Friday and I was in awe and touched by the how far the dancers continue to stretch themselves.

In preparation for the Smith MFA Thesis concert my fellow grads and I have selected a quote from the book: A Choreographic Mind by SusanRehorst, one that really highlights our state of research:

“One has to know and not know, prefer and not prefer, empty oneself and acknowledge one’s fullness, be passive and charged.  It has to happen to you and from you.  It has to be too fast for you to take in, and done in baby steps, one leaking into the other.”

In the process of this work, I have interrogated my tendencies, embraced my strengths, questioned my doubts, sought new perspectives, and now my skin is raw but my heart is strong. Within the disorientation and bewilderment of my growing pains a new clarity has surfaced, one that I can feel resonating straight from the core of my bones.

Theatre 14 Technical Residency at Smith College

In the last 100 meter dash before the curtain rises and the dancers take the stage I am filled with much anticipation and a giant check list.

I coordinate stop watches and emails as I finish the final music and multimedia adjustments (via online communication and file sharing) with my remote collaborators; Phil Thomson and Andrew Hawryshkewich respectively.

I keep an watchful eye on the post, as the costumes are arriving by mail from Smith College... and I am watching the snow report praying for clear driving days.