Awakening to the self, but this implies a stasis, stability, security of self, that I am knowable to myself; whereas, I'm not. The mystery of unfolding, rather.
Lying on the floor, awakening, our fingers, hands, toes, feet stretch into the world. That stretching continues as we writhe across the dance floor and then slow our movement to a Tai Chi-like fluidity and finally stop. A room of sculptures stopped in motion, some standing, some lying on the floor. We are breathing, is it.
Later, to the music I unravel my sarong and wrap and unwrap it around my shoulders, torso, breasts, and then brave strangeness and wrap it around my head and arms so I am trapped. I dance like a slave trying to find freedom, from the position of stasis, stability, security of a self. I know freedom is terrifying. With nothing to constrain you, fetter, contain, weigh, what would you do, who would you be?
If we could forget about being watched, read, observed, judged, about the unceasing gaze of the other, what would we be, produce, live?
In what ways do we keep each other in check, clipped, chained, trapped?
I struggle with the sarong I have wrapped myself in, pushing elbows against the tight fabric and turning and falling and gyrating in a self-imposed prison. Because the sarong is in shades of blue I am especially reminded of the burqa, of societies which contain the energy of the woman in well-defined boundaries. I am reminded of living mummies, torture victims, Michelangelo's slaves, of enslavement from without; of the woman in the VIII Swords in the Rider-Waite Tarot deck when we are enslaved from within. I dance my life's struggles.
Twirling, fighting for release along the wall, my private anguish become visible. My upper body and head entirely enwrapped, I am enrapt with an invisibility that gives me the freedom to struggle for inner freedom, but the session is over. I peel off the sarong like a ribbon of skin and sit in the circle, wondering if any of us is closer to who we are.
We are newly reunited, this group. A flower of love is blossoming in the room in the centre of the circle and we are its petals. Here we are free to struggle with pain or joy, to wilt or face the sun while being supported by the roots, our deeper connections.
Many of us hug our teacher, who is newly returned and who holds this space of transformation sacred.
Sheath of feeling. Words groping to touch air.
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Self-Portrait with a Fascinator 2016
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The prison of the sarong immediately gave me an image of Martha Graham's Lamentation -- after the cognitive dissonance of a sarong as being "loose-fitting clothing" that I think of as freeing rather than impeding movement....
ReplyDeleteWasn't it Gustav Mahler who was haunted by a vision of his Alma on the rocky shores and struggling to release herself from the cacoon he had trapped her in?
ReplyDeleteI think now, of our own entrapments, our own struggles to free ourselves totally before the altar of creative endeavor, to free our spirits completely, as it were.
This gathering of women, struggling to free themselves from the Chrysalis of all that which would bind, a gratitude for the teacher, a self discovery. Perhaps it is enough to take the moment~to be "the petal"~yes
I like the dance of transformation in this composition, of shedding and then contemplation for what has been released, what then can be discovered.
Many Blessings~
stretching for freedom, using our ability to move to shake off limiting expectations, bending our bodies to escape entrapments...
ReplyDeleteand the ability of humanity to create sacred space.
e_journeys, yes I've seen those extraordinary photographs, but my dance was a simple movement along the wall... fit me well - the struggling wall flower :)
ReplyDeletelaurieglynn, how lovely, of Mahler and his Alma, and yes, poetry can arise anywhere, even in sudden and unexpected movements of entrapment and the struggle to become free.
narrator, such freedom at this dance, we all know each other from years past, we are very free to be idiosyncratic... Taeji has grown remarkably as a teacher - been dancing with him since 1997 - was a beautiful reunion. Thanks...
Before I dive through waves at the beach, I sometimes make up a dance...and the beach returns to me as sacred ground, healing ground, 'sacred space'...and then I let myself go to join my 'signifying insignificance' with the enormity of it all.
ReplyDeleteDance is such a gift!