Monday 10/23 D/D notes – Damaris

Monday 10/23 D/D notes – Damaris
All ensemble present
Several 1st year visitors
WHOLESOME AUNTS WITH PRARIE BONNETS

Evening Format:
6:30 – 7:15 Sitting and Personal awareness practice
7:15 – 7:35 Solo Quads (20 min improv)
7:35 – 9:00 Exercises
9:30 - 10:00 Announcement/Discussion

Solo Quads:
BD coaches. Start in silence. After 2nd person enters a quad the sound environment starts (CD-desert winds). This time no one jumped up to start, we waited maybe one whole minute! BD used elements from America the Beautiful AUNT. Longer improv, evolved/coached into text, people joining in quads, quads dissolving and becoming a flock/swarm, Miriam basket rocks and rules of rocks, song, coaching.

Post Quad Discussion:
Development growing structure, sticking with structure, evolving structure (alpha dog concept). How strict are we with the form? MW says the form itself can be alpha dog
CR form is a director, especially if you’re not working with one in the room.
ChR I thin some people are more eager to break form right away – for me that always makes me anxious when that happens
BD when I coach wholesome and relaxed not to be influenced by the gaze, to be an entertainer – rest with the experience.
EB form holds the container of space, I feel form hold space, that’s when loosing the form gets fuzzy, when we’re trying to fill space instead of doing what space tells
MW also when I’m not clear about the form it’s harder because I get fuzzy, not me choosing not to do the form, but unclear about what the rules are now..
BD How do we stabilize the evolution? It’s not tidy by nature
LL I feel that the group is pulling it to be tidy, but I think naturally it would pull itself around
BD to feel you don’t have to worry about fixing it.; you can fall into repetition OR tolerate the untidiness.
KK possibility to stay in the untidiness, with the wandering thing
BD find out how to take your inner practice, your instincts for what will keep you wholesome and relaxed – that’s performer’s responsibility
CR when there’s lots of stuff (people props, text) I can’t track it all, so I can choose to stay with what I’m doing and work foreground or background and trust the others (like being on the grid)
BD Maybe we can have a soft grid a the beginning?
CR Yeah, coaching all those things on the grid we would be able to fall back on, a vocabulary and shared awareness
EL Yes, but I wonder too what would happen if we didn’t “train” that? If we let it evolve unchecked?
EB Just confirming that wholesome and relaxed doesn’t mean feeling a specific way
BD yes, anxiety arises around the unknown, waiting in relaxed and wholesomeness is embodying your situation, intentionally being here after I’ve let go of neurosis.
EB for me being coached to “stay with it” really helps me achieve that

Cara’s Grid One Menu, Erika, Christa, Eliza, Miriam, Tyler
Five on the grid
Decide on the spot on three shared gestures (back hand slap, throw up, fall to side, side knee kick)
On grid play with gestures
Work wit h seeing the space in between, closed eyes, direct eye contact
Work wit h repetition, retrieval and influence
Random (whatever’s in the player) music can play

Post AUNT discussion:
CR It’s nice to remember how we get to cannons. Satisfying to create relationship and see language in the space.

Barbara’s three desolate talking chairs Menu, Cara Eliza, Laurie
BD calls B, M, E and BD coaches
Three people in three chairs have a conversation about “what is desolate?”
Some kind of shadow can have response in the background (these people or person can go in and out)

Post AUNT discussion:
BD Speakers were generous and immediate. Sometimes the moving of chairs was flamboyant. It would be interesting to revisit this form a few times with the same performers.
CR inside it when I felt self conscious I felt I could lean into someone else’s posture, mood, etc.

Housekeeping
This Sunday dinner at Erika’s 6pm
A discussion where it was made clear to everyone that for now the gazers are only from the first year and second year of the current MFA. Feeling arose that it was weird that watchers came in during mediation and personal w-up. For now they will be invited at 7:40.