Radiance/Bright Omens: Li

From Total I Ching – Stephen Karcher

The Bright Presence of the spirit of the omens.
An axis of change
Prima Materia

Make a sacrifice at the Earth Alter
and you will have a place where people congregate.

A Bright Presence of things,
a numen that surges from the depths,
turning them into omens that reveal the spirits.

Li- spreading light, illuminate, discriminate, articulate, arrange and order. A pattern of words and symbols. She is the yellow lia-bird associated with brightness, fire and the light of the heavenly bodies.
Midday sun.
Summer, the south and the beauty and the splendor of things.

Make things conscious.
Bring together what belongs together.
This is the time of intelligent effort and accumulating awareness.
It includes unexpected and meaningful encounters, separations from the old and experiences outside the ordinary.

Put your ideas to the trial.
That brings profit and insight.
It is pleasing to the spirits.
Being flexible and adaptive connects you with what is central and correct.
This is why nurturing receptive strength is so important.

These are good omens, a Bright Presence at the beginning.
Be very careful with the first steps. Polish and clarify your motives and feelings. Treat this beginning with real respect. You won’t be making a mistake.

Bite through the obstacles! Proceed step by step. Gather your energy for a decisive new move. Beautify things. Re-imagine the situation. Gather energy for a decisive new move.

From "Concluding Request to the Protectors"

"May the world enjoy peace, have good harvests,
Abundant grain, expansion of dharma,
And glorious auspiciousness,
Accomplish whatever mind desires."

A Gathering of the Art Tribe! 2008 dance.art.lab

dance.art.lab 2008 participants
June 18 - June 22
hosted by Barbara Dilley and Naropa University


Margot Bassett, Mary-Laurence Bevington, Lauren Brenner, Joan Bruemmer, Maria Flegas, Sally Foster, Tricia Glennon, Regan Halas, Katharine Kaufman, Janna Miering, Paul Montgomery, Sharoni Stern Siegel and Damaris Webb

deSOLateDeligHt in the 2008 Boulder Fringe!

deSOLateDeligHt Project: The Bright Presence of Things is ensemble created contemplative performance art inspired by the Dharma Art teaching of the Tibetan mediation master, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. Conceived by Barbara Dilley, dancer, choreographer, and professor of the performing arts at Naropa University. The Project mingles the ‘meditative state of mind” with contemporary western disciplines of improvisation in movement, text and sound.

Each performance is unique yet contains images of text, objects and song practiced by the ensemble. Calling the mysteries of this moment – nowness – into the room and stitching them together with beauty, memory and the skills of the great surrealists.

Four performances only:
Friday, 8/15
Saturday, 8/16
Monday, 8/18
Tuesday, 8/19
All performances at 8pm.

In the Community Room of the Boulder Shambhala Meditation Center
1345 Spruce Street, Boulder

$10 general admission; 2-for-1 for students/seniors for every performance, tickets available at the door, or in the advance @: www.boulderfringe.com.

deSOLateDeligHt Project:
The Bright Presence of Things
is
Sondra Blanchard, Barbara Dilley, Meridith Crosley, Gary Grundei, Katherine Kaufman, Christa Ray, Damaris Webb and Miriam Wolodarski

Desolate/Delight: A Mythology of a Species
Some reflections on contemplative dance practice and performance art

“Artistic study of process is about improvisation.
It’s about intuition filtering through one’s intelligence
and intelligence showering the garden of intuition”
- Barbara Dilley

I am an ensemble member of Desolate/Delight: A Mythology of a Species, a year-long project led by Naropa University’s MFA Contemporary Performance Program faculty member Barbara Dilley. Growing out of last summer’s dance.art.lab five day intensive, wherein a group of 11 post-modern dancers and performers, led by Barbara, explored a developing improvisational contemplative dance form called Aunts. The form of Aunts may not at first glance appear drastically different from any other improvisational score that calls for a menu of activities to be called and from which a “set” will occur. It is the values and inspiration surrounding Aunts that sets it apart.

Some months before the dance lab Barbara received a manifesto from Polly Motley. This declaration was created by Jamm Leary in Brooklyn, NY, and outlined the values of a new curatory undertaking that would empower emerging dancers to make work and to be in non-competitive dialogue with other dancers in a Brooklyn underground rave fashion.

Several of the phrases in the missive caught Barbara’s imagination (and mine) such as “Aunts is about having dance happen… a model that is meant to be adopted, adapted, replicated and perpetuated by anyone who would like to use it…where in a performance setting, it can last for five seconds or five hours; where it is considered temporally finished, never ‘a work in progress’; where it is backed by the land of plenty rather than ‘there is not enough’ ”. Barbara took these values and combined them with disciplines of contemplative dance practice: an emphasis on cultivating kinesthetic delight, inviting space to tell us what to do, commitment to returning gently to the present moment, an exploration of mingling mind and movement, the cultivation of immediate, direct and complete expression, to create a unique embodied performance art form.

From the momentum that had developed out of the dance.art.lab intensive, Barbara was given a slot in the regular MFA production calendar to initiate “a year-long investigation into the creation of performance art based on the establishment of a culture”. Also inspired by these values I signed on to be an archivist of this evolving form and investigation into sustainability.

Nine additional ensemble members committed to the year-long project, including faculty, alumni and current students of the MFA program. All came from a contemplative practice and had curiosities and excitement surrounding our investigation. We were grateful to find community together and embark on this novel project. Once a week for the 26 weeks the program was in session, we were to create on-the-spot performance art!

Each of our Monday night sessions was open to “the gaze” – anyone from our extended community who was interested in witnessing our performance for that evening. This invitation was a central/integral component/value to this project. Our intent was to continuously make work for an audience.

We began first as an ensemble by developing our “internal eye” through a three-part warm-up, starting with group sitting meditation with our cushions against the four walls facing open space, transitioning into self guided personal warm up joining the meditative practice with movement practiced alone, together, into the third segment of open space, meeting the moment in group improvisation.

Inspired by general systems theory and by observing species and organisms existing in nature, we began the development of our culture by exploring different forms of flocking which we defined as herding, swarming and the crowd or mob. Initially I experienced a huge relaxation to my nervous system in all of these form that called for peripheral viewing and a surrender to group mind. Then my attachment to success would raise it’s critical head “this can’t be interesting to the audience! How much of this can you do for how long before they’ll get bored? Where’s my differentiation?” How much of this practice could I tolerate and still remain awake in the moment? What was the line between relaxation and rigor? Would I know when it was my time to “step into my power” and lead the pack? What happens when I’m not the leader and I don’t like how it’s going? Can I trust the group to self-correct? Could I trust that each of us were both dependent and independent?

One of the contemplative disciplines that the culture practices is gentleness to ourselves and others. Another way to articulate this practice is patience. Could I have patience and trust the time it takes for the group to evolve in a way that none of us had pre-determined? One way I would try to practice this discipline in improv space was to wait for an impulse for change to assert itself three times before acting on it. How could we as a culture break patterns of timing and movement?

“Our body and mind are not two and not one. If you think your body and mind are two, that is wrong; if you think that they are one that is also wrong. Our body and mind are both two and one.”
”-S Roshi

When we began in the fall of ’07, we spent most of our explorations in fulfilling Aunts menus brought in by any of us. Sometimes they would be inquires into a certain performance element such as timing or group dynamic, other times text or the power of an object in space. All of our Aunts menus specified spatial configurations (such as corridors, quadrants, grid), the number of participants for the improv (round robin with no more than seven, only three, etc.) the length of the piece (dictated by a pre-selected music score, or by someone calling beginning, middle and end), a menu of movement options (sitting, running, flocking, keeping your center off balance, returning to duets), and what we referred to as “little disciplines” (direct looking, looking between spaces, soft unfocused gaze, stillness, repetition, picking up influence, etc), and use of any props or texts.

As we generated on the spot performance art we began developing our own cultural vocabulary, certain images and forms would reoccur in our shared mythology as specific compositional moments. Elements or themes were adopted, adapted and recycled, such as pieces of text read or themes of improvised speech, props such as a basket of smooth round rocks, and a wooden stool, or re visited compositional moments: “At some time in the Aunt please include two dancers down stage left jumping while a soloist makes a slow diagonal cross.”

At this point Barbara began inviting the individual who brought in an Aunt to side coach the activities and strengthening the director’s eye in the improv through the on-the-spot offering of suggestions to the performers to strengthen the evolving improv (“yes, keep with that quality of movement. Can someone else join the duet in the Stage left quadrant? remember to include 30% stillness, etc). We referred to this as “taking the director’s chair”.

In the winter, Barbara introduced us to a long wave Aunt menu. This specific aunt was 45 minutes in duration, supported by an environmental sound track, with the space divided into quadrants (certain quads may have different menus or at the halfway mark the quads might be relaxed into open space). Additionally the use of lighting was introduced via clip lamps with extension cords, flashlights and votive candles. Other than these specifications of elements and use of space, we were free to explore whatever we were called to in the improv. One’s aesthetic (or ego) began to assert itself, sometimes struggling with the needs of space. Was my impulse to enter or leave an improv driven by a call from space or from a personal impulse to express myself?

Throughout the year desolate/delight project participated in more formal performances than our open Mondays, but even these situations were on the spot performance art.

* * * * * * * * * * *

“The aesthetic nature of desolate/delight reflects a poetic nature versus the theatrical; like painting time with space, objects, people text, connected to the surrealists. the director comes in with a plan and the ensemble lives the plan in the moment.”
- Barbara Dilley

In the spring the group returned to the more structured Aunts form as a 20 minute set, putting an emphasis on the director’s eye, evolving the return of and layering of events, and invoking the “director’s chair” for each Aunt.

Below are some of my reflections on February 11, 2008 taken from the desolate/delight: a mythology of a species archives. All evening’s observations can be found at http://desolatedelight2.blogspot.com/


Monday 2/11 D/D notes – Damaris

Dark and Light (and Sound)

Evening Format:
6:30 – 7:30 Sitting and Personal awareness practice
7:30 – 7:40 Break
7:40 – 9:30 two sets of Dark & Light of 45 minutes each with a 15-minute silent break
9:30 - 10:00 Housekeeping/Discussion

Dark & Light Menu
Barbara is using a timer with a meditation or mindfulness alarm, so that the Aunt can be timed without someone watching the clock. Working with an evolving solo quad form, lights, stones, musing stool, votive candles, Eric La Casa’s Soundscape cd.

It’s a very different experience writing in the dark. Frankly I’m not so sure about how to document this process now. I feel my gaze is very subjective, what I’ll record are not facts or quotes. Do I trust that the group mind has developed enough that what I perceive is what is necessary to record? For what reason do I record this? Are we so in the now that my observations are superfluous? Are the moments and images that arrest/stimulate/relax me moments that point to something deeper, actually pointing to synchronicities or set ups that occurred seconds or hours or days earlier? How do I record that process?

I’m so exhausted I’m not sure I can trust what I’m thinking or feeling. We start in the darkness. I am sitting on a cushion, like the rest of the ensemble. Barbara is in the director’s chair. Barbara enters with the smooth little rocks in the straw basket, kneeling. Bobby sets the candles up in a repeat of the cross formation from last week, delineating the four quads of our playing space. After a little Laurie whispers to me to pass her the flashlight. Tyler comes to the CD player and turns it off. How bold! Cara enters from the audience as Laurie begins slowly rolling the large mag flashlight in a semi circle on the floor.

Erika, Eliza and Katherine join Cara in the slow crawl from their seats on the cushions in the audience. I am aware that my green tea is especially hot and delicious and restorative. The four crawlers have reached the back of the space and two of them begin crawling up the wall. Synchronicity is strong in group agreement to hold images.

Laurie investigates walking along the wall with the flashlight the arching the flashlight again in half circles on the floor. Each sound is part of the choreography. The darkness of the room intensifies our awareness of sound. Although I cannot see her do it from the angle I am resting at I hear Cara roll the small rocks onto the floor. A satisfying sound. A recognizable sound. How many sounds do I know in the this studio? What is a surprise in the dark? What sounds are a part of our culture? I feel calm and bathed sitting in the dark, I notice the red light glowing from the silent boom box and I feel relieved that my back hurts a little less with the rolled up cushion against my lumbar.

Barbara goes back to sit in the director’s chair, Erika crawls to downstage and off into the cushions. Meanwhile the cross formation of the votives is being dismantled.

What are the rules again?

Barbara asks that we “Continue to emphasize repetition”. Repetition from my personal vocabulary? Influence from another in the moment? Recycled images and moments from an earlier Aunt? On another night?

We have no outside gaze in our audience tonight. We are the only witnesses, the only interpreters of our offering tonight. It is so dark in the studio that I can hear a rock making a long rolling journey but I can’t see where it is, but know it’s trajectory none the less.

Barbara calls “Pause. For as long as you want.” Me? Should I pause in my gaze? Return my attention to my breath? Am I at this moment the gaze or the performer or the recorder or all simultaneously. How the audience perceives what you are doing affects what you are doing. Christa clears her throat. I can’t see that it’s Christa, but rather I recognize her sound, even though she does not speak. Bobby hums from the audience. Laurie sweeps the flashlight and for a moment it illuminates this page I am writing. I see the black ink against the white paper and the shadow made from my pen.

Barbara asks “Christa, tell us a dream”.
Christa tells us about her dream about the Maharishi who had just died.
Barbara asks Christa to stay where she is as she is telling the story and asks Eliza to plug a clip lamp into the long extension cord.
It goes dark again and I become aware of Miriam dancing by a group of votive candles


* * * * * * * * * * *

NEW QUESTIONS
As we grow to the close of our investigation, I am realize I have new questions formulating about text use and training in live and recorded sound improv, and the future exploring of group mind for this summers’ dance.art.lab.

What is performance? Is it a shift in thinking? Is it putting a frame around something? Is it “taking care of an audience”? How do we continue to make room for the audience to be an active participant in our laboratory?

A mythology of a species:
my year as archivist to desolate/delight

As Barbara’s assistant to desolate/delight: a mythology of a species, I expected that my ability to document the seminal points of our evolving practice, including the germane questions and observations evolving from discussion, would be supportive in the progression of the vision of the project. Feedback from the participating members suggests that I was successful on this front, holding a continuous eye to our process, and offering a library of reference.

Through this experiment as an archivist I have discovered that I learn most deeply by engaging in as many learning pathways as available. In this situation I was able to participate through direct participation, listening to what was being said (physically and verbally) in the room, documenting my experience through writing, talking about the group’s experience with Barbara, reading and decoding my notation of both these events, and then writing about my experience for other’s benefit and my synthesization.

My evolution from documenting the forms and conversations to articulating my personal experiences within the frame of the rehearsal evening’s structure grew out of the changing form of our Monday night practice. In the fall we used the form of creating Aunts that were brought in by performers in the group. I would doggedly document each menu created and the highlights of the conversations that occurred after each set. In the winter and spring we evolved to less and less structured solo quad practice, then into the long wave form of Dark and Light (with Sound). The use of the musing stool and free text improv expanded as did the use of the directors chair to side coach material. The menu was often open and the improvs lasted for 45 minute sessions.

I was unsure about how to document something of this magnitude. My process of documentation needed to evolve with the culture. It no longer seemed practical to record the menu elements of the Aunts as we were moving into deeper, more complex compositions, that both relied on the vocabulary of forms, images and disciplines we had developed in our culture, and communicated now without naming.

We were re-membering and recycling images, events, texts and relationships in our compositions while simultaneously working with the present, through our contemplative disciplines of an emphasis on cultivating kinesthetic delight, inviting space to tell us what to do, commitment to returning gently to the present moment, our exploration of mingling mind and movement, and the cultivation of immediate, direct and complete expression. The culture was moving towards group creative mind. Likewise my documentation became more lyrical as I opened to my direct perception and intuition in my recording of our evolution.

Below is an excerpt of my musings from February 4th, 2008.

“How to write about this 45 minute Aunt? When the lights go out the first thing I notice is the beautiful reflection of the lights on the snow from the parking lot through the studio windows. The solo quad space is demarcated with votive candles. This is the first act in the Aunt. I notice the sound of the smooth stones in Cara’s hand and the sound of Christa eating an apple. I yearn to hear text in the space about the process but am to shy to do so myself. As myself, how does the gaze participate as an active part of this laboratory?
Erika and Katherine enter into gorgeous conversation about what’s happening. It seems that the text is most vibrant when talking about in the moment perceptions while keeping track of themes. I feel there was a big shift in the culture that I missed in my absence last week, but that I still understand.”

* * * * * * * * * *

My second line of inquiry relating to my taking on the role of documentarian to desolate/delight sprung from my curiosity about the extent to which discern documentation and archival of a form could be constructive to it’s participants and meaningful and useful to others in the field. Since we only met once a week, we devoted most of our time to making work, and little to feedback and questions about the process. Coupled with the reality that the ensemble had an entire week between rehearsals, Barbara was concerned about dissipating energy. I thought that making my documentation accessible to the entire ensemble and hopefully our immediate contemplative dance community in the MFA and Naropa would be a first step in maintaining communication and inviting further discussion. It seems that so often in the creative process moments of beauty and clarity can be forgotten in the press to move forward towards performance. The ability to look backwards with specificity in recall can only be of benefit in building upon successes and avoiding pitfalls.

T o that end I spent many an hour technically trying to figure out how to build a website, and ultimately with the help of my technologically savvy husband (thanks Mike!) learned how to create a blog that I could post archival material to. This became http://desolatedelight2.blogspot.com. At this site each of our 26 rehearsals has been documented, along with comments from Barbara, links to relevant websites, and postings of influential or inspirational articles and manifestos.

A separate blog had already been created at http://desolatedelight.blogspot.com (thanks Miriam!) for posting by the members of the desolate/delight ensemble only. Comments on these posting could be left by anyone else who cared to visit, and we eventually invited the gaze who came to our open Monday evenings to post their reflections on this site. Very few people did, and only a handful of posts from within the ensemble were ever made. Barbara and I continued posting, but then again, we already had weekly face-to-face meetings. Our meetings enhanced, for both of us, our understanding of the project by articulating our observations, feelings and intuitions about our evolution as a culture and then formulating the questions on “the tip of our tongues and minds” that would best guide us in a productive, sustainable and mindful journey.

“The aesthetic nature of desolate/delight reflects a poetic nature versus the theatrical; like painting time with space, objects, people text, connected to the surrealists. the director comes in with a plan and
the ensemble lives the plan in the moment.”
- Barbara Dilley

Many questions were voiced by our culture as we developed. Here are some themes that we explored during our investigation:

Why do we decide to leave or enter an open improv?
Is it because space is telling us to do so, or because anxiety or ego is? How much freedom is tolerable in an improv? What boundaries are necessary? How many boundaries can we relax before neurotic mind creeps up?

What is breaking rules?
Is it an adaptation? A new form appearing? What space is asking for right now? An urge/impulse? A new piece of language that wants to enter the culture? What is our way of harmonizing with the new? Can it be an opportunity to both hold the precision of a form and allow for spontaneous evolution, for deep play?

How can the audience be more included in the laboratory portion of our culture?
Through the five eye practices of direct looking, peripheral looking, looking between objects, infant eyes (or soft gaze/ looking before naming) and eyes closed? How does the audience take it’s clue for participation from the performer? What are we trying to offer to the audience? How the audience looks at us effects what we do, and they will search for context. How can we allow the performer and the gaze (us/them) grow both more open and more deep?

How can we on-the-spot retrieve material from our shared past?
Can we stand not always being clever and original? Can Re-cycle, re-use and re-member build sustainability and deepen our culture?

What supports a unity that is not unison?
What is one-mind-on-the-spot?
What is the difference between a value and an aesthetic?
What is the line between relaxation and rigor?
How does one continue to establish solo space while not denying the presence and influence of others? Inside of an improv can we stay with ourselves and also take direction
What is community?

In the first semester I organized three “dharma and creative process talks”, moderated by Barbara to encourage discussion first amongst those of us in the MFA program involved in desolate/delight and then
into the larger community directly involved in applying contemplative practice to the development of work. These live meetings were a great success, but did not ever evolve into online discussions.

I wonder now if I was too ambitious in my expectations? As technologically savvy as our culture is, many people do not prefer to participate in discussions online, but rather in person. I plan as part of my thesis presentation to share some of my experiences in desolate/delight ideally through a fishbowl discussion.
Listeners to this discussion could be invited to responses on the blogspot. I still wonder if the blog, and the form of writing as a method for articulation can be another pathway to in depth learning and articulation as a creative artist?

It takes more time, but then again, most things worthwhile do.

CAN I DANCE SO THAT YOU CAN SEE MY HEART?

Monday 4/7/8 D/D notes – Damaris
Christa and Cara absent,
Tiffany Johnson – Light Designer as gaze

Evening Format:
6:30 – 7:30 Sitting and Personal awareness practice
7:30 – 7:40 Break/the Gaze
7:40 – 9:30 Discussion of previous Thursday’s performance at Faculty Concert. Two sets of Aunts with a pre-determined director and menu, 20 minutes each, with a seven minute feedback session solicited from audience and performers
9:30 - 10:00 Housekeeping/Discussion

“This kind of inner work is challenging. It isn’t comfortable. it demands a kind of exertion that is slow and must also be gentle. There has to be a tolerance for not knowing and for ambiguity."
-Barbara Dilley

Reflections/moments that stood out for us from Thursday’s Performance at the Faculty concert:
Damaris’ big shadow and backwards facing text
Various people jumping over Katherine
Katherine’s stillness – having someone in the space who did not move at all.
Eliza was glad to have the audience there, and is looking for whole-ness
Katherine felt her performance was the most practice oriented she had ever experienced.

As a watcher Erika felt it was very satisfying and that we were listening well. The first half felt especially dynamic. Five people performing was very good. Individuals were seen and the whole. Hard to know where the middle is, there was just enough happening and we were going very slowly comparatively.

Laurie felt apart and not a part of in a bit of limbo or heartache watching but not audience.

Barbara was constantly uncomfortable in the director’s chair, this was a transition from practice to performance, and is interested in what each of us do as individuals to prepare for that. She felt unable to help with coaching in that un-intimate space. Is interested in the evolution of us deciding to repeat an Aunt and then a refinement of the menu as each time it was repeated.
From audience comments Barbara notes that the gaze projected their own state of mind, joined us through their own lens. There felt to be an equity of involvement and commitment from everyone. As Eliza voiced, this kind of work isn’t necessarily “fun”. There is an edge to the waking up, a loneliness.
Barbara wished to be more daring now in what feedback she gives to people. On Thursday she would have wanted to ask for more imitation, clusters of there, moments held for even longer durations. We are quicker than the audience might need us to be. The performance felt successfully like pre-amble to the evening’s performances.

Tyler would like to return to the practice of solo quads,


Katherine’s Standing Up Menu: Eliza, Laurie, Damaris, Miriam, Tyler
Easy to drape items of clothing. Five in an intimate square center, start sitting or lying holding a shape that is complex or simple in stillness, except one part of you remains moving gently/awake. You may transition to a new shape in the most task oriented way, but hold a shape for at least five breaths before changing. Look for a tender quality I each shape.
One by one, individuals may transition to standing. In this transition, others who are on the floor should assist them in rising by helping the up and giving them items of clothing.
The individual’s transition to standing is to allow them to “tell their story”. It may be gibberish, remembered or memorized text. Once you have “told your story” you will remain standing but still follow the rules of transitioning to shapes.
Erika meanwhile travels along the edge of the wall and occasionally coaches those in the space with BMC imagery.


Miriam’s 20 minute solo quads with watching flockers menu:
Four scoops light the four solo quads
Soloists may turn on and off their scoop to indicated beginning and end of solo
An individual may call a flock into being by taking a seated watching space watching a solo. The ensuing flock may move throughout the space, but at anytime the members of the flock may leave, or begin a solo in an empty quad.


Housekeeping
We note those “moments of evolution” are very hard to track. There is an excitement about solos as sustainability.
What are we giving?

Barbara notes that all who plan on performing on the 25/26 should attend this Sunday’s supper.

4/13 supper at Barbara’s
4/14 Christa, Katherine direct
Mon 4/21 d/d in 9190 tech and Light Hang
Wed 23 dress d/d
Fri 25 d/d performance (Cara in Rome!)
Sat 26 d/d performance (Cara in Rome!)

THREE SETS OF TWENTY MINUTES

Monday 3/17/8 D/D notes – Damaris
Laurie and Katherine absent,
No gaze

THREE SETS OF TWENTY MINUTES

Evening Format:
6:30 – 7:30 Sitting and Personal awareness practice
7:30 – 7:40 Break/the Gaze
7:40 – 9:30 Three sets of Aunts with a pre-determined director and menu, 20 minutes each, with a seven minute feedback session solicited from audience and performers
9:30 - 10:00 Housekeeping/Discussion



Damaris’ Recycled Images menu:
ip lamps, one person on flashlight, cd player open.
Barbara to introduce the eye practices on the musing stool. If someone has memorized text, they can play with it in the space and others can deconstruct.
I’d like to see certain images brought back: votives on the wall, the rocking trio, Mirima’s jumping, done by anyone at anytime.

Eliza’s Finding a Way into Language:
Across with consonants and circular vowel release
players (five or could be another number) start on stage left wall, in crouch or low position
floor light at stage left wall facing stage right wall

*cross to stage right and back to stage left in horizontal corridors,
- image of stereo signal lights building and lessening, some more than others, pressing forward and retreating
*also physical structure of moving up from and down to the ground
*each player has a seed consonant (given to them by another player) (later this developed into 2 consonants, or trading with another player)
*you move when making your consonant sound, the sound making movement is what propels you
*find the sound in and coming out of your body
*can release into vowel sound - and here the movement becomes circular and curvy in the space, out of corridors, and return back to your beginning place
*play with listening, repetition, solo, cacophony, dynamic, tempo, and volume of sound

-it developed with: eyes, facing, relationship to others, linking consonants and vowels, paying attention to the sound making connecting you to something inside, others, and the space
-bumping into wall at end of vowel release, switching corridors some, vowel release running and louder
-I wanted to go to linking consonants and vowel into a word, and then some change happens in the structure


BD’s It’s about five… Menu
2 walls lit by clip lights: areas for shadow making
5 people in the space at a time
One person (Erika/Katherine) lies still in the usl quad for entire Aunt
The stone and votive game – moving on the exhale
Damaris with war text prompts

Housekeeping
Mon 3/31 Damaris, Laurie, Eliza direct (KK out)
Tue 4/1 Faculty show tech: Eliza, Erika, Barbara
Wed 4/2 Faculty show dress (all performers: Tyler, Bobby, Damaris, Eliza, Cara stand in for Katherine)
Thur 4/3 Faculty Show BD directs
4/7
4/14 Christa, Katherine direct
Mon 4/21 d/d in 9190 tech and Light Hang
Wed 23 dress d/d
Fri 25 d/d performance (Cara in Rome!)
Sat 26 d/d performance (Cara in Rome!)

A Mythology of a Species: Desolate/Delight

Monday 3/17/8 D/D notes – Damaris

Eliza and Cara absent,
Violaine and videographer from The Contemplative Arts Festival as outside gaze

Evening Format:
6:30 – 7:30 Sitting and Personal awareness practice
7:30 – 7:40 Break/the Gaze
7:40 – 9:30 Three sets of Aunts with a pre-determined director and menu, 20 minutes each, with a seven minute feedback session solicited from audience and performers
Violaine closes Contemplative Arts Festival
9:30 - 10:00 Housekeeping/Discussion

“Awareness is very important. We are here, nowhere else. Since we are here, why not be here?”
- Chogyam Trugpa,

Bobby’s Sun and Moon menu:
Split stage: Damaris reads Moon text lying on her back facing upstage, separate in the space in two halves. A flashlight on the same line illuminates her, SR Tyler is the sun, SL Erika is the moon
Moments we loved:
Flashlights on text
Erika on the back wall going around
Stillness in the beginning
Transition from story to breaking it up
Erika’s feet lit and her consciousness of it
Movement along periphery and repeated, shadows small to big
Sound of rings scraping on floor (as instruments?)
Tyler Butoh cat walking
Drawn to look outside
High in pitch staccato with movement

Tyler Dark with Light and Sound menu
SL 2 solo quads
SR open space
3 on flashlights assigned to keep space lit no other light elements
Moments we loved
People in charge of flashlights – the flashlight filtered through the water
Image of finger and light bulb bubble
Counterpoints
The jumping energy from Miriam
Gibberish trio
It’s helpful to have time support (you have five minutes left..) it gives us the ability to inhabit the endings

BD’s It’s about five… Menu
2 walls lit by clip lights: areas for shadow making
5 people in the space – moving on the exhale
The stone and votive game
One muser with war text prompts
Everyone gets the opportunity to say freeze once
Moments we loved
KK said “help” BD suggested, “leave the space”
Text prompts to stimulate discussion
People passing in and out of world

Tonight people seemed very direct and confident, “here I am, I am doing it for you to see.”
Mythology of a species: Desolate/Delight
We have to want to give and be seen and exchange energy “this is about generosity”


Housekeeping
Mon 3/31 Damaris, Laurie, Eliza direct (KK out)
Thur 4/3 Faculty Show BD directs
4/7
4/14 Christa, Katherine direct
Mon 4/21 d/d in 9190 tech and Light Hang
Wed 23 dress d/d
Fri 25 d/d performance (Cara in Rome!)
Sat 26 d/d performance (Cara in Rome!)

Dissolve the scene and make a fresh start

Monday 3/10/8 D/D notes – Damaris
Laurie and Miriam absent, Cara leaves at 7:45
no outside gaze

DISSOLVE THE SCENE AND MAKE A FRESH START

Evening Format:
6:30 – 6:45 Sitting
6:45 – 7:45 Reflection with talking circle on last Tuesday’s practice day performance
7:45 - 8:00 Silent Break
8:00 – 9:30 Discussion and reflections on the process thus far

“Art makes harmony out of what in life is chaos and discord”
- Isadora Duncan

Moment or Images we loved or stayed with us from Tuesday’s Performance:
Cara & Laurie's duet - nice to see contact.
Barbara's playing on the piano.
People flocking being willing to flock,
Christa playing the piano into space
How Barbara spoke into space
Laurie in the door and light coming in
Katherine and Laurie wired
Startling to hear audience laugh
The look of Barbara doing her intro in the light
It seemed there was a lot of stuff happening in the space
Katherine putting the stones in her mouth
Eric Lacossa music – appreciated having a soundscape
Not a lot of empty space or stillness

Erika felt the experience (and of being in the director’s chair) was a lot like being in an orchestra. The movement felt less potent, but sound seemed hightened.

Cara felt that everything was very dark to her. She also feels a little surprised that she’ll often think “gee this needs more light” and then someone else will blow out the candles. She thinks she may be craving more form in performing.

Erika has a question about form and emptiness., it’s unsatisfying to work in a completely open form, so she has been making little disciplines for herself (as many of us/all of us do) with an intention to tighten it up. As an ongoing process she often feels like she’s going back to square one. In the director’s chair she came up against it. Hop much freedom? What boundaries are necessary?

Christa notes that the space felt so filled all the time – she felt it wasn’t necessary for her to enter. Perhaps the performance energy amped it up for folks? There didn’t seem to be as much listening. She is feeling a little bored with the Light and Dark menu, perhaps this performance was the culmination of a cycle? She would like to bring back elements on a menu to incorporate with this open form. Maybe go back to aunts? She would also like to know what people’s “little gems of specialties” might be, she would like to offer her skills as an improvisational singer, but hasn’t felt that the space needed it yet.

Katherine suggests that there are not actions or activities that are essentially neurotic, but rather intentions behind the action that are so.

Tyler notes that one of the greatest challenges and rewards is keeping the space alive in stillness.

Damaris would like to do some training around text work and bringing back forms or units. She notices a resistance to returning to something and “doing that again”.

Bobby feels that we haven’t really “done” performance, in that he feels we haven’t crafted an event for the audience. He wonders how often we are acting from a space message and how often from our excitement that carries through to impulse? He feels that we know when it “works’ and we also know those false moments where it seems like it’s working, but then, oh , it turns out it wasn’t it. It seems that all the times we’ve felt the magic of it working have been times bathed in spaciousness.

Barbara shares brainstorm ideas that she and Damaris listed in regard to ways to train awareness with text:
Echo
Repetition
Fragmentation
Musing stool
Sound quality: whispered, heard for audience, atmospheric (nonsense words, etc), sound that is not verbal, but is also not song, song


Barbara notes we are in a shaky transition place. Barbara shares her aesthetic: beauty and desolation and (nostalgia?), that space itself is palpable, so thick and dense and so beautiful that the audience is a little nauseous. A vision of the ensemble being more oracular culturally, human systems work, different rythyms and cycles. Showing a bit of the human condition through this aesthetic of a poetic surrealism. The content is so much less important than the intent of how it is delivered. Representing this moment in time of the precious human birth. Not about doing choreography.

Erika notes that if this practice is about performance we need the eye. Clarifying a few more items or units to increase our vocabulary of shared language. Keeping a strong director’s chair.

Erika asks what is the purpose of our performing? What are we trying to offer to an audience?

Barbara notes that it feels very voyeuristic. Is this what a culture of performance looks like? Or maybe it’s open practice that we are inviting others to come and see?


Headline Quotes:
How can I be of service right now?
What does the space need right now VS what do I want to do (my impulse)?
Encourage the nothingness that at times is so daunting
Often the greater risk lies in dropping something or doing nothing
There are no inherently neurotic actions, rather neurotic intentions
Don’t be afraid of silences

Headline Topics:
Our role and contextual presence at Naropa including relationship with audience
Feeling bored with the Light and Dark Menu, a call for the return of Aunts, merged with our winter practice of Light and Dark (and with sound)
A call for text training
Craving of more form in performance
What are we offering through our performance?
Moments that we loved
Barbara shares her aesthetic
Ways to train with text
Barbara summarizes where she feels we are

Headline Decisions:
Next Monday is a “performance” for The Contemplative Arts Festival, so we have decided an order: 20/20/20 sitting, personal awareness practice, flocking
Then we present three 20 minute sets with a director in the chair who brings in a menu (which includes which of our allies – lights, props, music-) will be used, the number of performers, collective images to recall, etc. Bobby, Tyler and Barbara will direct.
We’ll institute a talk back with the audience after each set
If ensemble members have been out, they must witness the first activity/set/Aunt before they participate.

Barbara summarizes where we are:
There is the sense that we want to continue with the track of performance
There is a sense of great confidence in what we’ve accomplished
There is a desire to have someone be the glue holding things together (even if just the director’s chair)
We need some devices to pull things together, but also not to override this community
We desire some way to articulate to an audience our journey and that we are in process – it’s still the idea of an Aunt in that we’re both in process and complete

EXPANDING OUT, HOW CAN THIS BE AN OFFERING?

Monday 2/25/8 D/D notes – Damaris
Cara and Bobby absent
One MFA outside gaze

EXPANDING OUT, HOW CAN THIS BE AN OFFERING?

Evening Format:
6:30 – 7:30 Sitting and Personal awareness practice
7:30 – 7:40 Break/the Gaze
7:40 – 9:30 two sets of Light & Dark of 45 minutes each with a 15-minute silent break
9:30 - 10:00 Housekeeping/Discussion

“Whatever it is, passionate and complete involvement engages the heart and body in one activity. We are contained, not dribbling away our energy or entertaining ourselves in half- hearted frivolity. Practicing these art forms springs from a longing to see things as they are, longing to connect ourselves to the order and harmony of the natural world, and longing to communicate this harmony to others…your perceptions are sensitized and this intensifies the presence of the world. You see more vividly and deeply and from that clarity you can execute your work of art. You empty yourself of the small mind and perform the action so completely that you loose self-consciousness. There is a precise awareness undisturbed by inner chatter. Then you can tap into the larger, mote creative mind in which you do not feel separate from your materials and your art. Everything clicks and your action feels unified and effortless. When you persevere in practicing the forms, then you can actually connect with them so thoroughly that sometimes you feel as if you did nothing – the form of your work just come through you.”
- Sacred World Jeremy & Karen Hayward

Dark with Light Menu Laurie takes the director’s chair
Barbara is using a timer with a meditation or mindfulness alarm (although it’s not here this week!), so that the Aunt can be timed without someone watching the clock. Working with an evolving solo quad form, lights, stones, musing stool, votives.

Laurie will be using the mindfulness bell as a signal to pause.

Reflections on the first 15 minutes of this Aunt:
The lights go out. Barbara enters along the wall to US wall and places three votives on a plate against the US wall. She returns to downstage and takes three more votives on another paper plate and pads to the evolving line of candles upstage. Eliza puts on music from Barbara’s CD collection as five crawl from the cushions to onstage together. Barbara is returning after the third trip with the lit votives, there is now a line of candles against the back wall. She returns to the cushions. The five in all black begin squat-walking, torsos erect, legs in a crouch, both hands on the ground. They stop and agree to move together, then in dust and trios. Variations of the squat walk become manifest. Christa enters upright walking. Tyler turns on the mag-light highlighting certain activities in the space. Everything is moving quickly. Laurie rings the pause bell, the group pauses for maybe five seconds. Eliza asks, “Does the bell mean something? “Pause!” is the group response.

Beautiful spatial and timing agreements are being made, beautiful simultaneous trios, duet and solos that flows in and out of flocking (is this due to the influence of the music?) “Does the bell mean something? “Pause!” Beautiful moments of stillness and again new duets and trios. Barbara turns off the cd. The sound of smooth rocks is heard and a duet’s footsteps falling as the run out of the space and rejoin the cushions. A trio now remains. They are suspended, balanced and backlit by the votives. Tyler’s flashlight now illuminates only Erika’s feet.

The whistles and sound of screeching train brakes from across the road accompanies the sound of the rocks in Eliza’s hands. Katherine remains looking out the back window for the train.

Barbara has entered from the other wall with a clip light and supports the images that Tyler chooses to light. A large shadow of Christa’s hands with the rocks plays on the upstage wall. She abruptly lets the rocks drop to the floor. “Shit”. I feel a little lost right now. Laurie rings the pause bell.
The clip light and flashlight go out.

A horizontal beam of light from the mag cuts through the space. Barbara and Eliza both proceed up opposite walls and plug in clip lamps.

Katherine begins speaking about her experience of remembering that she left a muffin wrapper in her parked car at the long-term parking lot. Others from the cushion begin echoing bits of her text. Eliza asks “what kind of a wrapper?”. The text begins building with side conversations echoing and interweaving with Katherine’s monologue. Katherine exits as Barbara makes her way across the space to Eliza.

Laurie rings the pause bell.

Tyler, Christa and Miriam enter echoing the squat walk from the beginning of the improv. The commitment to the physicality results in some of the most hilarious physical humor I’ve seen in a long time.

Katherine’s monologue returns now standing on the stool upstage with a metronome.

Dark with Light Menu Christa takes the director’s chair
Some images in particular:
Again the flashlight made the first entrance, the flashlight is such a great example of a frame, it’s almost cinemagraphic!
Watching Eliza from the cushions watch and track Erika with the mag-light.
I notice a recurring theme of death, not just from the votives and the darkness, but in text as well.

post AUNT discussions
Regarding the first Aunt with the flowing trios and duets and flocking, and the question as to whether this was influenced by the music from the cd: How would it be to “coach” the performers to keep going even thought the music isn’t there anymore?

What to do when you feel lost?
What are the strategies that individuals use when they become self-conscious in an improv?
Leaving
Repetition
Picking up Influence
Pausing and expanding awareness to include the whole space
Don’t pretend it isn’t working.

Barbara is haunted by trying to cultivate the response at that moment of anxiety that we expand out rather than collapse in. Take in the whole of the space at that moment. This would allow a lot of relaxation. Expanding out – how can this be an offering?

AWARENSS PRACTICE WITH STRATEGIES FOR STAYING CONNECTED TO SPACE.

Katherine notes that she wants permission for it to be “off” or go wrong. Erika suggests that the clumsiness or whatever is “it”. There’s not really any place to escape to or a time out, or a place where the audience doesn’t see. Barbara requests that we focus on the fact that this is offered and not exclusive. It is offered for all, which relates specifically to choices about having your voice heard or shared in a text improv.

Housekeeping
Community Practice Day showing is Tuesday 3/4 from 3:45 to 4:30 at Nalanda. We will meet at 2pm for an abbreviated sit and w-up.
2 -2:30 sit
2:20 – 2:50 personal warm-up
3 to 3:30 Aunt
3:30 -3:45 15-minute break

Evolution of Group Mind

Monday 2/18 D/D notes – Damaris
Eliza absent
One MFA outside gaze
Evolution of Group Mind

Evening Format:
6:30 – 7:30 Sitting and Personal awareness practice
7:30 – 7:40 Break/the Gaze
7:40 – 9:30 two sets of Light & Dark of 45 minutes each with a 15-minute silent break
9:30 - 10:00 Housekeeping/Discussion

Dark with Light Menu Tyler takes the director’s chair
Barbara is using a timer with a meditation or mindfulness alarm, so that the Aunt can be timed without someone watching the clock. Working with an evolving solo quad form, lights, stones, musing stool, votives

Before we start Cara asks if an aesthetic is developing with the lights or a trend. To her it feels perhaps like a shift towards theatrical from dance.

As a culture we then begin to list the moments that seem to be recalled from our mythology:
Zen walks, votives in arches on the wall, prostration and crawling groups, lying Buddah, the corded people against the wall, two people sharing a stool and musing, looking out the darkened window to the parking lot, laughing geese on the back, the musing stool, solo quads, flocking, herding, swarming. We also call upon reinforcement of repetition and stillness.

Tyler requests that the room to settle in the dark before we begin, then someone define the space with the votives. Tyler suggests that if we encounter a time when we don’t know what to do next, return to the menu of stillness, repetition, Let it come down so something else can come up.

Reflections on the first three minutes of this Aunt:

As I sit and wait and listen in the dark with the rest of the ensemble on the cushions, I flash a very clear call into the darkness, a very clear image of how the votives wish to be in space. I wait for three beats and then I enter the space and set up votives demarking the four quads. There is a moment as I walk back into the area of the cushions where I look back to see how my image looks to me from here, to discriminate if it is set up correctly.

The first entrance is the flashlight! The large, unfocused light sweeps along the back wall and ceiling, as the focus of the center is slowly turned into view.

Barbara enters from downstage slowly leaning/dragging along the wall with a clip lamp and long extension cord. Very purposefully, almost rhythmically, she uncoils the roll of extension cord, casting it before her as if she’s casting out a line, into the darkness before her.

In a few moments I join into the Aunt on stage, memories of this experience include the unspoken agreement in the moment of one group freezing when the light went on and another group beginning movement. It feels as if the culture has developed a group awareness for timing and space! I also have a strong impression of an improved dialogue, reflecting in the moment on the moment of acting or not acting on impulse, whisper spoke with Katherine as we looked out the back window.

Dark with Light Menu Miriam takes the director’s chair
Some images in particular:
The tick/tock of the slow metronome influencing a tick/tock vocabulary of movement, first with Tyler and Erika, then joined by Bobby.

In general many cool problem solving techniques. I kept watning to see images at the outside of the door, but was afraid if I went out of the room , by the time I got to the outside door, the image in the room would have changed.

Miriam from the director’s chair asks Tyler to tell us about his brother. Also my improved text spoken by me with Christa Ray as echo or underscore or chorus (somewhat ala Gertrude Stein) about my perceptions about what can be seen at the reservoir.

post AUNT discussion
Our group mind is evolving! Both Tyler and Miriam from the perspective of the director’s chair note they would imagine something in the space and before they could call it, it would be done. We note that having someone sit in the director’s chair, whether they say one thing or not, helps to hold the space so that the energy doesn’t leak out.

Housekeeping
Community Practice Day showing is Tuesday 3/4 from 3:45 to 4:30 at Nalanda. We will meet at 2pm for an abbreviated sit and w-up.

Dark and with Light (and Sound)

Monday 2/11 D/D notes – Damaris
Ensemble present
No outside gaze
Dark and with Light (and Sound)

Evening Format:
6:30 – 7:30 Sitting and Personal awareness practice
7:30 – 7:40 Break/the Gaze
7:40 – 9:30 two sets of Light & Dark of 45 minutes each with a 15-minute silent break
9:30 - 10:00 Housekeeping/Discussion

Light & Dark Menu
Barbara is using a timer with a meditation or mindfulness alarm, so that the Aunt can be timed without someone watching the clock. Working with an evolving solo quad form, lights, stones, musing stool, votives .Eric Lacossa’s Dessert Soundscape

It’s a very different experience writing in the dark. Frankly I’m not so sure about how to document this process now. I feel my gaze is very subjective, what I’ll record are not facts or quotes. Do I trust that the group mind has developed enough that what I perceive is what is necessary to record? For what reason do I record this? Are we so in the now that my observations are superfluous? Are the moments and images that arrest/stimulate/relax me moments that point to something deeper, actually pointing to synchronicities or set ups that occurred seconds or hours or days earlier? How do I record that process?

I’m so exhausted I’m not sure I can trust what I’m thinking or feeling. We start in the darkness. I am sitting on a cushion, like the rest of the ensemble. Barbara is in the director’s chair. Barbara enters with the smooth little rocks in the straw basket, kneeling. Bobby sets the candles up in a repeat of the cross formation from last week, delineating the four quads of our playing space. After a little Laurie whispers to me to pass her the flashlight. Tyler comes to the CD player and turns it off. How bold! Cara enters from the audience as Laurie begins slowly rolling the large mag flashlight in a semi circle on the floor. Erika, Eliza and Katherine join Cara in the slow crawl from their seats on the cushions in the audience. I am aware that the green tea is especially hot and delicious and restorative. The four crawlers have reached the back of the space and two of them begin crawling up the wall. Synchronicity is strong in group agreement to hold images.
Laurie investigates walking along the wall with the flashlight the arching the flashlight again in half circles on the floor. Each sound is part of the choreography. The darkness of the room intensifies our awareness of sound. Although I cannot see her do it from the angle I am resting at I hear Cara roll the small rocks onto the floor. A satisfying sound. A recognizable sound. How many sounds do I know in the this studio? What is a surprise in the dark? What sounds are a part of our culture? I feel calm and bathed sitting in the dark, I notice the red light glowing from the silent boom box and I feel relieved that my back hurts a little less with the rolled up cushion in the small of my back.

Barbara goes back to sit in the director’s chair, Erika crawls to downstage and off into the cushions. Meanwhile the cross formation of the votives is being dismantled.

What are the rules again?

Barbara asks that we “Continue to emphasize repetition”. Repetition from my personal vocabulary? Influence from another in the moment? Recycled images and moments from an earlier Aunt? On another night?

We have no outside gaze in our audience tonight. We are the only witnesses, the only interpreters of our offering tonight. It is so dark in the studio that I can hear a rock making a long rolling journey but I can’t see where it is, but know it’s trajectory none the less.

Barbara calls “Pause. For as long as you want.” Me? Should I pause in my gaze? Return my attention to my breath? Am I at this moment the gaze or the performer or the recorder or all simultaneously. How the audience perceives what you are doing affects what you are doing. Christa clears her throat. I can’t see that it’s Christa, but rather I recognize her sound, even though she does not speak. Booby hums from the audience. Laurie sweeps the flashlight and for a moment it illuminates this page I am writing. I see the black ink against the white paper and the shadow made from my pen.

Barbara asks “Christa, tell us a dream”.
Christa tells us about her dream about the Maharishi who had just died.
Barbara asks Christa to stay where she is as she is telling the story and asks Eliza to plug a clip lamp into the long extension cord.
It goes dark again and I become aware of Miriam dancing by a group of votive candles.

post AUNT discussion
The rolling flashlight traveling from face to face, the long extension cord connecting the floor and against the wall with different shapes and repetition of the crawling group. The warning sound of Katherine’s “cho-cho-cho. dangerous is happening, especially with the votive candles. The group has a discussion of awareness of space. Barbara suggests that increased stimulation with repetition maybe develops into a wanting to be more stimulated and even more risks happen. There is a pleasure in danger. As a culture how can we be experimental and willing with danger? The excitement narrows the band of awareness, how do we return to being wholesome and relaxed?

Barbara notes that the director’s chair is still somewhat un-evolved, she suggests also bringing in the mindfulness bell to be aware. Erika agrees that there are opportunities that may be lost, a certain leaking or dribbling of energy.

Being a servant to the space, not just my own kinesthesia. A hightened commintment, and just doing what needs to be done. But this hightened energy will transmit to the audience.


Housekeeping
Community Practice Day showing is Tuesday 3/4 from 3:45 to 4:30 at Nalanda. Christa and Katherine have agreed to produce. Next Monday we will review what they need to provide or prepare, what does producing this mean?

Let's Surrender and Go Deeper

Monday 2/4 D/D notes – Damaris
Cara and Erika absent
No outside gaze
LETS SURRENDER AND GO DEEPER

Evening Format:
6:30 – 7:30 Sitting and Personal awareness practice
7:30 – 7:40 Break/the Gaze
7:40 – 9:30 two sets of Light & Dark of 45 minutes each with a 15-minute silent break
9:30 - 10:00 Housekeeping/Discussion

Light & Dark Menu
Barbara is using a timer with a meditation or mindfulness alarm, so that the Aunt can be timed without someone watching the clock. Working with an evolving solo quad form, lights, stones, musing stool, votives.

How to write about this 45 minute Aunt? When the lights go out the first thing I notice is the beautiful reflection of the lights on the snow from the parking lot through the studio windows. The solo quad space is demarcated with votive candles. This is the first act in the Aunt. I notice the sound of the smooth stones in Cara’s hand and the sound of Christa eating an apple. I yearn to hear text in the space about the process but am to shy to do so myself. As myself, how does the gaze participate as a laboratotian?
EL & KK enter into gorgeous conversation about what’s happening. It seems that the text is most vibrant when talking about in the moment perceptions while keeping track of themes. I feel there was a big shift in the culture that I missed last week, but that I still understand.

post AUNT discussion
BD As we evolve it’s interesting to note the difference between “am I anxious because they’re watching, so its time for me to leave now, or (the space is telling me it’s) time to leave now.

The husks fall away
We’re committed, so were here
Let’s surrender
And go deeper

Housekeeping
No notes

Five Eye Practices

Five Eye Practices

Closed Eyes:
internal seeing; rest; refresh

Peripheral Seeing:
soft focus; seeing from the corner of the eyes

Infant Eyes:
seeing before naming

Looking Between Things:
the space "between"; negative space

Direct Looking:
investigate; study; absorb

The Long Wave Solo Quad

Monday 1/21 D/D notes – Damaris
MLK Day
Miriam, Bobby and Eliza absent
No outside gaze

The Long Wave Solo Quad

Evening Format:
6:30 – 7:30 Sitting and Personal awareness practice
7:30 – 9:00 AUNTS making
9:00 - 10:00 Housekeeping/Discussion

Solo Quad with Lights, Candles and Rocks
The evening’s Aunts making was devoted to a long wave (45 minute) solo quad. Introduced into the prop list were five clip lamps and a box of votive candles (also specifically set out by BD were the rocks). No specific menu was given, yet it seemed that all evolutions happened organically. Especially lovely were periods of time with no one in the space. Initially the Quad was started with the usual Soundscore but was eventually turned off.

Lighting seemed to highten the atmosphere and set up some expectations – things were more theatrical. Light was seen as framing and character, but most often as object or performer. EB noted that lights were the dominant theme of the Aunt.

DW wonders, in the “director-less” situation of the quads, what are the signals in our culture that it’s time to stop boycotting influence and allow for over all design choices and duets?
BD requests that next week we return to this solo Quad Aunt with maybe at points someone else being in the director’s chair. CR had stimulus to create some new Aunts using some of this material. Or, what are the components today that we’re going to bring forward, not recreate the Aunt in it’s entirety. Are there little structures that could be dropped in to squeeze it? “Call Backs” from moments of old Aunts (or units that we could all recognize just as we recognize what the request to flock is, could we recognize named sections or units of Aunts for later retrieval? What has made it into our mythology?).

Talk of feedback and critique/ post AUNT discussion
We did not formally offer any feedback or critique on the solo quad, not have we been regularly giving feedback. Some voices noted that there is a desire for that, personally and on an overall compositional view level:
CR talks about the edge of staying slow and developing the culture. For the enjoyment of doing it? Or to compose something for an audience?
BD reminds that according to the manifesto the Aunt is temporally finished, BUT it may excite us to do something more.
EB wonders what would the criteria be for giving critique? To what end are we giving feedback?
KK declared that she needed feedback from time to time. TR suggests that “one” could ask the group specific questions on what “you” need feedback on.

Housekeeping
* Sunday 1/27 is a dinner at Barbara’s from 6-8pm
* The little jobs list needs to be revisited for the semester
* We agreed to expand the invitation of the Gaze to include the arts faculty in the building and all alumni as well as personal friends. Personal friends would reserve a sign up through their dd member, alumni would email Bobby.

Heaven Earth and Man

Preparation for Creative Work
HEAVEN, EARTH, AND MAN from CTR’s Dharma Art book

HEAVEN
‘Before we produce anything at all....’ we need space. Space which
accommodates all...lots of room, freedom, and wakefulness.

EARTH
1. Absence of neurotic mind
2. Thorough relaxation and wholesomeness
3. Absence of laziness

MAN
1. Freedom from subconscious gossip
` 2. Absence of regret

FOURTH PRINCIPLE
Body an mind work together harmoniously. Mind is open and peaceful
and body is without speed and agression.