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