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Maree ReMalia’s site for musings on creative process, choreography, and performance.

Kickstarter! Going Gaga: Connecting Through a Passion to Move

Thank you to everyone who supported my Kickstarter project by posting the link or contributing to the page!  I am so grateful for all of your help and I am so happy to be able to continue this adventure and follow through with my video project!  Stay tuned for updates!!
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1389565022/going-gaga-connecting-through-a-passion-to-move

Listening…the beginning of a new adventure

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A few images from Yom Kippur, Yafo and my walk along the Mediterranean Sea to the studios at Suzanne Dellal on a welcome rainy day.

I hear something that sounds like a leaf blower.  Other than that, it is relatively quiet.  Birds, breeze, barking.  Shabbot.  A day of rest that I more easily manage in Israel because there are no classes to take and shops and restaurants are more likely to be closed.  Also, the thrilling wear and tear of a week in a bustling city forces me to actually rest.  Rather than the convenience of my car, which I suspect would not be so convenient here in Tel Aviv, my mode of transit consists of my own two feet or my own two feet meeting the  slightly unsteady pedals on my highly prized, used, aluminum jalopee.  By foot my thoughts wander more freely.  By bike my awareness is heightened; it is ultra sensitive,  like in a game of dodgeball.  While there are designated bike lanes on the beautiful boulevards and along the boardwalk that lines the beach these lanes also tend to be shared with strolling pedestrians.  Riding becomes a game of dodging and darting or haulting and yielding.  I am learning to slip through narrow, fleshy passage ways.  Or I swerve around tree trunks and stumbling toddlers.  In the market I consciously attend to allowing the barrage of people, sounds and smells to stun my senses and then pass through me, the way we practiced being a sieve or a mesananet in Gaga class.  Doing this makes me feel more like a filter and less of a container–permeable boundaries–or maybe  there are no boundaries and I am just permeable.

I am in my sixth week of the inaugural Gaga teacher training program in Tel Aviv, Israel.
http://gagapeople.com/english/homepage-news/gaga-teacher-training-program/

I have also begun the Ilan Lev training course.  A type of bodywork that originated here in Israel.
http://ilanlev.org/home/index/2?id_lang=2   

Time passes quickly. It feels more difficult to measure the passage of time because although the weather is slightly chilly in the afternoon and evenings it remains generally sunny, breezy and beachy.  No turning of leaves or threats of snow.  Occasional rain clouds and sprinkles.

In one of our classes with Ohad Fishof we discussed the elements of music and the dynamic range found within a single note.  I really enjoyed the idea of the triad relationship between the source of sound, the listener and the environment; they are relational and exist independently.  We played with finding a groove in a song while moving, then maintaining that groove in our bodies while moving to a new song with a different rhythm.  When we were invited to release our voices in varying timbres of “ahhhhhhh” I was reminded of the vulnerability and power I sense in releasing the voice with a group of people; it was as if our more commonly known selves evaporated into our sounds that permeated through space from the vibrations escaping our bodies.

Contradictory tasks abound in my experience of Gaga.  Dropping my shoulder blades while lifting my rib cage, grabbing my flesh around my bones while releasing into my flesh in order to grow wider and more expansive, pulling my tailbone forward while feeling the curve of the front of my spine arching backwards.  These are movement puzzles or sensory tongue twisters without concrete answers.  The answers exist in the seeking and discovering or what the teachers refer to as “research.”  The more time I spend in practice the more I discover about new possibilities in movement.  With these discoveries, I find that I have so much more to learn about how much more I can do with my body or how I can further physically embody the sensory tasks we are given.  If I ever thought I was making tiny collapses in my rib cage, I was not.  If I thought that I melted the flesh in my chest while floating, I did not.  Or not enough. We are instructed to imitate the teachers.  In repertory we were told to “Be Yaniv” in reference to producing the movement qualities and forms that exist in the choreography.  We are invited to use the most basic way to learn, to copy.  I appreciated that Yaniv described this kind of imitation as a form of intelligence.  I celebrate any occasion to honor sensory/ bodily/physical/intuitive intelligence.  It is like finding oneself backwards.  Try on something else and eventually more of oneself emerges through the form.  In Gaga classes I am always taking inspiration from the instructor or other students in the class.  I can see the total body integration of the verbal prompts in the physical expressions of our teachers.  Often, it is more direct if I try to embody or “copy” what they are doing.  Since we are now looking through the lens of how to teach Gaga, I am noticing individual teaching styles through the use of volume and tone of voice and the class’s progression.  I take note of how I take a class or how I feel inside of each teachers class.  In Doron’s class my feet feel very juicy, which gradually spreads to the rest of my body, in Aya’s class I ride on her enthusiasm and find nuance while attending to many tasks at once, by the end of Idan’s class my flesh feels like it has been rung out like a towel, in Ohad Naharin’s class I try not to let myself be overwhelmed by intimidation and I feel the expansiveness of my body while I simultaneously listen to internal messages and external information and so on and so forth with many other teachers.  Most classes start rather quietly.  Listening. Finding gentle movement in the body or scanning the body, spreading the soles of the feet on the floor, listening for information from the floor and letting that information travel throughout the body.  Always, we are floating.  It is the default mode.  We are always reminded not to become introverted while we are moving.  I like the practice of seeing how my peers respond to information and “trying on” alternate ways of moving or watching how people listen to the body.  Since we are twenty-seven from Israel, Europe, Mexico, South America, Russia, Japan, South Korea and the States, there is quite a variety in background and experience. I love the possibility of knowing one another through this new language.  In a toolbox session with Ohad Naharin we watched each other in groups.  We played with varying levels of focus: tuning in to one person while keeping the entire group in frame, fuzzily; seeing the entire group impressionistically; noticing the physical “noise” level of the group.  He urged us to see “out of focus” so that we could see more things at once.  Focusing too much on one detail made it too easy to lose sight of the rest of the group or event or situation.  I think this idea is true as a teacher of Gaga, choreographer, performer and in the everyday.  It is a good question to continue to ask myself and to be able to practice in this setting–how to zoom in and not lose sight of the big picture–a nice reminder of a well-known idea.  It is refreshing to have no syllabus, no textbook, no articles or essays.  It is more of an oral/physical transmission of information that so effectively honors the bodily intelligence that Yaniv mentioned.  Everything is in the moment.  In most of our classes teachers ask us “Why hold back?”  Bosmot says, “Why not bigger?”  Or “What are we saving anything for?”  Schedules and class content shifts on an as needed basis.  If a roadblock arises, we move on to something or somewhere else.

In the Ilan Lev training, the founder talks about being lazy or avoiding effort, finding pulses or drawing energy from the ground.  He insists that we/our bodies know the information he is helping us to realize the same way that a bird knows how to fly.  In part, he says it is a matter of listening.  I also think it is a matter of trusting oneself.  There are few things that are more difficult for me than to give into effortlessness and sometimes the trust this requires.  My upbringing and education has been primarily centered around working hard or making things happen, rigorous perserverence and ‘healthy’ skepticism.  In both Gaga and Ilan Lev I am practicing decision-making and allowing things to happen.  Spaces that value this kind of practice are rare. Being in a foreign country and navigating its more familiar, yet still unfamiliar codes also requires me to use this balance of listening, allowing and deciding.

Then, I can be inspired by the work of emerging choreographers.
http://www.danceinisrael.com/2011/10/curtain-up-2011-a-festival-of-dance-premieres/
In this series, Curtain Up, I saw several works that made me wonder “how did they do that?”  In most of the pieces I read a ‘Gagic’ influence in the way the performers moved through many qualities that made their bodies appear like they were moving through thick substances or that they were melting into the floor or piercing space with their bones.  They had a liquid or gumby boniness when flexing or giving into the joints; it was like the front of their ankles could touch the top of their feet.  They were very “efficient” (a term our instructors use all the time) when transitioning from one thing to another–there was no ambiguity or extra anything.  Seamless, yet specific, with “changing stories” (another term we are asked to practice) or shifting between seemingly contradictory states, qualities, levels.  I always enjoy seeing the way someone I know appears in the movement vocabulary or choreographic elements in his/her work.  Our instructor Doron set a duet titled Valentia.  When the curtain revealed a lone woman facing the audience, pink flowers on her form-fitted flesh-colored costume, hair swept slickly back, through her posturing, I thought she was Doron, but she was very clearly not Doron.  She stood still for the duration of nearly an entire song and suddenly collapsed her torso and pelvis to the ground between her feet.  I thought how much that would hurt if I attempted the same movement.  I am pretty sure I would break my knees or pull several muscles and tendons.  It was so precise and had the energy of heavy fall, like a television falling from a balcony or a torpedo aiming straight down, but was cushioned by the elastic quality in her hips, knees and ankles and the reverberation in her torso, neck and head when she landed.  And she did not flinch or lose her penetrating gaze toward the audience.  Eventually, she was joined by a similarly dressed counterpart, like mirror twins.  Immediately I noticed how their feet seemed to collect information from the floor the way that I perceive Doron’s to do.  There was a gummy quality in the movement and a silky force that came through the fists punching down toward the floor, like pushing through wet cement.  The trio, Speaker, created a Barbarellan, futuristic, Star Trekkish, unnameable world.  I felt transported to another planet or realm.  Much like the other work I have seen by Noa, the movement was sharp, exact and unwavering.  There is something about the way that she asserts movement in space or arranges performers in the space in conjunction with Ohad’s otherworldly electronic scores that makes me feel fleshy, highly attuned creatures in a particular environment.  The movement is constantly shifting qualities and levels.  In the unfolding events, I experience the freedom of whimsy and the intention of something that could not happen any other way.  There was a series of unexpected stop and go, animal sounds and sighs and idiosyncratic postures and jumps that resembled something between creature-human-being.  It looked like they were landing on dimes, effortlessly.  Finding movement from no where, jumping without preparation.  It was like hanging on a person’s every word, but hanging on their every movement.  In Osnat Kelner’s piece The sad little, unappreciative, Pisces Jesus man I felt I was at the best rock concert of my life.  I wanted to stand up and thrash.  It was such a satisfying integration of live music and dance.  The members of the band were the dancers and the dancers were the band.  Our teacher Idan performed as a drummer/dancer.  He said he learned to drum specifically for this work.  At the beginning, three performers were huddled together at the front of the stage in dim hues and a lone man stood at the keyboard upstage left in a pool of light.  Gradually, guitar, bass, mics and a drumset were introduced to match the rock-n-roll/headbanger costumery sporting net  tops, plaid kilts, armless t-shirts, feathered jackets and jeans and black leather lace up boots.  Four men were running, diving, lifting, catching, throwing and singing, strumming and drumming.  It was an endless space of rearranging.  Nothing stood still.  The air felt smoky.  I can remember very few isolated details, only that I was completely invested or a part of their explosive world.  The text at the closing was touching “it is better to burn out than to fade away…” and throughout the piece there was a looming tenderness between the performers.  Their bond seemed evident.  In a very different way, Six Years Later by Roy Assaf captivated me.  A tango-esque, possibly Contact Improvisation-inspired, ninja-ish duet continuously delighted me.  Similarly, I felt their connection was visible.  Catching and sensing and legs twining and untwining while they maneuvered with each other through space.  It was tenderly sensory; nearly romantic. Maybe it was a matter of how they listened to each other and paid attention to the space between and around them.  For all of these pieces I wished I could have been a fly on the wall throughout the process.

Gaga comes to NY!

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/14/arts/dance/gaga-the-exercise-and-dance-comes-to-new-york.html?scp=1&sq=gaga&st=cse

check out the first live iteration of merrygogo!

http://www.merrygogo.com/

Ann Hamilton

In my most recent meeting with Bebe regarding my MFA Project, she suggested that I look at a work by Ann Hamilton that took place in a library.  I was unable to find that particular link, but stumbled upon this one and found Hamilton’s words very inspiring.  I found her descriptions and explanations very human or humanizing and I could relate to the way she brought in her personal history and the way that she is taking in the world. Convergences and borders, technologies, moments between, how we pay attention, things that are seemingly simple, calling into question, taste and touch, perceptions….these are interests and questions I like to explore through dance.  Since I have been pursuing my MFA, I have wanted to take a seminar course with her in the Department of Art, which she co-teaches with Michael Mercil, but unfortunately, I have not and will not have the opportunity before I graduate in June.  This talk seems like some consolation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vfgr6KPCTgc&NR=1

Another interesting clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usy48VQPiDs&feature=related

Bebe Miller Company Archival Residency

Many of the questions and discussions that surfaced over the weekend regarding the past ten years of Bebe Miller Company’s work are questions that I am currently asking myself in my own examinations of creative process, choreography, performance, visibility, public engagement, and the significance of this sometimes elusive art form.  As a fly on the wall in this experience, I feel I am witnessing a group of collaborators that have shared a rich and deep history of individual and collective philosophical inquiry in an attempt to discover meaning through the body via movement and text and careful observation in experimentation and exploration.  Trying to find patterns within the creative process and performance pieces in four selected choreographic works over the span of ten years could reveal a quality of persistence or creative obsession, but with the understanding that the participating individuals, groups, situations are continuously evolving over time.  It makes me long for continuity and longevity when working creatively.  So much of dance is project-based, with revolving cast members leaving little room for enduring relationships.  When discussing her initial company experience in the early rehearsals of Verge, Angie said that her focus was primarily driven toward learning material or navigating Bebe’s rehearsal mode, which is a very different attention than ten years of knowing and experiencing will offer.  What can comfortability and closeness bring to relationship and how does one continue to ask questions or seek more after the formative phases of It was obvious to me that these people are something close to a family, but with a somewhat uniting interest.  I appreciated the process of expanding, narrowing, and negotiating through discussions regarding intent and vision for this project.  in which Bebe and her company members/collaborators communicated and conducted investigations during is likely very different than the way that  While the conversations were centered around the company members shared interest of BMC, there was also a sense of a specific and deep knowing of one another through this ‘third thing.’

Video Art Project Work in Progress: The Tenacious Ten

Here you will find excerpts of a video art project I began in Dan Shellenbarger’s Video Art course during Autumn Quarter 2010.  It is a work in progress that I intend to complete and show in Spring 2010.  My intention is to showcase the dynamic range I experience in my colleagues here at OSU.
Working title:  The Tenacious Ten, Everyday Superheroes
Comments and suggestions welcome.

Reflection from Current Issues Seminar Discussion Thread

The theme of my life these days seems to revolve around contemplating creative process.  Either through my own facilitation of creative process, being within creative process (my own, collaboratively, and others), and trying to articulate the value of this process of events.  This attempting to articulate came up during the Interdisciplinary Connections class on Tuesday, as we discussed our desire to respond to being marginalized and creatively stunted by the laws related to liability that govern our university.  The mission and intention of the course was to provide students from various disciplines an unrestricted space in which to co-create.  It was understood that the old library would function as this space, because it is going to be completely renovated, suddenly, it has become a halfway house for the Wexner Center and other colleges on campus and when the administrators walked through with their clipboards they deemed the co-creative efforts that had come to life in the space as “not art.”  This comment initiated discussion about the misunderstood nature of process and its value.  It reminded me of the conversation I had with Emily, who is a design student, and her wish in collaborating with the Historiography Project was to expose the other 90 percent of the iceberg that lived beneath the final choreographic work.  To me, I think of course it makes sense to explain what we are doing, why we are doing it, sharing the inherent values that reside in the evolutionary process.  However, to me, it becomes something very different when we have to be on the defensive.  Or reactionary.  Somehow, it disallows me to just be and do.  I would be happy to sit down and share this information with someone who is interested, but when I feel I have to defend what I am doing it becomes something, because it implies what I am doing is not valuable.  It is a question of tone.  It makes me think that as a culture we are still cultivating curiosity, I see this in myself at times; despite the fact that “embracing diversity” and cultivating an attitude of acceptance is everywhere in our language and I know this in my mind, I still struggle to be this.   Last summer, Ohad Naharin spoke daily of generosity, not in the sense of giving material items, but rather with ourselves, putting ourselves at risk with the unknown the way that Lily mentioned in her post.  Last week while we were sharing our processes, I felt that the space that was provided allowed me to be generous with myself (albeit quickly and not so concisely) and I sensed that the class was being generous in their listening.  I am noting the difference in my response in being asked to share my process with a group, simply what it is and what I did and then feeling the need to defend why we are co-creating in the library, which led to our feeling we should write a manifesto.  At first, I felt this sense of apathy, I recognize this as a defense mechanism to helplessness from my youth.  Often, it is preceded the fuel of anger.  In “Documented/Undocumented, I was struck by the uniting and identifying or creating identity through displacement.  We discussed displacement related to our feeling the need to vacate the library and find alternative work space for I.C.  I gain a sense of empowerment reading Gomez-Pena’s words, as well as a continuous fight.  His comments related to his generational emotion as being one of “loss”resonated with me; I feel the tension of being between identifiable identities.  I think there is great potential there, but again; it often requires a similar defense or explanation to avoid presumption or assumption.  Maybe this is the plight of the post-post state that we are in–struggling to articulate our idiosynchrosies.  ”recontextualize.”  In Ben Cameron’s keynote speech, “The Arts as Family Photographs,” I appreciated his display of biases (even though I was a little surprised by his concluding remarks).  I think that he was attempting to contextualize himself.  I question how to define an artist.  His calling to question non-profit models reminded me of our discussions in Professional Development.  Seeking a new model, made me think of Todd’s idea.  I am interested in new models, I feel like I am stumbling around in the dark with my own within my rehearsal/lab process, but am also interested in this conversation on the scale that Cameron is discussing in how to engage with technology culture and yet still finding the value in the process of standing in line to buy your tickets and actually committing to see a live performance.  Events like 60×60 and Ten Tiny Dances seem to be nice blips of art for people to attend and while they are fun events, for myself, I feel a loss of depth and investment.  It makes me think Mara and I need to get going on creating our “center.” I think it was also this article where he mentioned people not having time–this deeply resonated with me.  It made me want to reexamine how much time I spend doing what.  ”a conceptual emergency”- a time in which knowledge, which we once believed would set us free, now leaves us more confused…”  Yes.  Familiar.  Bell Hooks is talking about what I want to be my education and the attitude I carry if I am facilitating.  I was really struck by her questioning the need to create “safe” spaces, not being rattled if everything is not “ok” in every moment.  Who’s voices are in the room.  I think it is a challenge to create spaces where most students will feel compelled to take responsibility to contribute, especially their voices.

Within a Formal Circumstance

Within a Formal Circumstance
Video:  Saturday Evening Performance
Winter Concert 2010
The Ohio State University

Choreography:
Maree ReMalia in collaboration with the performers

Performers:
Amanda Byars
Alexis Del-Sol
Daniel Holt
Rachael Riggs Leyva
Fiona Lundie
Eric Nordstrom
Rashana Smith
Arianna Williams
Abigail Zbikowski

Costumes provided by OSU costume shop

Costume alterations
Mary McMullen
Betsy Miller
Michael J. Morris
Maree ReMalia

Lighting:
Jessica Boone

Text:
Mel Nichols

Videography:
Lindsey Caddle LaPointe

VIDEO:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvV7bvkbB3Q

Bebe Miller Dance Company: Archival Project

Over the weekend, I was fortunate to become part of a team for an archival project that will assist in the development of a technological means to share the evolution of creative process within the Bebe Miller Dance Company.  The intention of the project is to find a way to make visible the specific ways in which the company moves through creative process and transitions into performative choreographic work.  Angie Hauser and Darrell Jones traveled to Columbus this weekend to begin the process of recalling, remembering, and revisiting Bebe Miller’s method of investigation and composition through the company’s work, Going to the Wall, Verge, and Necessary Beauty.

When I was first told that I would be an assistant in this process, I was both elated and petrified.  Elated to have the opportunity to work alongside an admired mentor and petrified that somehow I would fail to be what I needed to be in my role.  I expressed this concern to Bebe on Saturday and she offered a brief description of how she currently viewed my position and also stated that the role may not be completely defined at this point and as we moved through the process, roles and needs of the project would reveal what would be necessary in our roles.

As a cast member in her new work repertory this winter, I find this open endedness or doorway left open to the unknown implicit in our rehearsals; in our development of movement material, improvisational explorations, and consideration of themes and concepts in discussions.  For me, there is something about this doorway between what we do know in phrase material or improvisational structure, sequencing and what we are constantly considering or reconsidering within the material or that which is unknown, maybe not to ever truly be known, that keeps the movement, the work, and thought process alive in a particular way that is unique from many other rehearsal processes in which I have participated.  Similarly, Darrell referred to the “question mark” through which he was tracking the experience of the interaction in a dance and that the familiar lived somewhere within, around, or between the unknown.  These thoughts reminded me of the study indicating the mind’s contradicting pull to constantly hold onto the familiar while seeking new information.

While observing the “rehearsal” with Meghan Durham-Wall and Karl Rogers (with whom Bebe is currently creating a duet) and Angie and Darrell, initially, my attention was drawn toward the familiar dancer culture casualness that resides in the time preceding the formal start of rehearsal.  Warming up, joking, talking, internal assessments, taking in the space, acquainting with the others in the room.  I also feel that this preceding time within the umbrella of Bebe’s rehearsal has a particular quality.  In my experience, in composition class and rep, I feel there is an openness or allowance that is slightly more ambiguous (without value judgement) surrounding and inside of her rehearsals.  There is room for play and discussion and movement exploration that does not exist in a linear fashion.  I find layers of jumping off points and moments of interruption or as Colleen Leonardi rephrased, “subversions.”  I think this relates to the open doorway or question mark that lacks the a+b=c equation, participants are informally invited to be alert, present, and participatory in a way that may not always align with a more passive, show me what to do mentality.  There is an intricate interplay between allowing things to happen and pushing things to happen.

It was fascinating to listen to Bebe, Angie, and Darrell discuss the early developmental stages of Going to the Wall and Verge. The material that they were working with focused on race, gender, and ultimately identity.  They were talking about doing improvisational scores for hours and hours over the course of days.  I sense that somehow there was a different experience of time and direction in energy and focus than we have experienced in a two hour rep rehearsal that meets sandwiched in between other classes, teaching, etc., which also became a topic of discussion, dance in the institution vs. professional dance (again, without value judgment).  It sounded as though the company cast was able to take the explorations to extremes with the issues at hand.  I imagined the allowance and space as part of this process, which brought up for me what is central in the dance experience–space.  Space to play, focus, and have time to invest or investigate issues as complex and taboo as race, gender, and identity.  Angie said so well what I feel in regard to this ability of dance and perhaps what is embedded in Bebe’s creative process: in these kinds of explorations within this unique context, we are able to come closer to understanding the gaps that can never be closed or completely understood between one another, but through the space, time and direction provided, we can initiate an intimate step towards each other.

Watching Angie and Darrell try to recall their duets from Verge and Necessary Beauty was so tender and revealing in how the body-mind can remember information (from 2001).  Angie’s easeful, liquid lightness and Darrell’s full bodied listening, as though he can hear through his muscles.  After dancing, Darrell commented on the fact that he was not recalling steps or phrases, but rather a state of mind or state of being.  Through that state, he found traces of the duet.  Much like traditional social dance roles, Angie stated that in trying to remember the Verge duet, which was more distant in her memory, she found herself in a place of listening to Darrell, not necessarily passive, but in the not knowing, having to be active in a different way than she was accustomed.  She explained that she likes to “do” things, maybe make things happen and in this attempt to recall she was not able to go into a default mode of moving.  While they were dancing, Bebe, Colleen, and Annie, and I were observing from the audience in Sullivant Theater, meanwhile a video of the performance was playing simultaneously on the computer; we were also recording our activity via video camera, and I think an iPhone was lying around somewhere recording sound.  What was so satisfying and stunning was seeing the video and the live dance sync up for brief moments.  In Verge, the video of the duet was so emotionally evocative, it brought on all kinds of associations of racy, steamy, slow, hot, tension filled moments.  I found myself having memories of moments in the past, getting together with an ex-lover after a break up and somehow what once was in a relationship is no longer present, but the memory of a familiar physicality or emotionality is so strong that all boundaries become ambiguous, the forbiddeness of that kind of return, but also, the undeniablity of it.  I could sense the quality in the video in the physicality of the quality of the state of being and relationship Darrell and Angie were exhibiting live, nine years later.

Our conversations would bounce and build so organically.  We discussed the presence of the 90′s dancing body and all the influences from that time period that came through in the choreography, performance, and process.  There was an internal listening and specific use of breath that they attributed to the specific training methods and general values of the times.  When compared to present day focus, things feel much more urgent to me, have a different sense of assertion or aggression.  It made me think of Gaga and it’s intention to address the inner as well as the outer and that both need to be acknowledged simultaneously, which seems congruent with our modern day technological, media driven, multi-tasking, global lifestyles.  We discussed how after 9/11 everything changed.  Angie began questioning the value of the ways in which she was dancing, training, etc.  Present day, I sense a need to be hyper alert and hypersensitive, but also with the desire to sometimes shut down, because incessant stimulation can feel so overly stimulating.  Back to Gaga, which is this physical practice or what Ohad Naharin refers to as a discovery, which is all about igniting your senses, finding ways for yourself to meet the frenzied state of the world with an open and alert body-mind.  I find this approach to seeing and being in Bebe’s rehearsal process, course focus, and often just being in her presence.  I sensed it over the weekend spending time with the project team.  There is a call to “bring oneself to the table” or situation or conversation.  There is an invitation to become active and assertive.  Already, in this process, I feel myself actually wanting to share my thoughts or to simply put them out there.  I am trying to pinpoint where the hesitation or reticence comes from when I am in class settings and how this environment or situation is distinct.

Carl Jung quote from Michael:
“The serious problems in life are never fully solved. If ever they should appear to be so it is a sure sign that something has been lost. The meaning and purpose of a problem seem to lie not in its solution but in our working at it incessantly.”