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.
