subbing for Amy O on the 20th of Feb -  will get into texture, vibration...at Velocity 9:30 to 11 am 2 more classes left at Velocity in the IMP Series...  I teach the next 2 wednesdays 4:30 to 6pm will get into performance work please come down!

fear of creativity... so deep in core. where does this come from? is this mine? subcx crappola my dances have been for me both a means of soul retrieval and embodied myth. the dance is the event horizon of myself and the Mystery The Mystery is the event horizon where you and I meet the dance is where my spirit meets yours

for the last hour or hour I have been really thinking about and feeling grateful for this project and all involved. I am thankful to Peggy for bringing us here.  I am thankful for what Peggy and Gaelen bring to the world through their art, through their dancing, their articulate communications, wise reflections, questions, and their teaching.  I am thankful for their friendships and for helping me play.  they are  brilliant women. thank you to Narim, Belle, Ton, and Leak for what you bring to rehearsal everyday, for your sweetness, beautiful dancing, willingness to participate and play, & hard work and attention. thank you to Fred and Amrita for really helping us make this concrete here in Phnom Penh and for all the practical and energetic heartful ways you are supporting us and dance. thank you to the translators/photographers  Lim and Saul.  sp?  your presence and ability to transmit ideas is crucial. thank you Cambodia for being hot, sunny, friendly, inspiring to my senses. thank you to the dance, I know you are trying to reveal yourself

a new score/ school of dance/modality: Booger and Poop.   you need a pool and a ball as a set.  Peggy created it, I trademarked it.  You have to train and study various levels with Gaelen, Peggy and myself to be certified to teach it.  $1200 a module.  free with early bird discount. its fun.

It is fascinating to see the clarity and the evidence of the training of the four roles: Monkey, Giant, Female, and Male, in Narim, Belle, Ton, and Leak.   Shapeshifting is happening.  To see contemporary experimenting through the lens of Monkey or Giant is curious to me.  Ton had us laughing so hard playing Monkey.  I was curious if these archetypes affect them in their personal life... it must, if you training and working through this structural/functional idea for a long period. Went to Sophiline Shapiro's rehearsal the other day.  Her company is heavily rooted in Classical dance and is very beautiful.  I sat down and was immediately moved. I am not sure if it is the dance, the music, the spirit/energies at play, or perhaps that a part of me knows this... i certainly resonate with it to some degree. We were laughing last week about the fact that these dancers have trained rigorously in classical dance and now they are playing out a sponge. There is no word for Contemporary here.  there is no contemporary dance program or school.   They express wanting it.  Fred Frumberg is an amazing man and his non-profit Amrita has really supported dancers here wether it is in preserving classical or helping facilitate opportunities for dancers to learn form others and find their own path.  He is really excited for the dancers we are working with because when he watches us converse or dance he sees them expanding in new ways.  He said that we are here for a transition that is pretty significant.  radical! Belle's mother came to our rehearsal.  She is older and tiny. She was a dancer, actress, movie star.  She is very supportive of Belle.  I am not sure what she thought of what we were doing.   I heard that she lost 12 children in the Khmer Rouge. heartbreaking. the studio we are in now is on the 3rd floor of a 5 story building that is being constructed currently.  it is some kind of multiple use building with a waterpark, pool, exercise studio, offices, music school, etc.  it is a serious construction site that one would never be allowed in in the States.  the families of the men working on it live on the site.  the young man/boy who tends the gate lives in a gatekeeper room. there is a platform and his clothes hanging.  from our vantage point you can see trees surrounding it, the men working on the structure 2 feet away from us, one of the smallest and only surviving natural areas in the city, shacks, roosters, etc.  we will be dancing and a workers face will be in the window watching us. or all of them will be staring at us.  the street leading up to the site is one of my favorites.  it is a mishmash of ideas and living spaces.  on the corner is a restaurant/bar that people hangout in - it is all open- not many walls.  people will be standing in the street watching tv.  there are kids playing and running around. with or without clothes.  there  are tiny businesses selling beverages and little necessities, a hairdresser, a recycle station that has a table in the middle of the mess that has dishes on it.  a section that is filled with logs to be planed.  i love to see in peoples living spaces.  they don't appear to need much or fill it with much.  it is such a great reminder and makes me want to give away a bunch of furniture.  the climate helps im sure.  it is hot, people hangout, the time is different, there is not a great distinction between inside an outside.  they don't need a lot of shit in their houses in order to keep warm or keep separate. still trying to liberate my body from its living in the past, and my spirit from being tethered to it, suckling it with my precious life force.  that is dwindling with time. it sucks that i keep trying to figure out how to surrender. i know that you just do or you don't.  there is no Way.  how though? how ? i keep asking.  it needs to change to "part of me that knows, please do it.  thanks" we did a small version of the Tuning Score.  our version with our own calls, just to work on a few things in particular for a couple of days.  I realized in one moment that in this score, I am experiencing and seeing movement but not the dance.  I am asked to be the creator and the critic simultaneously. it can trick a person into using it as a playgorund for the ego.   I think the Tuning Score itself is an extremely valuable, great tool and a lot of fun at times.  I also believe that a dedicated practice of it, with a dedicated group of people (who are willing to surrender Being Seen as the Person Who Is Really Doing Something), would allow for the calls to be internalized, transcended and for the dance to exist.  I just have not experienced it or worked in that container for a long period of time.  not trashing it, just in my capacity of using it thus far it is not inspiring. it is useful though!

what would happen if, just once, you said "yes" to me? would your whole world come crashing down? perhaps it should.

we have been working with a combination of things this week.  Gaelen has been leading warm-up : internal exploration of breath,skin, muscle, bone, respiratory, circulatory, skeletal systems etc...this direction of focus is new for the Khmer dancers we are with. Scores this week on: textures, picture scores, Chapters, the Seed Vibration, flux, stillness. we had a check in conversation.  as I suspected the question arose as to how the things we are doing relate to choreography.  good question.  we told them we'll get back to them.... it will get clearer and that we are all learning about this. I think we have explained it once in a general way but it does need to be clarified.  I also think it is really important to feel good about what we will be performing, trust it.  Improvising and the scores that we are putting out there are new for them.. I don't want them to be inhibited by fear, lack of trust, or to feel like it has no meaning or purpose.  we have work to do. there is the most beautiful baby in the pool. we are dancing from the inside out. I explained that for me, through my dancing and choreography, that it is a path of becoming more myself.  so i try to listen to my body, mind, spirit, soul as a "narrative" is revealed, that is in relation to the external world, in this body, time, and life. and that there are many paths or directions you can take with choreography, but to follow what inspires you, what has meaning for you, whether it is through classical or any combination of forms, or through a form you create. it doesn't matter. I hope that something rich for all of us transpires and that whatever we bring is useful and fun.

if you saw and lived what was beautiful and good in yourself?  what a gift that would be for others.  If we could learn this from each other, from ourselves, the expressions would be exponentially, explosively, lovely. not that it isn't happening already sometimes we need to wipe the shit from our eyes.

I watch this woman come to breakfast and I 'recognize' her.   Instant thought:  "she must be American, a French woman would never carry herself that way". (there are shitloads of French people here, by the way).     Heart depressed, heart protected.  I recognize that in myself, my family, my family of American women, and in many people.  My body, heart and eyes, well up in tears of sadness for that.

reflecting on current and past scores/containers/choreography blahbblah... what is underneath in one layer....my body asking and me creating a way for my body to move as it wants to.  of course my mind sometimes has a different grasp of what is going on  and agenda.  need the pendulum to fully swing the other way and get balance.  alignment with Body Mind Spirit Soul.  in all things.  congruency in order for Dream to be as it is to be. I don't mean to be self involved...there is a way that this is not about me but about the vehicle, form, shared experience...