Visit at VA Puget Sound

Thanks to the veterans and Anne Peterson at the Beacon Hill VA Puget Sound. We had a charming visit.

Highlights include meeting Jack who used to be a ballroom dancer AND played drums in a husband/wife band when swing dance drove ballroom out of fashion. You could see it in him too, long limbs and a certain presence even with his age.

Another bright spot was a sleepy vet that wandered right through the middle of the dancing to get to the coffee on the other side of the rec room. It was such a nice reminder that dance doesn't always have to be this precious thing pedestaled upon a stage but is really just another simple part of life.

As soon as I got home I got a nice note from Anne thanking us for our performance!

On a more serious side the experience let me to some further contemplation on the role of arts in the world. Upon first arriving at the hospital I feel shame. Who do I think I am trying to make a DANCE of all things considering mortality, loss struggle. Here I am youthful and ridiculously able-bodied in comparison to the residents, living a fairly sheltered existence.

Who do I think I am????

Of course none of the vets or the staff were thinking this. They are pleased that we have come, they are enjoying it. And I come to terms again as I have over and over with the truth that it is ok to be who you have become. Not everyone should be a doctor or a soldier and not everyone should be a dancer, and that is ok. It is ok that life places each of us in different roles. I am what this life has presented me, just as they are. I don't take issue with them for fighting wars that I don't believe in, they don't take issue with my years of plies and tendus and futile acts of movement.

They are happy to see us. Instead of guilt, I will feel happy to be seen.

I have a right to tell this story even if I am most likely farther from it than they. We all have a right to it. We all end up in it. We all have to watch those around us enter into it. It is OUR story. I just happen to have been placed in a position where I can tell the story. They were in a position to patch wounds or to fight and sadly to kill, but they rose to meet what they were given. I am in a position to be seen. I have a forum to 'speak'.

Maybe sometimes the graceful thing to do is to put aside our private neurosis, to not shrink humbly away on account of our own insignificance, but to do whatever thing we have been given with as much dedication and integrity as we can muster.

Maybe seeing a thing through is an honorable thing, regardless of what path you have stepped onto.

If I had died these photos wouldn't exist

If I hadn't brushed up against death- they wouldn't exist either. It is a fine line.






Top Photo: Tim Summers Others: Ryan Crase

Rehearsal Photos for stifle

Our drummer Ryan Crase has been taking cell phone pictures during rehearsal. They are fun to see so I thought I'd share them.

Above: Spencer Moody (composer, guitar and voice) making some notes.

Above: Cameron Elliott (guitar and Piano)

Above: Spencer and Me (check out my superb fashion choices- now that is style!)

Above: Dancers (left to right) Me, Rosa Vissers, Meredith Horiuchi, Meredith Sallee and Allie Hankins.

Above: Meredith Sallee, Spencer Moody and Cameron's foot at On the Boards

"Tracings" research

Something that persons outside of the dance community may not know is that most dancemakers do a lot of non-movement research in creating and preparing for the performance of a dance work.

My reading list for the creation of Tracings included:

Evolution in Four Dimensions: Genetic, Epigentic, Behavioral, and Symbolic Variation in the History of Life
by Eva Jablonka and Marion J. Lamb with illustrations by Anna Zeligowski
Ghost Worlds: A Guide to Plotergeists, Portals, Eco-mist and Spirit Behavior
by Melba Goodwyn
The Knowing Body: Elements of Contemporary Performance and Dance
by Lousie Steinman
A Good and Happy Child (fiction)
by Justin Evans
The Oxford Book of English Ghost Stories
chosen by Michael Cox and R.A.Gilbert
True Ghost Stories
Marchioness Townsend and Maude FFoulkes

In addition I did quite a lot of internet reading:

A New York Times bio on Marian Radke-Yarrow "The Anthropological Psychologist" 12/30/07
by Lauren Slater
A New Yorker article; "The Itch: It's Mysterious Power May Be A Clue to a New Theory About Brains and Bodies" 6/30/08
by Atule Gawande
"Brain Basics: Know Your Brain"
from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke website
A Telegraph UK article; "Secrets of the Monster"
author unknown
The Stranger's slog comments on Seattle's pitifully impaled pigeons

Additional (unfortunately undocumented) web research on: epigenetics, pre-natal stress, maternal depression, trans-generational trauma, domestic abuse, peloria linnaria vulgaris (toadflax) and Carolus Linnaeus (founder of taxonomy), hauntings especially in the Seattle area, hydrangeas, the brain disorder Kuru found in the Fore tribe of Papua New Guinea.

I watched:
a lot of horror (haunting only) films. Some good, some awful.
Fox Sports Network's "Sports Science"
Youtube videos of hockey player Clint Malarchuk horrific accident.

My research also included a lot of free writing, rumination on my own memories and stories told to me by others; including one from my father about when he "cast the demons" out of a troubled young man while on a religious mission in the "deep south" only to have the young man (several years later) go on to decapitate a man on main street over a woman.

Other life experiences that became research include:
I spent time observing and interacting with a tweenage girl.
Went to a wedding.
Mourned the deaths I had been avoiding.
Taught myself to cry on cue. Decided it was too painful to ever try again.
Sorted through my great-grandmothers sewing box with my mother.
Comtemplated the possibility of a guiding hand, a god-like presence.
Observed up close the lives of animals in nature. In particular nest-building and rearing of baby birds.
Made handicrafts and lists.
Experienced deep rage.
Spent time alone.

I compiled a inspirational music mix. The set list is:

Black Eyes and Neckties: Apparition (entire album)
Coco Rosie: Ghost Horse and Stillborn (entire album)
Cloud Cult: Feel Good Ghosts (Tea-Partying Through Tornadoes) (entire album)
Okkervil River: Another Radio Song, Forest, Black Sheep Boy, Garden, Missing Children
Elliott Smith: Bye, Don't Go Down, A Fond Farwell, Can't Make a Sound, King's Crossing, Memory Lane,Ostriches & Chirping
The Mountain Goats: Dilaudid, Up The Wolves
The Flaming Lips: Do You Realize?
Jesse Sykes & The Sweet Hereafter: Doralee, Reckless Burning
Rasputina: Endomorph, My Little Shirtwaist Fire, Stumpside
The Black Angels: The First Vietnamese War
Neutral Milk Hotel: Ghost
Trailer Bride: Ghost of Mae West, Hope Is A Thing With Feathers, Shilo, Skinny White Girl
Me First And The Gimme Gimmes: (Ghost) Riders In the Sky
Erykah Badu: The Healer
Death Cab for Cutie: I Will Follow You Into the Dark, Soul Meets Body
Mathew Sawyer & The Ghosts: In a Haunted House
The Scotland Yard Gospel Choir Obsessions
Slowdive: Trellisaze
Tegan and Sara: Walking With a Ghost

Oh, and I did some improvisational dance as well.



Original specimen of Peloria Linnaria Vulgaris from telegraph.co.uk