A BIG MIS STEAK

H A N D S
beginning with a ritual lying on our backs. The arms are lifted out away from the body, wrists stacked above elbows, elbows above shoulders. The eyes softly gaze at the hands - not just one hand - both hands. The hands arc over to the right, the arms softly bent but extended. the gaze, the head, follows the hands all the way over. Then the hands arc back up to the sky, then over to the left. And again. Repeatedly. D U R A T I O N : 1 hour. We did it for 5 minutes, at the most. After that, the arms were allowed to go other places, keeping the focus - the gaze - on the hands. Allowing that to influence the body, taking you to a different space. Then noticing other people's hands. And coming back to your own. Switching focus. Where is the focus? Where are your hands? Where are their hands?

Somehow I felt like I'd gone from an extreme awareness of my periphery vision to having blinders on. It completely through my through a long loop - which would take me the rest of the evening to wind my way out of.


L A B A N

S P A C E direct ------------------------ indirect

T I M E sudden ------------------------- sustained

W E I G H T heavy --------------------------- light

F L O W bound ------------------------------ free

layered 3 elements, 2 elements. i.e. direct, sudden and free, light, indirect, and bound, heavy and sudden, so on.

Also playing with imagery. Onomatopoeiac words.


T H E M U S I C I A N
We've been blessed to have a musician from Naropa grace the MIL with his presence. Bringing wind and percussion instruments, his body and his voice, he made an invaluable contribution to the evening. It was wonderful to have a sonic landscape that was in dialogue with the group and could be reciprocal, alive, and ephemeral with us. The variety of the shifting instruments and the play of it all was uplifting, a little challenging - but in this very, very good way. Working with:

• synchronization and un-synchronization
• silence and sound
• voice and instrument
• repetition
• sound echoed by a performer
• narration
• what else?

O P E N S C O R E

so many things that stand out to me. We'd really done a doosey with the warm up and things felt pretty disjointed for some of us at the beginning. I felt really unconnected and concerned with things that really didn't matter.

I made a big mistake. You made a big steak? MEDIUM RARE. juicccy. I big mistake. misteak. stake. Jingle Bells on the wrist. Two women on the far wall. Sustained. Direct. Intentional.

I will continue this expose soon.....I promise. And photos.