- A -
There seem to be two faces to creativity-
One, that all you do must be new. Two, that you can never be original.
* * *
From January 11 to March 31 this year I lived on Lasqueti Island,
BC, Canada, participating in Karl Frost’s Winter Improv Intensive.
I thought this would be a short letter about my experiences there,
but when I started writing, the text quickly grew and came to include
many other thoughts and topics. Looking back I see that the body
skills are only a small part of what I learnt. In fact, I learnt
many things that I did not expect at all.
When I decided to attend this intensive it was because I needed
a break from Israel, my life there and my work. Going to Canada
was a way to back up my decision to focus on dance and contact improvisation.
At first, I was quite hesitant about learning from one teacher for
three whole months, but the fact that there were to be guest teachers
in dance, rhythm, voice and performance convinced me.
Upon arriving, I found myself rather disoriented and lost in a
large foresty island. Having been told Lasqueti is a small island
I had expected a small and personnel environment. But it turned
out that Lasqueti is about 30km long! Expecting a Sinai type experience,
I felt like Gulliver in the giants’ land - all dimensions multiplied
tenfold. My sense of centre was sent off balance and it took me
several weeks to get accustomed. I shared a big log house with 4
other people. The house was situated 20 min walk from the sea, used
water from a well and had only firewood heating!
Over the 11 weeks of the intensive, Karl directed work in composition,
authentic movement, contact skills and release technique. Helping
him teach and organize were Jez Parus and Lorrie Ray. The guest
teachers were excellent (Amii Legendre, Jeff Mooney, Joey Blake,
Kieth Hennesey). The 4-10 days they each stayed were a huge addition
to our learning experience. We were 19 people in the group; we met
for 8-9 hours a day; 5 days a week. It quickly became clear that
the group was very special, with various talents, backgrounds, experiences
and ages. We studied for the ‘NOW’, but were orienting ourselves
towards a week of performances in the last lapse of the intensive.
Throughout the intensive, group dynamics played an important part
in our learning process. Being together so many hours a day, I guess
it was inevitable. Even so, I was often struck and touched by peoples’
honesty as to what they were experiencing, and by their willingness
to share it with others. Many questions were brought up as to the
place of the individual within the group setting. Does this group
have room for me as an individual? Can my unique talents be brought
into the workspace? Can the actor or singer in me find expression,
even though this is a dance intensive? How about my intellectual
or leadership qualities? And can I safely express my argumentative,
protagonist or angry sides? One of the biggest and unanswered questions
was whether this can be a democratic group process even though we
are under Karl’s leadership?
From quite early on, people were asking questions about the meaning
and importance of this kind of work. Information about the then
upcoming war on Iraq reached the island like some distant tale,
as did fragments of our lives in the outer world - friends, family,
lovers. We felt disconnected from the world, feelings of guilt came
up. Can we excuse ourselves for not taking part in anti-war protests,
for ignoring other peoples plight, for immersing ourselves in ourselves?
I was happy to know that these thoughts were part of the group “thought
pot”. It is important, however, to note, that although we were cut
off from everyday politics, much of our lifestyle was very politically
aware. Lasqueti is, for the most part, an ecological community that
enhances respect for the land. We lived, ate and thought in ecological
terms. We ate organic food, gathered plants and seafood, washed
with biodegradable soaps and were very energy conscious. I learned,
for the first time (stupid me) about the intricate connection between
ecology and politics.
Later on in the intensive, during Keith Hennessey’s workshop, we
deepened into issues of self and group, self and politics. Keith
encouraged us to bring up issues that made us rock - power dynamics,
fears, sex and politics. Under his guidance, words like Iraq, 9/11,
Israel, racism, demonstrations, police and murder - became matter
for charged and empowered art making. Rather than being confused
and unsettled by these words, rather than trying to hide from the
reality they represent, we were encouraged to take our feelings
into the artistic process. Keith would often attribute the exercises
he brought to his teachers, and by doing so he placed them in their
social, political and historical context. Thus, he created a delicate
web of connections between our workspace, personal space and the
outside world. As an Israeli I found this to be particularly important.
Maybe one of the biggest presents that this intensive gave me is
the understanding that doing contact is in itself a political act.
By teaching contact we give others the opportunity to connect in
ways that are new and oppositional to the urban lifestyle. Contact
is an excellent teacher for change. Just doing contact is in itself
a political act /art.
Being the only Israeli in the group felt somewhat special. Exotic
even. I had a strange language no one understood, a strange set
of rituals, songs and prayers. I was automatically special and original,
in a way I could never be in Israel. I often used Hebrew in the
improvisations or sang simple traditional Israeli songs. I would
probably be embarrassed to sing these songs in Israel for fear of
being unoriginal. Having this new realm of expression that was totally
mine gave me freedom I don’t usually have. Language became a vocal
exploration rather than a semantic one. Finding my voice had to
do with finding my song. Through learning to sing I reconnected
to my own personal individual voice.
I realise now that I am scared of going back to Israel.
I realize how scared I am of voicing an overtly political or controversial
opinion back home. I am afraid of being labelled things, although
that’s what I am. Labelled. Why is there fear in voicing a political
opinion? Why is there shame in being political? Is it because of
an understanding of the uselessness and powerlessness of it all?
I want to re-own and fully inhabit my political position, but I’m
afraid.
Throughout the intensive, I had a recurring feeling that much of
what I was learning was not new to me, but had been learned at some
previous time. And I don’t mean the actual classes, but the deeper
focuses and understandings that came up through them. For example,
feeling my centre clearly, allowing myself to fly, having a deep
connection to the ground and earth, feeling the juicy and yummy
qualities of being in the body, being grounded yet liquidy, having
an external eye, silent communication, egolessness and more. At
first, I was disappointed to realise I had forgotten these lessons.
Hadn’t my body held on to that material strongly enough? Then I
started enjoying that some basic things about me are different than
I thought.
I, the grounded one, am not so grounded after all. I, the
round one, move in straight lines.
I found out I am more direct, harsh and distant than the calm person
I wish myself to be. It was a great to re-learn myself, fun to re-notice
who I am. It seems that some of the lessons I must learn in this
lifetime are so important that I must re-learn them again in every
stage of life. Through acknowledging my personal cycles of learning
and forgetting, filling and emptying, I came in touch with larger
cycles; the female cycle and the seasonal cycles of the year.
Both the group work and Authentic Movement (A.M.) were essential
for this process. I had to allow myself to be seen while abstaining
from taking responsibility for the person/shape/form that is projected.
Although I didn’t like A.M. when I arrived, I soon learned its value
as a tool for allowing myself to be seen, and for practicing seeing
others. Listening and doing can look like so many different things!
During the weeks, we took our ‘permission to be seen’ into the performance
work, and it helped us overcome the panic connected to solo movement.
The A.M. practice helped me find my movement, and to start “curing”
myself of my need to conform to dance languages and audience expectation.
Some moments touch me deeply. I learn self-sufficiency,
how to give myself what I want. I am disappointed that none of this
is really performable. What I have learned here is now in me. I
feel good not needing to hold on to any of it. It is really in me.
But I would like to surface it just one more time before I leave.
In a dance, maybe, I hope.
The performance week was probably one of the climaxes of the intensive,
but I find it the hardest period to write about. The tour was 7
days long; we had six performances in different towns; every night
in a different venue. On the whole, our performances were very good.
We had combined our musical, technical and compositional practices
in a very special way. Each performance was 1.5 hours long, made
up of three half hour improvs. I had many special moments, and succeeded
in surprising myself often. But my most special memory is from Victoria,
where we did street performance:
Wishing to take our improvisation skills to new places, 5 of us
went to a little caf?, and practiced invisible improv - we entered
separately and acted in ways that were just slightly different from
usual; Cobra moved extra slowly, Rick read a newspaper upside down,
Rae was obsessive compulsive towards the salt and pepper and I cried
loudly for over 40 min, without ordering a thing! Leslie decided
intuitively to be our witness, and therefore created our collective
memory.
After learning about ourselves and stage life for so long, it was
very powerful to cross the lines back into every day acting and
life. The street performances allowed me to take off my middle class
prestige, to be in the street as though it was my home. The dirt
was no longer dirty; strangers became my allies and colleagues.
I found myself learning how art can be used for personal investigation
and as an entry card into different modes of being. I felt introduced,
no less, than to the transformative powers of art.
- B -
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight
you, then you win” Mahatma Gandhi
* * *
So, I’ve been away for three months and now I’m emerging into a
confused world; a war, truth, information, ethics, justice, knowledge,
belief system, faith, trust, love confused world. Part of me is
unclear, feels that it needs to catch up with it all, and yet another
part knows, as you probably do, that nothing is essentially new.
And still, re-emerging after all this time has crystallized what
I see:
America is using the media to create a fictitious war, in which
it is winning. The media is playing an essential part in the brain
washing of American citizens. And America is still, unbelievably,
trying to portray these attacks as something that is for the good
of the people of those counties. (I now know America to be a colony
as well, and know that they used biological warfare to kill 90%
of the natives that lived here – smallpox.) More and more Americans
are waking up and are choosing to get information from alternative
sources. More and more journalists are questioning the American
justice and belief system. Numbers in the media are too huge for
us to comprehend and maybe that is why it is easier to identify
with 122 dead Americans than with 100,000 dead Iraqis. We choose
to identify with the strong rather than the weak.
Being far away allows me to see Israel as something other that
the centre of the world. It is a tiny dot on the map that is filled
with so much hatred. It is not an independent state, but an American
arm. Fighting for justice in Israel is even more useless that I
thought - we are not fighting Sharon and his gang, but are up against
American forces. This war becomes much more futile, because these
are forces we cannot even begin to comprehend. Civilians of both
countries are increasingly unable to even conceive of influencing
world affairs. But, ignoring what is happening in Israel is like
ignoring the violent, ugly parts of the psyche: it causes you to
live a narrower, less full life, in which the ignored parts will
attack you in your dreams and subconscious. Now I understand the
deep connection between American money, American Jews, and Israel
Internal Affairs.
It’s so hard for me to read the papers. I hate to admit that. I
hate how serious articles are set beside fashion ads, how the papers
have no feeling, how the graphics, the black and white texts have
no feelings. I hate myself for having no feelings. I want to use
my art practice, my dance, my pen, to learn why I don’t feel, to
learn (re-learn) how to feel, to learn (re-learn) how to integrate
the different parts of my psyche. Why did I shake more when a woman
was hurt in Aries’ class than when a bomb blew up 100 meters from
me? Are the two pains connected?
I enjoy reading ADBUSTERS. The graphics, the titles, the separation,
the specificity, the cynicism, the unapologeticness, the sharpness,
the directness excites me. Such shamelessness. Things that I question,
things that confuse me are turned into statements. The facts remain,
but the hesitancy is taken out if them.
These thoughts bring up several questions I wish to answer:
What is spiritual growth suitable for a war zone, suitable for our
times?
What is the place for what we (artists, improvisers) have to give
in a fundless, violent society?
I share with Israeli contacters a love for creating, dancing and
exploring, but also a country, a lifestyle and a reality. How can
these combine?
THREE WAYS:
1) Bringing the art into the world
2) Bringing the world into the art and studio
3) Leaving both separate, but making space for each – allowing them
to complement each other in unexpected ways.
Art is a means of investigation. All art processes are laboratories.
The studio is a sanctuary, a place to hide, an empty place of purity.
Dance is my practice, my meditation, my best teacher of the “OTHER”.
Yet, it will always be hard to go into the studio, and hard to believe
that what I am doing is worthwhile. So I try to make it worthwhile
to myself. I allow it to be meaningful to me.
- C -
“Back to life, back to reality”
* * *
And now, three days before I leave, I feel as though I have finally
arrived.
I thought these last days on the island would be days reminiscing
and days of planning; days of collecting and days of arranging.
But no - these are days of still arriving, just moments before I
leave.
Today I feel the time creep by.
I am not tired (I have slept), I am not hungry (I have eaten well),
I want to munch on some food (there is nothing to munch on), I ate
two spoons of quinoa, two fingertips of raisins, drank two cups
of tea. I have stretched, massaged, talked on the phone and napped.
It is too rainy to go for a walk. My self-sufficiency in terms of
interest is dwindling. So now I write. Or shall I read?
Today I wish to dance, to perform solo, just in my body, yet I
don’t know how.
Evidently and obviously the journey of creation will give me some
answers. Why is it that after making 4 pieces of reasonable quality,
I still feel incompetent? I seek for a formula and at the same time
I am totally aware that none could ever satisfy me.
So I look into the mirror, and see images for future dances.
Some of these images are connected to pain. They are connected to
finding things I do not have. Things I want to have but cannot find
the way to have them. This is my practice, this is my dance, the
only dance I want, but my blocks are so real:
Moving myself has to do with the loneliness of
not finding a dance partner, the need to find one and the decision
not to give up - I will always dance even if it is alone - but it
also means giving up my dream of dancing with others. It means to
give in to my loneliness, to explore being in a studio alone, still
imagining myself dancing contact.
Feeling my back reminds me of Arie. Touching the
back, the past, the unseen parts of me, grasping in the dark, not
being able to touch, wishing to touch, to be forward, to see, being
afraid of the world, of looking others in the eye, hiding but trying
to touch the contours of my cage. Trying to break free.
But today it is time to practice silence. It is time to practice
non-sharing. Hibernating. Time to practice being inside the body,
time to let the ideas grow and develop like a seed. I feel like
my ideas have been inside for a while (aren’t all ideas already
inside?) but I have not nourished them as such - I have not fed
them, noticed them, looked at them, seen them, held them, felt them,
moved from them, spoken from them, allowed them to embody my space,
my soul.
the end.
danya elraz.
thank you.
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