walking the labrynth

I set out to walk the labyrinth on Second Street in Lewes, Delaware. I've walked by it almost every day as I galumph by with my wild canine thing on a leash. The friendly brochure from St. Peter's Episcopal Church next door tells me that labyrinths, having one path to the center, are not trying to bewitch, bother and bewilder me like a maze. Mazes want to bamboozle me, but not the labyrinth. Labyrinths can create peace, ease anxiety and can be "healing and restorative tools that cross cultural and spiritual boundaries." Thank you friendly brochure. As it welcomed me of amorphous, earthy spirituality, I waltzed in and gave it a whirl.

I thought I might take a clever video of my feet traveling the path. That quickly unravelled with my not-so-steady hand cam. It was a nauseous, callous video. And I felt self-conscious and self righteous, wandering upright with my camera. So I opted for some still photos instead. That drew me closer to the rocks. Really close. Kneeling down in the dirt close. That gave me a better perspective, helped my lose myself in my task and made for a much better "walk."

One rock at a time. One rock at a time. One rock at a time.

WILD Part 3 (12 helping hands on set)

I wish we had more footage of the process of filming this puppy of a piece in the park. For twelve hours, we traipsed and travailed all over Prospect Park in Brooklyn, NY. Yes, that was twelve hours of dancing and sweating and rolling in the gritty grass for Erika and me, but for the super friends who volunteered to film us, drag our props around and swing from trees were the unsung heroes of the day. Maybe they'll show up in the DVD extras in the 20th anniversary edition complete with director's commentary and bloopers. But until that day, I want to thank them here. Shouldering three carloads of paper flowers in giant makeshift bedsheet bags and hauling cameras up and down hills made for some serious work. Thanks Erika Hansen and Jon Bulette and Tim Parrott and Scott DiPerna and Seth Nelson and Kelcey Stratton! We were quite a sight to see that day. We blended right in with the swans and the our fan club of watching kids were sure we were "the real mermaids."

Next up...who made those crazy flowers? I'll tell you! Later, though.

silliness

Just silliness.

Gratitude for this phenomenal little jam: Michael Jackson

breathing #2 (slow roller coaster)

Hello! Here is my second edition of my breathing/movement videos for your yoga/moving/living needs. Hope it cures what ails you...

Gratitude for my background ambiance: Bon Iver and Akron Family

my brother's anteater/horse

While running wild in Maine this year, my brother make a well-advised impulse buy: his lovable anteater/horse/mule/dog/deer, "Cordy." Some say giraffe, but I don't see it. A part-time model, a one-time barkeep, a no-time-to-talk jabbermouth, Cordy leads a very devil-may-care lifestyle. And this is his true story...

And in honor of last year's exultant salute Maine nature, here are some bonus flowers. Flowers we'll call "purple sea flowers":

join hands, it's autumn

Isadora Duncan ghosts. Pagan performance art. Casper's choreographed calisthenics. Whatever you want to call this, it's awesome. When the wind blows, it's even more so. These bedsheet spirits could have been strewn haphazardly around the yard. A spooky one here, a spooky one there. But no. They have come together, joined by a common love of communal dance to get their shake-shake on and sweat out their demons. Dance, little ghosts dance. Please come back next year.

WILD Part 2 (adventures in stop motion)

trailing, traipsing

My dreamy dream ideal ending for my latest dance film project is a simple stop motion series of shots. Throughout the piece, two dancers blur and roar through the woods, increasingly swamped by a hoard of paper flowers. In the final image (spoiler alert!), one of the dancers is finally still as the flowers rush over her body, burying her completely. Jon Bulette, who shot this piece beautifully with Tim Parrott, took the photos for the final stop motion footage. But today I'd like to share some of my early efforts in the dance studio with a very patient, very still Erika Hansen. Executing stop motion is new to me, but I connect to the simplicity of the form. I love the idea that you're only capturing choice moments in time. Behind the scenes, people rush around to crystalize each moment just right (in our case, it was a team of two, Tim and me, me and Tim, in a race against the sunset-ing light after a 12 hour wonder shoot). But you don't see the rushing, you just see the crystalizing.

All this stop motion chatter makes me want to try this live in performance. How would you hide the rushing? Light cues? Puppets? Set devices? A team of dancers who rush around and adjust other dancers just so? The movers and the moved? Hmm. I don't know. But I'd like to find out.

And here's the test version of my stop motion. It's a very basic beginning. A practice piece for what is to come.

And here are some of my stop motion favorites. In no way am I in the land where these categories exist, but I love them for the following reasons...

"WORKU" created by Keita Funamoto & Masahide Kobayashi (Village of Marchen)

wonder. sense of real breath, space and time. a depiction of real-time decision making. it goes without saying, but I'll say it, whim plus a "y" for real. dark and magical and yet still grounded in real tasks.

"Blink" a short film by Thomas Mankovsky

holy how did they do this? pure, escapist fun. i wish i had helped to make it. makes me want to make things like it. i also think I had that dollhouse as a kid.

"End Love" music video directed by OK Go, Eric Gunther and Jeff Lieberman

kick ass fun. my kind of fabulous silliness. delightful mix of video footage and stills that blend super tech-y video editing and simple stop motion. unexpected moving parts. again, dammit, I wish I had made this, been in this or at least had the chance to watch it being made.

WILD Part 1 (or what I did over the summer)

With this paragraph I am punching my virtual shyness in the face and sharing some of my, gasp, work in progress. It's something I've been wanting to do here, and it occurs to me that this is my space to do as I please. Oh. So without ado, hemming and hawing or apologetic explanations, I jump in...

Over the last two years, I've been making a duet, a dance film set in Prospect Park in Brooklyn. Something I'm calling "wild" or possibly "wild ____ yonder." These photos here are of the incomparable Erika Hansen, longtime New Yorker, dear friend, and my dancer for this project. Erika and I were rehearsing, traipsing through the park on a late spring day when green was still new and summer spread out before us, as it does, in a way that feels like forever but hardly ever is. The sight of Erika dancing against the green of the pond was something to savor. Few can rock sunglasses while flailing and burning through my kind of moving madness like she can.

The dancing part of this project is done, but the film editing has just begun. I am belatedly chronically the making of this work, but I want to hold myself more accountable for the editing by posting some of my stages/growing pains here. I also have many more folks to thank/celebrate here for their efforts towards this project. Coming soon.

And now? Erika and I are simultaneously embarking on new life adventures. She's off to Minneapolis and I'm freshly in Lewes, Delaware. I realize I haven't mentioned that yet, but HERE I AM, I LIVE HERE! (more on that change as well). As we learn to move and breathe and swim in our new towns, I want to take this moment and offer my gratitude to Erika for continually saying "yes" to all stages of this project and for her beautifully nuanced, yes-fueled performance. Although the Prospect Park version of this piece is on tap to become a film, I hope the two of us can revive this piece live in some wild new spots. We are taking suggestions.

Anyway, look at her go.

what we're meant to do

Look, here's what our bodies are meant to be doing. I love this snippet of gigantic, in-your-face joy and inescapable rhythm. A yes with every step. Starting small, ramping it up. Feeling it. Here we are, celebrating beautiful friends getting married beautifully on the verge of a hurricane. Let there be music. Let there be dancing. It's so basic, so in us. Whoever we are, however we dance, we need to move. That's all we have and all we really need. It's how we are together. Dancing animal instincts.