recognizing and following your desires turned out to be the "subject" of the improv master class i just took with miguel guiterrez. he's a sturdy guy with big soft brown eyes and wears old white karate pants and extremely worn undershirt tanktop (chris leichter also seems to have a penchant for dancing in really old shirts that have only a residue of color and the edges, under the arms, around the neck line, are breaking apart ever so gradually). eyes closed, we began with breathing, "allowing" ourselves to tune in to the breath. then, rocking side to side, feeling the feet on the floor, sinking in, falling gently into the floor. arms feeling the air. the space all around the body, filling the body, holding the body, cut through/divided by the body, enhanced, carved, imagined, etched, drawn, enlivening, inspiring, compressing, keeping, flowing. imagining the separation between body and not body to dissolve. it's amazing how with eyes closed the surface of the skin, the feel of the world through the eyes, can dissapear momentarily to the mind--unless you touch someone or something else, or/and the opposite, there can be moments of experiencing without the divide between inner and outer space. bringing attention to inside space is a big thing for miguel and jenn nugent--the space in the sacrum, in the neck, in the spine--"what color is your spine today?" this warmup was rather like past experiences i've had doing eiko and koma's delicious technique, but on my feet. awareness flashing, meandering between parts, and surfaces, breathing and organs, gentle sweet absorption between inside and out.
we split into two groups, one group watching, one doing. first, just walking, standing still, entering and exiting, were the parameters/"the score" he called it, like music (it's nice to think of movement improv connected to music improv). we were supposed to follow our own desire to enter, to stand still, to exit. it's really hard to act neutrally or unselfconsciously when we're being watched. i like this exercise of neutrality, calm, centered place. i also like acting before i've decisively decided to act, if that makes sense. before i've put the impulse into words, recognizing a direction and going.
the next score was to follow your desires with a smaller group of people--i liked a moment when this very beautiful older woman came up to me while i was doing something else. i turned and she was kind of arching away from me and the first thing i noticed was the bridge of her nose, the center line of her face. i lined up the blade of my hand with this line and shivered it in a light chopping motion- a strange impulse, startling to both of us. the moment struck her too, because afterwards she came up to me and repeated the gesture in front of my face. the last score we did was to act on your desire to do something to or with another person/people. a moment within this improv reminded me of how much i enjoy the context improv provides to explore another person's body (and patterns and will) in a creative way that isn't sexualized, although sometimes it is hard to navigate that boundary.
posted by Liza 14.6.03