The Body is one’s BEING. The Body is the poem. The Body is the epic of life, and if I can actually transform the poem into Body and the Body into poem, I will have found my "something that’s big enough to fit it all in."
My Neuro Detour hasn't found its highway yet, and it's more likely I've become a POW of my own body, mind, and society's ignorance and bigotry... but that's for another time.
Along the Detour, I immediately lost my body and mind - my dance and my poetry - my entire universe, my bodiverse. They're still doing their own thing, but I've come to terms with the moment.
After a year without any creative outlet, I moved on from my project doodles and sketches to painting and collage and cane designing - when I could. And eventually, I accepted the encephalytic, TM, MS, RSD brain of mine as it was and allowed it to find its own creative voice. It was absolutely pointless to try to write and read and speak like I did pre-Neuro.
Every day, or minute, or let's stick with the concpt of moments , my body speaks a new language, moves (stumbles, falls, or lays bed-ridden) with such improvisation, I don't recognize myself most of the time. The closest I come to dancing is cane dancing, vertigo, and my falls - no longer choreographed. Even my bones speak a new language - aged and brittle with Osteoperosis and Osteopenia from repetitive treatments like IV steroids, meds, and the disease processes - don't ask me how.
There's a lot of verse left in this body - broken and fragmented as it is.
And, until recently all of that verse has been exposed on paper as experiential imagery or writings of all sorts and styles.
Surprisingly, people liked my art, and even bought it, and that's how we come full circle here. And I hope to stay, and come back - as frequently as my body and mind allow.
But for now....
BODIVERSE IS REVIVED!
Thanks to James Oliver Gallery, a new outlet of the bodiverse project - in the form of a 35-minute non-video-art-video-art work, Bodiverse for James Oliver Gallery (I), premieres tommorrow (Saturday, June 18, 6-10PM) in the JOG FEMME show.
I've posted details about the show on Neuro Detour.... I'm writing blindly here (need my treatment). So, I'll make this short and throw in an image, and keep you updated on how things go.
Each Live Bodiverse Non-Performance was created in collaboration with the audience and "performed" and documented in collaboration with Manfred Fischbeck (Music Improvisation), Mathew Davis (Video), and Sayaka Ueda (Photography).
Prior to entering the theater, audience members received the following:
1. A program 2. A release form 3. A description of Bodiverse and their participation in it
Here's part of what the audience read:
FRONT:
Bodiverse: Interactive Process http://bodiverse.blogspot.com
This is not a performance. This is a living process. “The Body is one’s BEING. The Body is the poem. The Body is the epic of life, and if I can actually transform the poem into Body and the Body into poem, I will have found my ‘something that’s big enough to fit it all in’." Ongoing interaction with body, language, space, time, you. “The body, as a map, provides direction, and at the same time its complexity and multi-dimensionality distorts and distracts.” Please participate.
Participate…
the thought: 1. How and where do you experience yourself in your body?
2. E.g., what is free, contrived, controlled, contradicted within your body?
the action: 3. Write that into one word anywhere on my body.
4. Choose your word and physical location carefully. Please make it legible.
the experience: 5. Your experience as body language will inform this process.
6. It will direct my movement.
7. The language of my movement will represent the conglomeration of experience in this room.
the result: 8. Read the back of this page to learn about what will evolve from tonight’s process.
BACK:
Our Process:
1. You write your experience into my body. This is where tonight's process begins. But in reality, it began when you began. You are bringing your life into this moment. This process will be videotaped (by Mathew Davis) and photographed (by Sayaka Ueda). Please make certain you have filled out a release form if you participate.
2. While the other artists are presenting their work, Melanie Miller will be in the Kumquat Dance Center office crafting your text into a poem or drawing or both and then recording it with a tiny voice-recording device. Both the act of repositioning your text and recording it are "performed" as improvisational actions. This recording will be played during the live process, adding a further layer of influence.
3. Mat will be editing and rendering the video of your entrance, or the writing of your experience onto my body. This video will be projected into the space, also adding another layer of influence.
4. Your words, as they are written on my body, will create/direct my body into motion. This improvisational response should be a sincere interaction between the physical self and the emotional and intellectual self.
5. During the live process, Manfred Fischbeck will respond to all of these improvisational happenings with music improvisation. This is the first time that music has been including in Bodiverse. This is also our first collaboration.
6. The live movement process, which reflects all the processes that led to this moment, will be videotaped with two cameras.
7. Mat and Melanie will co-edit the final work, which will also incorporate Sayaka's photography. The act of editing is improvisational composition and will be created with the same intention as tonight's process.
8. The final process piece(s) will be posted at http://bodiverse.blogspot.com. Please visit the blog and continue the conversation however you like—with text, a video response, a visual response, etc.
9. You will be listed as collaborators. Your names will be collected from the release forms.
10. Thank you for your participation in this process. If you would like to continue your involvement in Bodiverse or Junction Dance Theatre’s other interactive movement projects, please e-mail jdt@junctiondancetheatre.org.
***
Here's a video clip of what the audience experienced when they first entered the theater:
The body writing lasted 10-20 minutes each night. And each night the audience interpreted their interaction differently. It's evident just by the words they chose: 10/27
power being rejoice bicep hope bizarre temptation core breathe flowing construct in between shame internal one tender woven constricted banana
10/28
my heart joints move button persevere hands rendevous solar plexus impulse empower bitchin' spine hands be include envelope joints
The word banana from the first night was written by a stuffed monkey.
This performance was the first time other people, most of whom I had never met before, wrote on me. I actually found the experience to be more comfortable with strangers. The moment of writing created a relationship between us, literally between us; not necessarily between two people but amongst air and cells and intention and meaning. And that relationship was colored by our interaction, the way they stood around me, how they held the marker, the pressure with which they applied their words, their level of comfort. Some people began writing immediately while others stood and contemplated where and how. With the people I knew, it altered our relationship at that moment in time.
Some of these photographs were color-enhanced by Sayaka. Some have been or will be included in the video poems.
I almost didn't include the color-enhanced photos in this slide show because they heighten the reddish mottling of my skin, which is called Livedo Reticularis. This imperfection embarasses me. It is, of course, just a physical imperfection, and should not trump emotional and mental imperfections. So, I must admit that I am embarassed that I am embarassed by a physical imperfection, which has become an emotional-mental imperfection in that I am vainly embarassed by its existence in all realms of imperfection.
Including the color-enhanced photographs is my attempt at overcoming body-censoring, an act, which I define at the moment as: censoring one's own perception, reception, expression, or representation of one's own or another's body.
Livedo reticularis is a blue-reddish skin discoloration and most often localized in the lower extremities. The pathological mechanism of this is poorly understood. Probably it is related to the peripheral blood flow redistribution. Livedo reticularis mostly represents an idiopathic condition but may be associated with systemic diseases.
This sketch documents my rough ideas the night before my first filming session.
Medium: #2 Pencil
The morning of the drawing: I was intimidated to go back into the studio. I had anxiety. I gave myself a pep speech. In essence, it said, get over yourself.
The night before the drawing: I was slightly less or slightly more or both at various times still intimidated. I drank wine and smoked cigarettes (in moderation). I read through my notes, listened to the voice recordings I had so far, leafed through my journal, and re-read, and re-listened, and re-looked, and re-drank, and re-smoked...
Three years before the drawing: Bilateral hip injury propells me to redirect focus from body maintenance (specifically the intense maintenance required to dance professionally) to mind maintenance. The pain stopped movement, breath.
Three years before the drawing to six months before the drawing: So I took very small steps. After all, I, like so many artists, was uninsured. Marriage cured that, but not the steps. Needles and dye...deep tissue massage...cortizone...into the acetabulum...I still took small steps.
Jump forward to September 2006. I did not jump yet, but time did. Still insured. Still married. Still blocked in the joints. But diagnosed. Now foggy, like I was living behind a scrim, and voices were filtered for maximum audio distortion. i.e., meds.
Jump forward to February 2007. I did not jump yet, but regulated, separated, sounds and thoughts are normalizing, not yet normal, but I still haven't found an adequate definition of normal.
Jump forward to March 2007. I did not, but I assume you can and I can't. I'm procrastinating going into the studio. The HDcamera hasn't arrived. Postone 1 day, another, and another.
Jump forward to April 2007. The camera arrives, and now what? What do I have to say with my body? Can it still speak?
The body is a reference book for living into the past present, and future. It is the map of life. It is both an example and a symbol of nature and nurture. It straddles the sciences. It negotiates space and time. It communicates and interprets. It is historically accurate. It is an essay on cultural ethics, gender politics, ecology, family, architecture, gerontology, comparative religion, education, sexual revolution, work ethcis, and class. It is mystical and explainable. It is form and content. It is predictable and irregular. It is layered. It is taken for granted. It is worshipped and adored. It presents us to the world.
