developing the script… the bare bones

So I haven’t been good with updating the blog regularly – I am the same way about my own personal blog – but when I do it is thorough! We have been traveling all summer and I have been very in my head about this work – working on skill building and movement material but not setting anything – that will begin next week – what I have been working on this summer is more the structure and ‘script’ of the work…. it is still a work in progress – but just so you see where I am going…
The protagonist in my story is a young woman – she continues to have a reoccurring dream – in that dream she dreams of an island where life is so different, perfect, it is paradise – she isn’t even sure that is what she is dreaming of until she speaks to it and an wise advisor… and then another person she stumbles upon – and both push her to follow that dream… to go to the place she keeps dreaming of because there is something for her there. She journeys to this place – crossing over borders – crossing over bodies of water, it is an arduous journey and she frequently wants to give up – but she continues to stumble across places, people and experiences that are feeding her, pushing her towards ‘arriving’ where she knows she needs to be… and that voice inside her – or a sign a glimmer of hope would keep her going – against all odds – the section that we will work on for Perf. Diasp. is a part I have been imagining calling CONGRI… a piece about the fusion of the African/European, arroz con frijoles – the dichotomies that are connected, not so diametrically related as we think and the beauty that emerges in the relationship between and fusions of the two…there is a more dark, ugly side of folks that she meets… and again she perseveres and in her last meeting, she finds a kind of sheer exuberance in living, in being, in dancing, eating, breathing – except that this last scene doesn’t actually happen on the island – or in a far away land – without her even realizing it by following this journey – she ends up right back – where she began -but experiences it in a completely different light – with she realizes that it being paradise, perfection pure joy and beauty is actually 100% in her control – that it was the way she was choosing to see it… but the would have never known this with out the journey.

I love this notion of beauty and joy as nourishment and that this beauty and joy can be experienced in so many ways- through the body (dance), through taste (food), through sound (music), through human connection (social movements, family, partnerships etc), and that all of this beauty isn’t as rich, clear or quiet as potent if you have not yet come to understand what is ugly in the world… oppression, hatred, distrust, prejudice it is all part of a journey that will have you be clearer and clearer of what you are fighting for, what you believe in, what is just, what is beauty… legend was the word I used – personal legend – it is the word that is used in the Alchemist – and that in order to find this personal legend – ever experience, choice, wrong turn – ALL of it – is necessary to arrive in a place of actualizing that legend, of following that dream, of becoming that which you have always imagined yourself to be… and that even though you were always that – you wouldn’t have gotten to that place without the journey…