At Home Music / Dance Improv Playground
Combining Elements of Soul Motion® Conscious Dance & Live Music as we Navigate Unfamiliar Territory Alone, Together
This is an unprecedented time.
With the entire globe weathering COVID-19, the highly infectious respiratory disease caused by a new coronavirus, we are in uncharted territory. Humanity has of course seen other seismic events like natural disasters, political uprisings, wide-spread riots, the loss of an icon, but something as novel as this new pandemic can't be easily described. Not many people, if any at all, have experienced anything like this. We all find ourselves in unfamiliar territory without a playbook. Now we are called to continuously surrender to the moment and improvise.
We get some inspiration and perspective from Stephen Nachmanovitch in his book, Free Play - Improvisation in Life and Art:
Faithfulness to the moment and to the present circumstance entails continuous surrender. Perhaps we are surrendering to something delightful, but we still have to give up our expectations and a certain degree of control—give up being safely wrapped in our own story. We still engage in the important practice of planning and scheduling—not to rigidly lock in the future, but to tune up the self. In planning we focus attention on the field we are about to enter, then release the plan and discover the reality of time’s flow. Thus we tap into living synchronicity.
As [improvising musicians and movers, we are not in the music or dance business, we are not in the creativity business, we are] in the surrender business. Improvisation is acceptance, in a single breath, of both transience and eternity. We know what might happen in the next day or minute, but we cannot know what will happen. To the extent that we feel sure of what will happen, we lock in the future and insulate ourselves against those essential surprises. Surrender means cultivating a comfortable attitude toward not-knowing, being nurtured by the mystery of moments that are dependably surprising, ever fresh.
An empirical fact about our lives is that we do not and cannot know what will happen a day or a moment in advance. The unexpected awaits us at every turn and every breath. The future is a vast, perpetually regenerated mystery, and the more we live and know, the greater the mystery. When we drop the blinders of our preconceptions, we are virtually propelled by every circumstance into the present time and the present mind: the moment, the whole moment, and nothing but the moment. This is the state of mind taught and strengthened by improvisation, a state of mind in which the here and now is not some trendy idea but a matter of life and death, upon which we can learn to reliably depend. We can depend on the world being a perpetual surprise in perpetual motion. And a perpetual invitation to create.
Moving forward, making decisions, living from a place of uncertainty can be unsettling, especially if we believe we do not have a solid foundation to draw upon.
Trees are great teachers. Except for the most extreme wind storms, the trunk of an established tree appears to not move at all when buffeted with wind. On the other hand, the further away from the trunk, from the roots the tree's branches and leaves extend, the more those parts are shaken and stirred, even by a light breeze.
The same is true for us, the closer we come back to our center, the more stability we have and the better we are able to navigate life's windstorms and challenges.
Now, more than ever, we need to remember that the Earth is always beneath us, we need to connect to our bodies that inform where and who we are, and we need to be enveloped in & moved by the sounds around us - especially those generated by live music. Connecting with these elements are all inspiration for this new series of live, online, improvisational music & dance / movement classes.
Think of it as a playground where you can practice surrendering and improvising and navigating unfamiliar territory as practice for our everyday lives.
In his 2012 TEDx Bend, Oregon talk, Wren LaFeet shares some of the beauty, power, and magic of improvised dancing and music...
What happens when we replace [basic, patterned dance steps] with non-patterned, improvised movement rooted in connection…and in place of traditional music, we layered in whatever we’re feeling at the moment? Suddenly the decisions and cues we have to make become a lot more complex. We’re not choosing a pattern to latch on to. We’re just responding to each other’s ideas. A conversation can start to emerge in which no one is following and no one is leading, we’re just listening to each other and responding to each other’s ideas…
We are inventing a language that transcends linguistic and cultural barriers. A language that empowers us to connect and affect each other positively and powerfully by means of an energetic exchange. There’s a genuine investment by the other person. And because we’re connecting so intimately, our experience becomes more layered and complex. Likewise, more meaningful. The whole of human experience begins to come through our dance.
Yes, please. More of that!
Join us for a late morning meditation of improvised movement & sound
Our first event has been rescheduled to Saturday, 20 June.
Join Ashland local (and mostly midwestern) singer / songwriter Bree Nettie and Soul Motion Movement Weaver Cindy Kohlmiller for a late morning meditation of movement and sound. Drawing inspiration from simple acoustic guitar and loving, lifting vocals, we'll let our bodies find their own movement experience. All bodies and abilities welcome.
While we can't yet move together in one space, we can move alone, together online. And wonderful, local, out-of-work musicians are available to accompany us and to both inspire movement and receive inspiration from our movements.
"Dance is both universal and highly personal. It is common to all peoples and cultures, and framed by particular styles and desires. Every person is a dancer..." Andrea Olsen in The Place of Dance