A reason for silence

Forgive me for not posting anything for nearly 3 weeks! There is a very good reason…. Today saw the launch of my new company –

Red Yew

Red Yew is a small dance production company creating performance and film, offering dance to a wide audience and working with other like minded professionals. It aims to capture imaginations, awaken the senses and document space for audiences, communities and individuals.. In addition, Red Yew acts as an umbrella for research into site dance and spatial communication, dance classes for the community in mid-south Cornwall, commissioned work and educational workshops.

The launch has gone really well, I’m so pleased. Its taken me 2 weeks to design the website and then I wanted to choose a local company to host my site, so I spent about 3 days researching the choice of hosts. I finally chose Spring Media Design, who have been fabulous. The advice given has helped me so much and its really honest advice.

I left Exim in March, the travelling was getting too much financially as well as time, and my health was not great. Also my research started taking over and it was necessary to make some changes. Leaving was a hard decision, but I hope this new venture will be just as exciting as Exim has been.

Today is the day

Well I can quite honestly say it couldn’t have been a better day! The sun was beaming, the wind was calm and for the first part the space was quiet and free from sunseekers.

We all arrived and walked down to the site to begin the exploration, having been there before and had a ‘play’ I wanted to conduct the experiments and document the journeys that each individual made. Each participant brought something interesting and similar to the table two actors and two dancers, but the responses were all completely different, affirming my previous confirmations that perception is very very individual.  I waa left thinking about the name of this blog, I notice what you notice but I do not and cannot ever see what or how you see. No one can, our minds filter what they want and I am beginning to think that a lot can be understood about people after working in a site in this way. A very personal portrait starts to appear and you begin to see how other people process the space but you don’t see it as they do. There is something rather lovely about individualism here that is innocent and not exploitive or egocentric. There is no bravado, just you and what you see. What can be done is this: I can watch you and ask you what is making those impulses, what the sensations are, what are you thinking and how are you feeling? Then I can try and understand that within my own body and begin to explore how my body behaves to what you have shared. All in all its been a great day and I need a couple of days to reflect on what I have witnessed today and its the annual Spring Flower Show tomorrow at Boconnoc as well as having a day with my family, just a shame the weather is on the turn as we have a BBQ planned!

A few pictures from today:

 

Site visitation

Finally the site has been finalised for my observed non assessed part of the negotiated project. The Hoe in Plymouth has a wealth of spaces but the one that appears as the most playful is the old Lido area under thr Tinside cafe. Lots of places to engulf yourself in some sited experiments. Visted the site with H on Friday and played with some movement and ideas to help shape the experiments for this coming Friday.

Proposal for final project has also come back with a big tick indicating it has passed, a few minor alterations recommended but so far today is shaping up pretty nicely. The weather is absolutely glorious here in South coast Cornwall, beautifully sunny and a warm (ish) breeze fluttering in and out, its days like this that I remember how wonderful iving here is. The middle gardne becomes a little sun trp and working from home today means sitting outside, working on the laptop enjoying a day of office work! I had the sudden ureg to dance around the garden in pyjamas this morning as it was ever so still and quiet, which made me think back to Isadora Duncan and her infusible nature, dancing in gardens and woods. The freedom in just moving outside is a valuable expression of emotion, it really allows you to interpret space the way you wish with your body, not formally walking through parks and gardens but actually moving for yourself in a premeditated or group activity/sport/tour. What I mean by this, walking through a park you see people engaging with each other or following the routes laid down by tourist boards so you only see what they want you to see. Its the occasional glimpse of a child playing on their own in a tree or walking along a beach and seeing someone painting. These are the people that are interpreting the space, engaging with the environment and investigating place.

Thinking back to Body Sensing this was my impulse (slightly childish I know but was too tempting not to):

So Friday is quickly approaching, my thoughts for the experiments are now as follows:

Approximately 1 hour starting at 10.20am.

1. Pychogeography task – walking and noting the space.

2 Meditating space – settling oneself in space and noting what you see with a time bounded exercise.

3. Hearing space – shutting off sight and touch.

4. Touching space – using only the fibres of nerves with the skin, how does the site feel without seeing or hearing.

Discussion on what we have found so far , each exercise will be followed by a witnessing if appropriate.

Approximately 1 hour.

5. Reaction to space – how do we respond to site. Choosing any medium on offer or negotiated with the session organiser, respond to the site and then analyse the response using body sensing.

Sharing our findings – end.

This will be followed by one to one responses/interviews with the participants as a discussion to how they felt the experiments hekped them or not to engage with the space.

Really loved the distressed appearance of this lock. H loves locks so this picture is for her.

Clearing the visual mind – exercise one

Its recently come to my attention that Spring has finally arrived! Late I know but today I actually became conscious of the new beginnings and freshness that evolves and grows so naturally at this time of year. Now this may be the work of planetary conjunctions, the spring equinox or just seeing a space with a renewed vigour. Spring is definitely here in all its glory and it is showing us new energy in the world around us.

My line of thinking has gone to the negotiated project coming up very soon and how the experiments are formed and the usefulness and relevance of them. Based on my renewed affinity with nature I am left thoughtful on how I am seeing and what I am seeing. So here goes at a rough interpretation: The journey to Plymouth has recently changed, the grass is greener, trees are starting to dress themselves and animals are producing progeny. I am becoming far more aware of my surroundings than I was before. Having a conversation with a friend, I starting picking up on a force of a backdrop of trees, suddenly I turned around and they became very domineering and almost ominous, until I looked straight at them and analysed them. The height and size of them are what struck me initially, all very thin trees closely packed and restricted, small avenues for light to pass through but when you look closely you can see a route through them. My body wanted to mimic that feeling by growing and then move in very linear restricted way. Whilst reading a blog article on body sensing I can now split those feelings into the four distinct categories suggested within the article:

• Thought
• Feelings
• Sensation
• Impulses

Heres a few mental notes from the tree/convo encounter:

Thought – Tall, reaching over, pulling, shrinking

Feelings – Fear, Foreboding, judging,

Sensations – anxiety, distracted thoughts, tingling in the stomach, shortened breath, tightness of body

Impulses – move away, confront, placate, turn around to face them

Its this self observation that I wish to explore during the negotiated project. This event in my life was not as an exactment of engaging with the space, but a sense that started randomly. I think it is a direct result of the way my practice is starting to infuse my self. By centring the body in a space using phenomenological and somatic techniques, a person will become more tuned to the environment they wish to explore. Its all in the fine tuning, clearing the mind and then relaxing the body so the mind can listen. This relative dichotomy is something relevant in most relationships, listening, stabilizing and balancing. A meditative approach to relating with a space.

It just struck me as funny today that I am taking far more notice of the things around me than ever before. What I like is the words that have been generated from the categorising exercise. This is definitely one of the exercises I wish to explore next Friday, as they can lend themselves to the generation of movement, words or pictures.

Draft Exercise:

Exercise one (5 minutes front/5 minutes back) – stand, sit or lay down in the space.Put in headphones/ear plugs Close the eyes. Identify one key sound in the site and lock into it. Clear the mind of anything else (similar to the OHM in meditation, which can be used if needed). Feel the weight of the body come aground so that the body is no longer just upon the ground, it is part of the ground. When ready, open the eyes and look ahead only taking in what is directly in front of you. Look left to write or right to left until the space has been evaluated visually. Repeat facing the opposite way. Only write down or draw what you have discovered in the first trip, categorising what you have collated.

I think this could be used as the basis for all the exercises, shutting off all but one of the senses as we go along. However, I want to make each one different so that the participants don’t get bored with what they are doing. The next few days will look at how to ground the body in space, how we hear space and how that can be defined through movement.

Hilarious discussion on blogging… completely laughed at some of my own posts shortly after reading this….

Snotting black

I was eating a PB&J out of tinfoil during class and thinking about blogging, as I often do. I had recently read a friend’s blog that he just started a few months ago and doesn’t update very often. Its future doesn’t look good—a few more months it will likely become another blog corpse silently occupying net space.  As I read his first tentative posts, I was reminded of my own blogging beginnings that stretch back to my senior year of high school.

It was a secret blog, called The Drevet (now deleted), and I posted a mere two times. The first one was the obligatory and awkward, “Hello world,” in which it seemed I was preparing to face all of humanity and be utterly rejected. It was the kind of introduction that set the bar so low even I couldn’t reach it. After only two months I stopped thinking about…

View original post 476 more words

A great deal of strength

There are days that go by with no worries at all and then there are days that pose the beginning of an end, a very large fly in the ointment or the start of something fresh and new. This week is turning out more akin to the latter statements those that pose. The frustration is born out of not knowing when to let go, when to begin and how to manage. What seems fair and reasonable to some is contextually wrong to others. There are some big changes coming and I need to ready myself, its about creating not finding….but the focus and grounded feeling I’m having lately is very positive. I seem to be coming back to my roots and pulling on things that I had long since forgotten. Sensing is obviously having a great effect on me.

This notion has led me back to perception. Perception is fast becoming a love hate relationship it keeps popping up everyhwhere I go, thwarting my every move and poking me in the ribs! I can’t wait to get element one of my negotiated project done, I think it will throw out some interesting notions to play with in the future. Today though I had my usual early morning drive to Plymouth for class, and picked up J. J and I are in the car and every time we drive we usually see hoards of magpies, so much so that the superstitous part of us wants to close our eyes and not see them, because its gauranteed that we will see at least one. For those of you that don’t know the modern ryhme, it goes like this:

One for sorrow, Two for joy, Three for a girl, Four for a boy, Five for silver ,Six for gold, Seven for a secret, Never to be told, Eight for a wish, Nine for a kiss, Ten for a bird You must not miss.

The older version is slightly different:

One for sorrow, Two for mirth, Three for a marriage, Four for a birth (or death in some parts of the country)….and so on as the modern.

Where has our superstition come from? So here comes the P word…..Perception perhaps?

What is standing out for me, from these non experiments is making me understand how I see and how I process spatial information. I see trees, water, animals, birds as well as particular buildings and natural formations. Then I see the definition of the item, so the way the trees branches are structured and the movement of the tree. A tree with no leaves is far more interesting to me than a tree in bloom.

Based on what I’ve just written, my perception is stronger towards structure, form and movement. I notice the building and the lines and in the sea I notice how it moves. Its not for me how pretty the landscape is but what makes the landscape pretty to me.

My latest obsession

Nothing to do with site dance today.

I’m prone to having small obsessions on certain things: Cake, chocolate, knitting really useless items like apple cosies and today I can successfully add another one to my list. Pinterest! I had my invite over a week ago and yesterday I chose to delve into the realm of the virtual pinboard. My only criticism is that you can only pin pictures and videos, I would like to add poems and make connections but hey ho you can’t have it all can you (unless its real cake and then you really can have some then eat it). So here is a link to my Pinterests

http://pinterest.com/bleak2011/

My question now to you is this: When procrastination becomes productive is it no longer procrastination?

Looking with new eyes..

I’m hoping to enter the Cornwall Film Festival again with a very short dance film (90 seconds) using the Cornish language and dance. I want to use a poem, translate it and use the rhythms of the language to inform the movement. I need to set the background for this, so here goes….

In 1992 I was 11 and started secondary school like every child across the country. My first field trip was a Geography excursion to the Minions on Bodmin Moor, Cornwall, UK.

The beautiful location was completely drowned out by the rain. We were all soaked through and exploring a place that I didn’t think would have any impact or assimilation to my future. When we got back, the trip was recounted in our Geography, Science and English classes. One of our tasks was to write a poem about the minions for English. The poem that I wrote was entered with everyone else’s into a competition, the Gorseth Kernow. The entry was for English verse, 11 and under category. I never thought I would win, I just wrote a poem like everyone else,  but I did win and suddenly the place became to mean a little bit more. Here’s the poem:

Minions

By me,  aged 11

Dark and gaunt against a

granite sky,

Stand the Minions,

old and proud.

Stones ravaged by wind

and rain

Shrouded in mist

and mystery

Like a ghost glowing majestically from

Stone to Stone.

The Hurlers dancing in a

Circle of magic

With the wind whispering an

eerie tune.

The Cheesewring stands

tall like a

giants table, waiting for

the feast to start!

Who will approach the feast?

Could it be the ghost of Rillaton Barrow

that causes the senses to tingle with fear?

Land that stood the test

of time is now

broken and crushed by

man’s ravenous search

for wealth.

Crumbling engine houses

stand like monuments of man’s

invention and greed!

How many ghosts lay beneath

the wounded ground in

tunnels like a rabbit’s warren?

Nobody knows the secrets

of Minions, that holds the land

in panic, fear and wonder!

Stacy Weeks©2012

The next part of this story happens around a year ago to 15 months. The English teachers that entered my poem, in reflection, were two of my favourite teachers; Mr Rowan and Mr Griffiths. Although Mr Griffiths never actually taught me, he was always pleasant and friendly. Mr Rowan had the amazing talent of being able to read aloud and make the characters come to life. Ok so back to the story, some friends came to visit and we decided to go for a walk and I suggested minions as my husband had never been there and I hadn’t visited the place since I took photos for a GCSE Art project in 1996. Will try and find the watercolour painting I did, but it might be a while…

We all drove up and parked in the car park, got all our dogs out the cars and set off for the trek. We walked past the Hurlers (a series of stone circles, reputedly men turned to stone for playing the game of hurling on a Sunday) and started our ascent of the Cheesewring (see below) at Stowes hill or pound as its sometimes called.

We got to the top and had tea and mince pies and took in the view, which is spectacular. we got talking about the place and I said about the poem and my teachers etc. We then packed up our bags, took a few pictures and started to descend. As we were going down there were three figures coming up, as we got closer, I recognised 2 out of the 3. It was Mr Griffiths and Mr Rowan! I could’t believe it, it was decidedly spooky to see the two people that I was talking about. This got me thinking about the space and what it meant to me and if it wasn;t for all these things it would just be another pretty sightseeing spot, but it wasn’t. To me the Minions are a place of childhood, a place of wonder and place where everything starts to fit.

I recently sat in on a research seminar, regarding Serendipity. I did not put these together whilst listening to the lecture but when I had my dinner this evening (between writing this), I found myself thinking back to this moment. Coincidence or a ‘cosmically’ planned engagement set up and waiting to happen? I don’t know but what I can sayis this, the film I am proposing now has more magnitude and ressonance than it did before, my love affair for translating landscapes is beginning to find its roots and I’m very excited to be working in this location very soon.

…….P.S. if you look closely in the first picture you will see the figures of Mr Rowan and Mr Griffiths standing on top of the natural stone formations.

Thank you….you really made my Sunday.

I’ve not posted for a while and it feels like I haven’t seen the dashboard in ages. Its been a rough week and a bit, making hard decisions, mediating issues and struggling to understand methodologies of interaction. But, I logged in today to write a post and the dashboard told me I had received lots of comments about this site. It feels odd talking to a whole world about something I’m really passionate about and always thought of this blog as a virtual diary, dipping in and out to record thoughts, memories and ideas. I think the personal that has turned public is something for contemplation at a later date, but this notion of writing for oneself and then receiving an audience for it is starting to make me think about what, how and why I write this.

I’m really flattered and grateful for all the lovely comments made so far, I would love to respond to you all individually but if I carry on doing that, I don’t think I will have enough time to post! Anyway I hope this site continues to interest and engage anyone who reads this blog, its fast becoming a place for me to be focussed and organise my post graduate research.

So before I write today’s post I just wanted to say…….. thank you, you have really made my Sunday 🙂

Proposal sneak peek

Here is a little taster of what I am trying, firstly to understand and secondly to propose to the academic institution so that I can fulfil my first effort of trying to understand. It is not finished, it is work in progress, but I think I am now in the right space, metaphorically of course….. some light maybe through the thick density of a canopy……

Excerpt from project proposal – ‘We move through spaces and interact within them tacitly without realising we are actually doing it. The signposts and formalities akin to each space we ‘explore’ dictate how we interact, direct our bodies and sequent our relationships to others and to place. Space is the area in which we are free to move around, it is the synomorphic ability of the human to interact in space (Lawson, 2010:p11). It’s the combination of implicit and conceptual knowledge rolling together within our bodies. For example, if we think of an airport, a ‘non place’ according to Marc Auge (2008), we are directed by signage and rules of engagement with other people in that space. You address a stranger differently to that of security personnel and time is a governing factor within the procedures of checking in, customs searches and waiting to board. Each phase of the airport experience is prescribed and didactic. Even in an open space like a cliff top we are still dictated to by relevant safety measures which we process internally and direct our body accordingly. Each step is considered sub consciously. So how is it possible to make a piece of dance free of the restrictions that a reputedly illusive and transient space provides. Is it the place that holds the restriction and how the body moves within it or is that didactic nature of the space?’