Breaking Rules

Rachel, Jess, Eliza, and I find ourselves making and breaking rules Wednesday evening when we gather to improvise and choreograph. The sun is still bright, the downtown traffic lights starting to work (although the promise of more construction looms in Springfield's future), and it almost feels like summer in the way we enter maybe carefree into the dance studio...

Mirroring with Rules
What's important to think about when mirroring?
slow, eye contact, how are you responding to your partner

Leader:
Cannot move your feet
Do not make eye contact
MUST make eye contact
Cannot move your arms
Much always be changing levels
Eye contact with another person
Don't know who is leading
Pushing away the floor

My partner is breaking rules and making me feel like less of the rebelrouser than I believe I am. And I like her for it.

Pathways
What do you hear and think about when I say pathways?
yellow brink road, getting from one point to another, a straight line, jagged

Start by choosing one pathway and move along it by walking. Explore other forms of locomotion. When you are ready, BREAK, and switch to a new pathway, trying to allow yourself time to explore each pathway and perhaps returning to past pathways.

Break the Rule
Everyone is following the same directions but one person must always be breaking the rule.

Rules:
Start by just walking.
Add arms.
Move in slow motion.
Pick up tempo.
Spin.
Jump.
Move at a low level.
High level.

Come get the bench...

Choreography: Sit Down
Make a dance where no one can leave the bench.

My kiddos are prop-obsessed and tonight I see why as they rediscover a tool I thought I knew well only to be surprised by legs coming down, seeing each other from different heights, and bodies being lifted. This dance is quiet with loud moments and I want them to make it again but different. And they kindly break my rules without alienating me.

Driving home

My aunt visited Vermont while I was staying at her house in Richmond, MA this week and came home praising the spot where I-91 leaves Massachusetts and finds its way winding through hilly southern Vermont. I feel my shoulder blades sink deep as I pass this spot today, leaving the Berkshires for my Springfield heartspot. I leave something good down here in the rural, picturesque towns of Sheffield and New Marlborough and feel myself smiling thinking of little bodies jumping from one array to the next as 2nd graders dip their toes into multiplication and the challenge of finding the biggest foot in a group of fifth graders to make me the largest possible area to dance in during math.

I have been treated well by these teachers, students, and Jane of Flying Cloud who is so obviously in love with living, breathing, realizing integration of arts and other curricular subjects. I found myself sitting around mini elementary school tables again, debriefing with teachers about their experiences dancing math with me and their students, and talking about how to improve my practice, develop ideas further, and what it means to be 9 and a student these days. You would never know that the end of school is right around the corner the way these folks talk about the learning and doing that is happening in their classrooms. For a moment, it feels like September when the possibilities for what will happen in school this year are rich and overwhelming.

But I cross state lines and look forward to the summer season as the lushness that is my home state envelops me and says, "Welcome home."

Burnin' Up: Sat morning love affairs

Saturday morning, in a slightly overeager attempt to clean the house, I found myself picking up the stove coils I had just used to make myself tea. The minor blistering was almost immediate and I found myself sighing as I ran cold water over my hot, hot, hot finger and thumb. The burn served multiple purposes - a reminder to slow down and think through my movements a little more as well as inspiration for family dance, which I had avoided planning by cleaning instead.

I nursed my hand with an icy beverage as I unlocked the dance studio Saturday morning, always wondering who will show up for these random gatherings of young folks and their elders every few weeks. The music was playing when I found myself sweetly surprised by a mother/daughter set, a mom with her just walking son and prancing daughter, and a friend with a student from her school. We gathered and met each other, waking up our bodies with gentle tapping and hand rubbing (my blisters just barely survived), exploring shapes at different levels, twisting and stretching. It felt good to move in the company of these folks. I sometimes find my insecurities early in the morning on these family dance days, wondering if I'll find something comforting to offer these folks during the beginning on their weekend together, and yet they always come eager to fill the studio with their own dancing joy.

My burn showed up later in class. I told the young ones my story and they quickly responded with stories of their own burns and we moved like we were hot, hot, hot before feeling the opposite coldness in our fingertips, our tummys, and our legs. And then we found our own opposites, or opposites of sorts - in and out, fast and slow, ocean and sky - and brought them to life, moving with our loved ones and teaching our new friends. I wanted to thank these creatures of movement for welcoming me to class, for inviting me into their moving worlds, and for letting me in some way feel like part of the families they were trying to build and love in their attendance of family dance.

So I do. Thank you.