I'm vibrating. I feel like I've had an explosion of creative energy in the past three days. Maybe it's been on a slow boil for a couple weeks and now the pot is just exploding with bubbles falling all over the element.
Ker being here, big things. For sure. A lot of work on impulses, as Sam mentioned.
One of my favourite things we did with Ker was a very simple exercise that I think he called 'the square'. We form a square with each of us at one corner, creating a large playing area. One person enters the square and improvises movement. Other people come in and out of the square as they feel the impulse - they share a time of interaction with the person inside, and generally the first person leaves while the second person takes their action and the space to a different place. And so on.
But really, the only 'rule' is to follow each impulse as it comes up. I know this is what we're supposed to always do, but it really clicked for me in this exercise. I think because another rule is no judgement - don't judge your own action while you're in it, and don't judge the actions of others. If you don't have an impulse or can't think of what your next 'move' might be, stay still until you find something. No worries.
When you're in the square and someone else enters, you don't have to rush into the world they've created. And vice versa. When you enter the square you don't need to take on what the first person is offering. It's really interesting when people are in the space and aware of each other but don't run together to create the same thing.
Somehow this exercise feels a bit to me like all the best things about dancing alone in your room
- all of your moves are awesome
- you are completely in your own world
- everything you do is right
- you're free from the eyes/thoughts/judgements of others
So doing that really felt good to me. It helped my impulses make elbow room for themselves in my stubborn head. Which also helped in the other work we are doing. For me when I free my impulses I feel more confident to connect dissonant thiings together, so putting text from one story on top of movements from another story feels okay, feels exciting.
On this note of following impulses to put weird things together, I made something - really I just squeezed together things other people made - combining 'You Made me Love You' (Judy Garland) and 'She's Lost Control' (Joy Division).
One of the things we're working on right now is a big list of things that we think need to happen in the story we're telling. I think that there needs to be a waltz. I'm not exactly sure what that will look like yet or how it will feel - zombie waltz, love waltz, murder waltz, the last dance. Sam asked us to find source material that we can use as a jumping off point in creating scenes around these ideas. I thought of two different songs that I wanted to live together, and I'll use the audio and lyrics this week when I work with the collective to shape the scene.
Imagine Ian Curtis and Judy Garland waltzing together. I think he brings out the dark side in her.