a circle of sun

While walking in the arboretum today we stopped to bask in the warm sun on an expansive, circular stone bench. I felt like a lizard lying on the smooth stone slabs... so soothing and nourishing to the body to stretch out and gaze into the infinite blue sky overhead.

When a pair of bald eagles circled overhead on a rising thermal, they took my breath away - they were soaring towards the 1/4 moon directly above... it was time to dance in this circular space inspired by the sun, the moon, the soaring eagles and also a desire to bask like a lizard..

Feeling grateful for the beauty of Mama Earth...

Thank you for viewing / reading. I hope this blog inspires you in some way to dance in nature's theatre...

There is a film in the black space below:

Music: Satowa

Filmed by Brooke

Visit my butoh mentor's blog here: Maureen 'Momo' Freehill

dance of lightness

Still in Fort Warden Park, Momo and I were inspired to dance together at the "Memories Vault" - giant sized cement sculptures set amongst the old gun batteries on "Artillery Hill." Embedded on some of the monolithic, rectangular structures are beautiful poems by local poet Sam Hamill. Although the poems honored the beauty of nature, the energy of the place was very heavy, solid, and masculine with the massive concrete structures.

When we approached the "The Vault" a group of hikers were sitting on the sculptures and looked like they were not going to move anytime soon, so we abandoned our idea to dance there. On our way out of the park, a blossoming tree seemed to call to us to dance with it... the energy here was so different than at "Artillery Hill" - so light-filled, lacy, delicate with a feminine feeling.

The spontaneous dance we shared is what ensued - a joyful celebration of the blossoms, the sun, and spending time with someone who loves to dance freely in nature!

Although butoh is often called the "dance of darkness," I have learned that butoh can be an embodiment of all aspects of what it is to be human - the dark, the light and everything in-between.

This dance was an outer reflection of my inner body weather... all sparkly on the inside.

Thank you for reading / viewing this blog. I hope you will have many opportunities this spring to dance among the blossoms where you live.

There is a film in the black space below:

Music: Beethoven

Visit my butoh mentor's beautiful blog here: Maureen 'Momo' Freehill

below the earth

Sparkling...

Last night (after my dance performance with MomoButoh Company), awakening this morning, and also my current inner state - from the dark of night with twinkling stars in the raven black sky, to the first light of the sun rising and spreading it's radiance on the bamboo outside the bedroom window, to how I was feeling on the inside... all sparkling.

I loved having the time last night and this morning to digest the performance and integrate the depth of the experience with my butoh mentor, Momo. I think it is so valuable to reflect and share the experience of the evening - from the logistics behind the scenes, to what our personal experience's were of our dance offerings.

I enjoyed performing with others immensely as it gave me courage, especially with such talented butoh dancers as Momo, Joan Legge and Nala Walla. I am not sure what my performances looked like to the audience, but, at times during the performance while on stage I could feel my lips quivering out of an emotion surfacing from the depths. I wasn't performing a rehearsed routine in the form of memorizing certain steps, but was embodying ( to the ability I am able to at this point in my experience) the depths and the essence of dances I had performed in the previous year and was bringing them into the present (as Momo has often said is so important while performing).

I know I have so much to learn to be able to perform with the depth that is required of a butoh dancer, but I feel fortunate to be learning from such a gifted dancer / teacher on this journey into the depths.

Momo and I went on a morning walk in Fort Warden Park and were struck by the beauty of our unseasonally early spring - pink and white blossoms bursting open on trees like flower fire-works exploding. Momo wanted to take me to the old naval bunkers / gun batteries in the park where she has danced in the past amongst the cement forms and metal doors and window shutters.

I was surprised that there are many underground, cavern like rooms and passageways that allow public access - what a joy! The underground cement bunkers have amazing acoustics and I was awestruck by the echoing quality within them. The sound that you create echoes long after you have stopped creating it - I could feel the vibration in my cavernous heart space deep within my chest, but, it felt like the sound was already there in the walls just waiting to be expressed outwardly - and that our voices were freeing the sounds from their cement temples of silence...

“To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.

To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,

and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,

and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.”

Wendell Berry

I felt honored to have Momo vocalize for me in one of the cavern rooms for my practice. Although I was feeling very 'light' inwardly after the previous nights performance, I was moved so deeply by this sound chamber in the dark, at that particular moment I was drawn to embody with dance the feeling of awe for the sound emanating from deep within this cement cavern and from deep within my own cavern of the heart...

The Art of Literary Exegesis

They argued, the three of them,

for three long hours-- were arguing

when I, eventually, went home--

over the "meaning" of the poem.

It was almost morning.

There were dozens of morning birds,

gray doves, and when they sang,

their meaning and their love

were not in words.

Sam Hamill

Thank you for viewing / reading this blog. I hope it is some way inspiring you.

There is a movie in the black space below.

Filmed by Momo

Visit my butoh mentor's beautiful blog here: Maureen 'Momo' Freehill

a hand

It was an early morning start to Port Townsend to assist in the setting up of Momo Butoh's Company dance performance that I was going to be dancing in - my first butoh performance. I was quite awe struck on arrival at the venue... so much beauty with a Japanese, zen aesthetic.

There was a great feeling coming to this performance to assist, in that everyone involved was helping out in some way or another - from setting up chairs in the theatre space, to sweeping the stone slab entry way. Everyone was coming together in such a joyful, careful, caring, focused spirit of creating and manifesting the vision that Momo has been planning for months.

During the preparations, I was able to fit in a short daily dance practice amongst the garden sculptures. I loved the giant hand, as it seemed to be such a gesture in physical form representing what we were all here doing - coming together with open hearts, minds and hands to work and create - in a spirit of community working towards a common aim.

Also, in yoga, the upward facing hand represents receiving and receptivity. As much as we are preparing to 'give' a performance to the audience, we will also be receiving from them as well - the sharing of the performance and the evening - the energies that flow both directions.

"Anyway, what's the purpose of our being here? Ultimately, aren't we here to link hearts?"

Kazuo Ohno, Maureen 'Momo' Freehill's sensei

I loved how my dance practice was interrupted... time to get back to work!

Thank you for viewing. I hope you are inspired in some way to bring dance more freely into your day to day living.

There is a film in the black space below:

Music: Deuter

Visit my butoh mentor's beautiful blog here: Maureen 'Momo' Freehill

in the middle

Today was one of those days that was full of work and responsibilities. On top of this was my longing to spend time in nature, to ground myself by connecting to mama earth.

Making it a priority, creating time to walk to the beach on such a spectacular day of endless blue skies, I couldn't help feel how the incoming tide was such a reflection to how I was feeling on the inside. At the lighthouse point, the waves were crashing in from two directions - from the north and the south. Standing on the sandy spit there was a feeling of being pushed and pulled in two opposing directions... like being in a washing machine... this way, that way, this way, that way...

I also had a major decision also to make in regards to my upcoming performance with MomoButoh Company tomorrow night on the Olympic Peninsula several hours away. I had a previous commitment to assist at an all day workshop in Seattle and my original plan was to head home right after our performance to get back very late to Seattle... After receiving an invitation to stay overnight in Port Townsend, I felt the inner tug of being pulled in two directions like the incoming tide...

I appreciated the dance in the sea being pulled in two opposite directions and then finding my place of balance and center even as the waves crashed around me. My answer to my dilemma was made very clear from this dance - from the inside. When faced with difficult decisions, I often remember the words of my medicine woman mentor - to follow the path that has heart and meaning.

As I spent so much time last year dancing daily for YearOfButoh in 2009, and this performance is a celebration of that year, I realized how important it is for me to be able to honor that experience with my butoh mentor and all the guests who will be there to join in the occasion - it means the world to me. Unless one has embarked on this same journey of dancing and filming daily, I think that it has hard to understand how profound this journey has been - a journey of body, mind and soul... often very painful, often very joyful, but always one of opening, of expanding, of exposing, of being incredibly vulnerable in the sharing of such a profound practice.

I am honored to be a part of the performance, and am thrilled to be able to stay for the whole evening - to integrate the experience both during that night and also spending time on the sacred land of the area the next day... as much as i love dynamic energy like the crashing surf that revitalizes my soul, I need to rest deeply and spend time integrating such a profound night of celebration and retrospection of all the daily dances of 2009... The energy of integration of that which is sacred is mandatory for the soul...

Thank you for reading / viewing this blog. I hope that it is some way inspires you - perhaps to see and use nature as a mirror to what is going on in your inner life's experience... nature is such an amazing teacher....

There is a film in the black space below.

Music:Deuter

Filmed by Brooke

View my butoh mentor's blog here: Maureen 'Momo' Freehill

kimono wind

With two days before performing in my dance mentor Momo's "Daily Dance Year of Butoh Retrospective," I returned to the location where we danced last year after she returned from Japan. Our dance will carry the essence of that dance last year....

I loved the opportunity to re-experience the physical location of this environment in my body / being so as to be able to feel it more deeply during our performance on Friday night.

After practicing for the performance, the wind inspired a spontaneous dance with the kimono and that is what the film captures. It was impossible not to dance freely with spirit wind as a partner...

Dancing with the Wind

There is a wind so strong

it blows song lyrics

composed in New Orleans

up the valleys to the

Blue Ridge. Trees sway

like women singing the

blues, like grandmothers

rocking sick children,

like the universe is rhythm, not

a fixed point...

Danna Faulds


Thank you for viewing / reading... I hope that this blog may inspire you in some way - perhaps to also dance in the wind the next time she invites you...

There is a film in the black space below:

Music: Philip Glass

Filmed by Brooke

Visit my butoh mentor's blog here: Maureen 'Momo' Freehill

film - tip toe through the nettles

The film from my daily dance practice that I wasn't able to upload yesterday.

Thank you for viewing - I hope it may inspire you in some way...

Music: Satowa

Filmed by Brooke