974 Vica 22-5-59 (verso)
Oil on card
280mm x 180mm
To gauge how differently we respond to Antarctica, it can be useful to explore how we respond to more familiar places.
I found this small painting in a Newtown Opportunity shop some years ago. Constructed with a definite foreground, middle ground and background, it suggested to me a European view, and so useful as a score for moving and drawing.
Drawing through Moving workshop (Tuesday 18th December 2007)
Warm-up:
Lying on the floor, we moved, and were moved, by Maurice Ravel’s music, “Une Barque sur l’ocean”
(A boat on the ocean).
I suggested we find the moments between being tossed and turned, and tossing and turning, and to find connections between the motion within the body and beyond.
Discussion afterwards revealed that we all took the experience in different directions.
RC’s experience was quite spatial – moving at different levels, and with strong sensations of embodying seaweed, and the boat, moving and being moved. She said the qualities in her movements reflected experiences in her present real life context, and that it felt good to be moving freely through these.
ML’s response was a kinesthetic/sensual experience of moving/being moved by various qualities of water as suggested by the music and by the momentum this motion generated.
Drawing the use of Time, Space and Energy:
One at a time, we moved in phrases, to Claude Debussy’s music, “Jeux de vagues” (Joy of the waves).
Movement phrases were identified by the pauses between.
Observers drew straight lines and spaces of different lengths, to reflect time periods of motion and stillness.
I had experienced this exercise with Peggy Hackney, in her recent Melbourne workshop for the Australian Dance Therapy Association Conference.
Drawing: RC
.
We then explored ways of notating the use of energy, by varying the pressure of pencil on paper.
Visually representing the use of space in real-time was more challenging, and we resorted to more individual, free-form calligraphy, which was nonetheless readable by each other.
Drawing: ML
.
We each contemplated the abstract qualities of a small landscape, which I had found at a Newtown Opportunity shop:
974 Vica 22-5-59
(verso)
We briefly discussed the landscape’s qualities.
ML said that “to me it could have been Europe, Australia, somewhere in Asia” etc.. with the free Japanese/Chinese inkbrush style in the sky important for my feeling of the lightness of air and bird (Laban ‘free flow’.”
RC thought it was quite European.
I thought it was an Australian landscape painted through European eyes, reflecting as I write on the influence of Poussin and Lorraine on 19thC landscape perception.
We then moved with the painting as our visual score.
We drew and wrote key words about our experiences of moving and drawing.
.
Drawing: ML
ML moving;
first expansive/strong
light quick
ML moving after drawing:
2 dimensional/relief
mobile
coolness
lifted gently
breezy
spacious
angular
upward pointing
containing
treated lightly, given humour by darting bird life
ML drawing:
distance/contrasts
solid/grounded
and free
.
.
Drawing: RC
RC moving (extracts):
life in the branches moving
phrases for colours of birds
the open landscape beyond
the edge of the lake with shadow …all around
walking the edge
the bush
climb up and take off
the sky above
birds
open arms
reflection
clouds
in water
aware of others in water
joy
playfulness of plants and birds
flowers
RC drawing:
lightly
edges
branches
rolling
peace
myth
a figure
space
life
.
.
Drawing: LR
LR moving:
weight
connections
life
growth
transforming between forms
(rock, tree, water)
Diversity in use of
space, time and energy
LR drawing:
Interconnections
soft and flowing
energy and strength balanced
growth
opening to sky
–
Enjoyed morning and thankyou for sociable lunch, Lisa. Lovely. Tooth better already!
Afterwards (again stimulated), my reflections this time were around the art vs therapy interaction in a group situation… I consider the possibility of 1:1 therapy of some sort, in parallel with our work together, as advantageous for both individual participants…(me!) and as maintenance for your freedom to work as an artist/explorer.
As is useful for people in dance therapy groups, where the therapist (as facilitator) does not need to be a councillor/psychologist, you could then choose to be a catalyst for personal awareness that is to be brought up in depth elsewhere… This might also protect the groupwork to maintain a bouyant entity of its own.
I am motivated as I write this to go back on studies of group behaviour… I think about the people living as a group in the isolation in the Antarctic…
This week I am concerned there is the potential for emotional drain on you (me?) if your choice of lense is not more clarified. It is probably not my place to consider that you, along with your artistic inquiries, are having to deal with personal problems brought to the fore by the experience of the sessions but it is my nature/training.
What lense do you intend? Artist or therapist? Although they can overlap delightfully, perhaps this week has shown me how they each might benefit from being consciously weighted.
Although I don’t want to diminish the value of my thoughts, please rest assured this is what seems important to me this week… and I am ever interested to continue on the journey however it goes, studying my own responses… and continuing to share them.
Upon reading your “lines of thought for the week”:
What about, instead of a “European view”, something more general like a “familiar temperate climate landscape” (to me it could have been Europe, Australia, somewhere in Asia… etc.. with the free Japanese/Chinese inkbrush style in the sky important for my feeling of the lightness of air and bird (Laban “free flow”).
When you say “We all took the experience in different directions” you might give an example of that difference like “Rena’s experience, for example….” whilst ML’s response was a kinesthetic/sensual experience of moving/being moved by various qualities of water as suggested by the music and by the momentum this motion generated. If you wanted to.
Yes, I am in holiday/timeless mode and enjoying playing with words… Meanwhile, best wishes for your own Chrissy season. XX Meredith
Love and Merry Chrissy to you, XX Meredith
Dear Meredith,
Thank you for your insightful words.
I have made the changes you suggest.
It is important to represent, as clearly as possible, what happened.
Also, inviting comment can draw out responses that may not have surfaced during sessions.
I am aware of needing to structure class time feedback in a more evenly measured way.
I also felt a tension between the artistic and the therapeutic in the last two workshops. People come to art classes for all kinds of valid reasons, including social, physical, and emotional release.
My plan for the new year had been to run an open Movement workshop on a weekly basis, to which people may come to satisfy any or all those reasons, with a monthly study group working quite separately from this.
I am interested in discussing further your suggestion of running parallel sessions – perhaps one on one – to protect the integrity of the research environment.
These therapeutic sessions may be something we can plan and implement together as a group, since there is clearly expertise to be shared here. I am interested to hear from the others about this.
Clarity of purpose is vital for the success of my inquiry, and these workshops have provided a valuable experience in identifying that.
People can respond to Antarctic landscape in a highly emotional way, which can bring up all kinds of personal issues.
People can respond to it in a purely aesthetic, or pragmatic way.
The question I am interested in exploring with you is, How differently do we respond to the poetic and scientific Antarctic texts?
I am planning movement and drawing activities with the aim of animating our shared responses.
Drawings and animations developed in this way may provide ways for others to connect with Antarctica.
Sharing responses to this landscape of change may ease the fear of what it is telling us about our future.
Recognising the therapeutic dimension this research my lead into, I have asked for the advice of Denis Kelynack, co-author of Dance therapy redefined (1994), in planning some future sessions.
He guided me through some ideas, for example, for connecting with the land – which were developed as a way of achieving personal grounding.
I anticipate finding more questions than answers, and am glad to have found a group willing to share something of my journey.
I am very happy that you have brought this issue up for discussion.
I am so glad to hear that your tooth is fixed.
Enjoy Christmas!
Lisa and Meredith
my experiences were very clear and cuumulative in the series of workshops I attended. I came to all 8 if I remember correctly?
My warmup experince last week was quite different in the way that I did not stay on the surface.. on the visual and linear…I was tired and immediately on the beginning of the excercise I went underwater, like going back inside the egg, staying at the bottom of the sea and hearing music as light over me reflected and puncuting the water surface, still, gently rocking while the storm and wind raged above me. I was old boat on the bottom of the sea rocking hently and I was seaweed grouwing around it, hugging it.
My experiences over the series transformed. Helped me greatly to go through a transformation process myself. (from arriving at the beginning with acute arthritis swollen joints in my hands and wrists and fear spiking through my heart about my future health prospects) From fascination and instant deep recognition of the iceberg landscape with cold and hard and spikey fear inducing strangeness of the land. fear, tightness palpable and fear of change when faced with the melting process already underway. fear of disappearing. fear of oblivion of becoming nothing. Moving and experiencing water in the different workshops helped me to move through the process of fear and discover with great pleasure and insight the water substance of life including water in my body.
melting iceberg is for me synonymous with my own process of transformation of letting go of ego, of roles, of form merging into universe becoming nobody yet in some way connecting more directly with everybody and everything. Loosing the face, the facade, the verticallity, the volume, the rigid structure supporting all cristals, with painful and noisy cracking and breaking up….
melting and becoming water …
with fluidity tranquility surface meeting wind and sun and depth meeting shadows and seaweed hugging shipwrecks, with surface storms and deep current, with, streams, raindrops and clouds with sweat and urine and spit and tears and digestive juices, steam and fog and morning dew…ah… water on the skin, water in the throuat, watery creatures and lights and colours…the music of water the whole symphony of life opening and unfolding, flowing out of the icy closet…
love and sparkles to you all
You have shared some extraordinary experiences with us Rena, and helped me appreciate how profoundly the icy landscape can affect us.
This is high adventure indeed, working with such energy as yours.
I look forward to journeying with you further.