silences + discernment

Last night myself and the band of merry dance luvuhs went to see Alvin Ailey at NYs City Center, which just about brings me full circle to my first blog entry that featured Ailey at City Center on December 29, 2009. What an amazing year that has twirled me here and now (a topic to be returned to)! But specifically it dawned on me last night while watching the show that two things I've not known very intimately before are much more prevalent in my life: 1) calm and easy silence, 2) discernment.

One of the pieces, The Evolution of a Secured Feminine, my favorite (followed by a veryvery close second in a piece called "Uptown" where Clifton Brown, incredible Ailey dancer, did a solo piece to Langston Hughes "Weary Blues"), was a solo performed Brana Reed, choreographed by Camille Brown (click on the link to see a snippet). A portion of the piece was danced with no music on a bare stage featuring only a chair. For me, hearing her breathe, exert, deep ins-and-outs, feet scraping across the floor, feet landing on the floor, practically hearing her arms slice through the air was mesmerizing because, duh...dance...what do you move to if you don't have music? What do we respond to without a prompt? I've been facing those moments of finding a stimulus other than what is put in front of me to respond to. And of course breathing has been such a challenge for me, that to hear others do it loudly and necessarily is a kind of thrill. But almost as important was the realization of how uncomfortable silence can be. I may be making this up (as I am wont to do), but i sensed the audience's fidget and squirm as she moved and moved and no audible beat came from the sound system. no amplification, only the rhythm of her body language.

Silence with others has always been a challenge for me (when on my own it's no problem, i don't even talk to my cats, which is the reason as i understand it, some people actually own cats, but then the little beasts never pay attention to what i say anyway...). With people around, my go-to place has been to fill those expanses up because they made me nervous. My sense of What Are They Thinking? kept me from letting myself figure out what I'm thinking. It's been a big part of my dazzle and look-over-there-shiny-object way to distract before anyone can think or form an opinion. Gasp...an opinion that might not be favorable to/of me if i was just still. This last year I made leaps and bounds in the still department, much of it to do with learning how to move in class from my stillness (while attempting to remember to breathe), and also to do with my realization that i just can't control what people think and do. boy-oh-boy did i get that lesson this year. While wrapping my head around events that happened in the dark silences of my marriage, trying to wrap my arms around relationship echoes, and wrapping my mind around the knowledge that everything was going forward noisily anyway, I found myself giving up to the realization that it had to fall apart. It seemed like the kind of quiet that may happen in the calm before a storm or the eye of a tornado. Something that is quieter than quiet itself. Now I find myself sharing a space with someone where being quiet can be very very intimate, where I don't feel i have to prove by saying. Where my friends know me without hearing me get vociferous about stuff.

And so she danced with no pre-recorded soundtrack.

On discernment: I used to take the first thing that came along, just in case nothing else appeared...i'd learn to like what i got. I used to think that once the moment was in front of you, you had to like everything about it, because to admit flaws was to sully the experience. Last night at Ailey, I realized that there were some parts I really liked and some parts that left me cold. But the experience and view as a whole were absolutely worth it. And as I dance that out into the world I'm realizing that it's so much more fun to run my hands over the smooth bits and the flaws (which actually make the smooth bits that much better).


(this pic* is for me a good example of my eye of storm...the music had stopped playing, the joy was ongoing, the sound was only of click-click-click, the smile came from a place of knowing I'd chosen this. worked hard to get to this quiet place where I could feel/show me: flaws and all. Heather, the photographer, is also amazing at letting her subjects get to that place. Check out her website to set up your very own quiet riot: divavoom.com)


*stay tuned for more pics to come.