after 3days of Improv with Redshoes

Today I had a late start, after a meeting with Robin Held, artistic director at Frye Art Museum at Cafe Presse, ( up in capitol hill,Seattle next to Stump Town)I danced in a sprinkly rainy space in front of St. Ignatius church again.Because of this certain time of day, there were MANY students out and about busying to go to classes. I must say, I had a perfect audience today, people truly curious and watching, stopping, wondering, double takes, some that seemed worried that I am ill (!) and a security truck driving by about three times :)The dance was inpired by the droplets of rain, and I noticed there was a woman with a backpack, a blond woman standing across the path, watching silently, for quite a long time.Is she a student? a faculty? I feel like I have maybe ( MAY-be , that is) seen her last time I was here with Rex taking pictures.Because she was there for what seemed like 20-25 minutes, I felt shy but glanced over and smiled sometimes and performed for her.She had a huge smile.Today I was practicing movements of shaking of the tanden ( the center , below the belly,) and then a sudden twist like a wet rag reminded me of when I was 3rd grade in school and had to wring the wet cold rag ( called Zhokin ) in the icy winter time, 7am in the morning at Narashino-shi Tsudanuma elementary school..... I also thought about a diffrent time, few years ago, one of my teacher, Minako Seki..when she was teaching me, she almost brought me to tears, " the center ! " " why do I not see your feet active and alive?!Send the impulse from the center through your feet through the floor! Again! again!! again! Thats not it! Again!It's physics!!!"

I think I was receiving her voice while I trained today,...while many thoughts and voices were in my head, my breath getting uneasy, my body tired, I still felt grateful that the blond woman was standing, as if in the same REALM with me,like a diffrent sensory-time zone- and everyone else, passing us by.

Every day from last saturday, Joshua and I improvised together.He pulled out a cello ( even though he is a guitar player ) and started to make wonderful and crazy sounds out of it, as he often does with all the other instruments he touches :) Unlike the grueling process in creating a project through our group Degenerate Art Ensemble , for this daily thing, we decided to just improvise without any judgement and criticism, We instead promised to stay extremely aware, and IN THE MOMENT and also ENJOY, and EVEN in the moments when believing what we are doing is not working, feeling uninteresting and small, falling into our annoying habits or patterns, feeling nothing new is comming out of ourselves, we don't always just stop. One of my friend and a brilliant improviser Sten Rudstrom( Action theater teacher/performer) writes in his website: "...Precisely at THAT INSTANT comes a great opportunity: you can empty out at that instant, you can see your judgement as simply another element in the landscape of actions-you can find yourself in the moment." yes Sten... I hear you... but IT is hard... to be honest.. I do run into a wall quite a lot thses days..so I go thru it, around it,relax through it, wrap around it, go under it, over it, fight it,change pace..tempo, mood.. shifting....... I noticed it more quite deply this 3 days.. and then a tiny little break through....I must also use my voice, and I have not sung in two months.I FORCED IT OUT, hoping for redemption after 55minutes of sad-ASS -ness of flailing around!!

I am getting second wind about training again.Thankyou blog, thankyou Joshua! Thankyou St.Ignatius, Thankyou Robin Held of Frye Art Museum for breakfast, thankyou Minakosan, thankyou blond woman with big smiles, witnessing me silently...!