Reclaiming Self

By: Vivika Ballard

            In the February Kinetic Open Studio Series Lydia Zimmer, Michele Slattery and I performed What We Want, a new ‘work in progress’ by Kathleen Doherty (Votive Dance) and mentored by Sara Coffin. The process was facilitated by the Mocean Dance Emerge Project 2016. It was a great networking opportunity and a creatively nurturing experience. I felt both artistically respected and challenged and was perhaps surprised a bit by my discoveries in performance. You make a lot of your own opportunities as an independent dancer here in Halifax and Emerge was a welcome platform for growth.

            Having moved away from home to study dance at age twelve, I went through a period recently when, looking back, dance was no longer worth the sacrifices I had made. I needed time to simply live and become someone outside of the studio. Dance took a backseat. This was poor timing in my career but asserted the importance of my integrity as an artist and what I needed to do to reclaim that. It was an uncomfortable transition and a turn inward and away from my heavy history with dance. Almost like the place you go when you’re performing. The place where you suspend yourself, you suspend time, and anything outside the theatre is really irrelevant for a period. I felt rootless and afraid like the meek sense of vulnerability you feel when you step on stage. While you’ve been there a thousand times before this time is new yet again. Everything is focused. Who knows what’s to happen? And there’s a gentle fear in this.

Photo by Rhonda Baker

         But there is integrity and courage to be claimed in the focused space that is performance. I realized that going on stage requires these qualities. If you’re lost and afraid you will have to find strength to tap into that living space and it’s not tangible. It requires the heart. It’s a sensation of being alive. I had lost that in dance for a time and I felt this opportunity helped my rediscovery of that.

            The process was gentle yet rich in exploration and allowed us much artistic license. A lot of the work was drawn from our improvisation and our personalities. We played around with story telling and speaking written text to express different versions of ourselves. We reflected on how we do and do not see ourselves which felt appropriate for me at this point in my life.

            One of the unique parts about this project was the fact that that exploration continued onto the stage and into performance. I felt awakened by the possibilities on stage more as opposed to feeling afraid, tired or ashamed. Performance has a great healing effect because it opens an emotional or spiritual channel that draws on courage and allows movement and expression. I often feel a great sense of humanity. 

Photo by Rhonda Baker

            Also because the piece was in a trial state of construction it all felt open and with a sense of play. I enjoyed this as it highlights the natural state of creation, of life; always uncertain but with an unquestionable drive. The reminder that none of us really know why we’re here and the only way is forward. So why don’t we experiment with that sense of aliveness in our bodies. Let it help us move through roadblocks or transformations and let us share it in performance. I remembered that for myself about dance. That what I found on stage performing What We Want with Michele and Lydia is precious and unique and of course a work in progress; alive. I’m grateful for this reminder and the cultivating process that was the 2016 Mocean Dance Emerge Project.


See the final version of What We Want April 28-30 at the Sonic Temple remounted for Votive Dance.

 

A look Inside the Book

From early on in the process - character discovery.

"I am not..."

"I want to be..."


Lydia Zimmer

The Inspiration

From the archives:

February 16, 2016

"Shrinking + expanding scale"

"Fantastical"

1 Super Hero
2 Distraction
3 Constant clock tick
4 Cutting up film
5 A real hair style
6 Giant banana leaf covering you in the rain
7 Be more concrete
8 No boxes
9 Creeping through the forest in large/small scale
10 Time to see my partner

... and from these blossomed our shared phrases.

cut, copy + paste 

MAJOR INSPIRATION



Lydia Zimmer

Getting Down to the Why

The Crossover Between Art and Life 


The studio is my home. It holds a lot of weight. Every time I enter a dance studio or any art or music studio I feel its holiness. Like a temple, the space demands your full spiritual and creative presence. The only place more sacred is the stage where anything superfluous could be considered blasphemy. Or in Shakespeare's words, "All the world's a stage," and our lives are the holy creative scenes and every action deliberate and unafraid.

I strive to achieve this authenticity and have been reminded these past couple of weeks of how the creative process truly brings you to the core of it. Jacinte Armstrong, a Halifax dance scene veteran, recently mentioned this quote:

"A stage space has two rules: Anything can happen and something must happen." -Peter Brook

 

What a simple metaphor for life especially these days; being braced between a multitude of options and making decisions within that evermore overwhelming structure. Both dealing within the realities of our sometimes sterile modern lives and asking ourselves the questions, What does authenticity mean to me? How can I balance living creatively and feeding myself? What is my art worth to me? To others? How great a risk am I willing to take? As artists we are forced to make statements and answer these questions and the best art is always subjective or even shocking.

In the 2016 Emerge program led by Kathleen Doherty and Sara Coffin I have been confronted with myself and these questions. The simple task of entering the studio daily and making creative decisions can start to feel less simple as you delve in. But that's the challenge; to both create and amalgamate; to make a mess and arrange it; to be an empty conduit and a tasteful, assertive choice maker.

Sometimes Kathleen (the choreographer) offers up some movement or direction and follows with the phrase, "kind of sort of?" implying that we somewhat got what she was demonstrating. I like the sense of openness that insinuates. It's as though she is already prepared to take our interpretation of things. It feels that in this process Kathleen comes across vigorously available which is a great quality in any collaborator. Kathleen leaves us (the dancers) space to offer ourselves individually by bringing some of our personal stories into the piece directly whether through text, emotional or character driven movement, or improv. I feel us dancers have shaped the piece a lot because of this. It is both challenging and liberating and overall, more effective in carrying across a sense of genuineness to an audience.

I've found myself asking why more often which is a good thing, a sacred thing, that should happen both inside and out of the studio; on and off the stage. Even if the answer is, 'because I must,' or, 'because I feel compelled to,' asking why is a powerful question in shaping ourselves as artists and humans.

"Life is a bust
All ya can do is do what you must
You do what you must do and ya do it well" -Bob Dylan

If the whole world was a stage how would you play out your life and why?



Vivika Ballard





     

Pages From a Process

Words from a page ( a creative process with Kathleen Doherty)

 

-Fulfilled
- I Guess that makes it a desire (back towards the same direction)
-Jumping street cracks (Jump up)
-Having the knowledge to understand my existence (arm swings to grab knowledge)
- GREEN x2 (sweep from ground)
- Cats ( sharp arm sweeps into tail)
- Small Dance (tail gets smaller)
- Hour (little steps turn into walk)
- Banging on a kit (At the end of min hand go straight into First hit)
-Individual (From ground to standing)

Michele Slattery

Winning over the tough crowd

I invited a tough crowd into the studio today to witness the creative process of making a dance piece. 

Students from Dartmouth High School's (DHS) Dance 11 program got to take a field trip across the bridge and join Gillan, Brian and I in the studio today to witness us work and watch a run of the piece.

Throughout this fall, I have been working with the DHS Dance 11 students teaching movement and composition classes at their school, and I also had the pleasure of sharing some partnering skills to the school's improv team. Getting to know the group over time has been rewarding and it has been lovely to witness the group try new things and begin to believe in their creative potential.

Today the tables turned, and I put myself (and my collaborator Gillian Seaward-Boone) to the test by trying a completely new section, "testing the waters so to speak" in front of a room full of (sometimes unenthusiastic) viewing eyes. Gillian and I had the job of remaining present to the work and trying completely new things, while trying not to get distracted by the set of twenty eyes on us. We juggled the  job of remaining welcoming so that we could share our strange and wonderful world called "the unknowns in creative process" yet remain efficient and plough through our day's to do list despite the full house. 

After witnessing us work for an hour, we did a run of the piece for the students. Although there are still a lot of gaps in the work and many details to work out, the skeleton of the piece is getting stronger with each run. 

Below is the commentary and thoughts from my toughest critics yet:
  

Dartmouth High  Studio Visit Day with Mocean Dance

What skill sets / personality qualities, and communication tools do you see at work in the studio?

• Lots of enthusiasm, you could tell the dancers love what they do.
• It wasn’t as serious as I thought it would be, but more fun and energetic. They laughed but were very professional.
• A lot of communication and they are very creative.
• They worked together as a team and while they were brainstorming one is listening to someone who’s talking. Each gave their ideas and did their part.
• A lot of effort.
• Agreeing upon things. Open to new things, learn to do things you don’t like a whole lot.
• You guys like figuring things out together, instead of one person figuring it out and teaching the other person.
• Laptops, mirrors, microphones and a lot of physics.
• The fact that they are positive and straightforward to the point and they’re very focused.

What images, themes, and associations do you see in the piece or does it remind you of?

• Makes me think of  a battle within their own head that is being played out so that an audience can see what one deals with in their minds. Trying to trust one another.
• I see someone wanting to love someone but the other person does not want to love them.
• I see a lot of mirror and push.
• Helping someone when they need it.
• People telling you what to do and it getting stuck in your head.
• Human growth, inner voice, survival, growing up, circle of life, sadness, inner demons, restarting.
• It reminds me of sadness, nature, your inner self.
• This piece reminds me of the struggles in life with all the people in the world that try to bring you down.

What section is the most interesting to you and why?

• While one was talking and the other was continually doing the routine.
• The whole thing is very interesting.
• The final part was very intense.
• When you guys said “this section is going to hurt.”
• All of it.
• When the girl was climbing on the other person’s back, cause it was not normal but interesting. 

This education mentorship partnership with Dartmouth High is supported by the generous funding received from:

Cultivating Compassion and Community at the Library

Mocean Dance has recently initiated a partnership with the Halifax Central Library to offer free movement classes for adults in the Paul O’Regan Performance Hall.

Click to see large photo

Moving with Mocean is an open inclusive class designed to support all levels of movement comfort and ability. The class offers the chance for adults to engage creatively and actively in the beautiful setting of our new library; a space where the light cascading through the large windows will lift your spirits and the open skeleton of the room encourages deeper breathing. So far, we have offered the class three times this season, September 25, November 25 and December 2, and we are thrilled to see the benefits of supporting such an opportunity for mindful community connections, while engaging in an active and creative form that is both safe and extremely playful.

When teaching the class the feedback of smiles that I receive is infectious and I can’t help but smile back and send my heart-centre to the whole room. I know that such an act is my job as the facilitator for this class, but the interweaving of our group energy supported by the live music provided by local musician Andrew Dahms certainly makes it easy for me. I can’t tell who enjoys the class more the participants or me!

Reflecting on what is happening at a deeper and physiological level and why such exchange of energy through movement as a community is so important I share my layman’s version of the Polyvagal theory.

In moving, breath can access and regulate the vagus nerve, a nerve that runs along the face-heart connection on the side of the neck. This is why in so many mindful practices slow deep breathing is encouraged; as naturally we calm down and our stress reflexes begin to turn off. Through breath and the mirror neurons of sharing an energetic (and playful) experience together will activate the vagas nerve in such a way that helps us respond to other people with empathetic compassion and impacts our viscera at the neuroceptive level. Creating a supportive viscera homeostasis essentially means we are using a physiological (physical) state in which we can use another person in a dyadic interactive situation to help regulate your emotional state.

By down regulating the nervous system, or calming the nervous system in a pleasing physiological method our body can find a safe state of being that leads to more empathetic socially engaging responses, creativity, and the desire for developing bold and new ideas…. Like acknowledging skipping in public as an adult leads to at the very least positivity but potentially can later shape bold new ideas post public skipping!

The science in the simplistic act of breath, creativity, community, and physical interaction is profound and very rewarding beyond the few calories that we also burn!

 

Keep an eye out for more classes to come so you can share in the science of compassion and reap the benefits as well. Class info is posted on our face book page and on our website.