Jan 5, 2018.
i am creating a dance duet with isaac. isaac is a six-year-old student from a class i teach. in texting to confirm 9 degrees isn’t too cold to meet, isaac’s mom says he is ready and that he has decided to bring something to add to our process: an origami dog.
lamps. bring that lamp. the one from the improv at osu a few years back w the early ‘time in’ working group. as i write that and read it later, i am seen in my memory in a mirror facing south moving light to me. a lamp. by the cord. with my feet. it takes a while. i continue.
my wings spread as i sit here. tight in my bones. i breathe. tomorrow is back. i grip my insides. i breathe. back to the thought at foot.
in the mirror, in my memory, i am moving light to me. it is steady time, inside a much larger improvisation during that session’s few hours. in my memory i think i see gray clouds. deeplit sky. 3-5 of us. i think three, maybe. perhaps the lamp felt like 4 and then there was me.
i immediately miss my moving body and sneer that i’m sitting, jut. typing words. feasting on a screen. i smile because the sun is on my face and my shadow is lovely lit. again i breathe. and so do you! reading this you are a being, breathing. as i am. writing to you. hello! (breath) how wonderful! (breathing)
i smile and movement comes over me. becomes my awareness. i can type and breathe. i can sleep and keep moving i can stop and must be. practice and transform. at the same time. no compartment i make for you isn’t just me. breathing. all the movement in me, i type the words that you see.
i breathe all night. in the day it is me. movement orchestral.
i decide to go into my memories of r.o.i. (rituals of identity – a project by tawanda chabikwa with coco loupe and me), specifically ideas of folding and unfolding… and the changing waves of time, memory, perception. cosmos. blood. relationality, existence. light. vibration. movement. the word. how to fold over and again. unfold. one could move this idea infinitely depending on perception of time and investment in interest.
isaac is a brilliant light of creativity. inspired and dedicated to make whatever it is that will be. he is composing the soundscore, simultaneously, while we choreograph the “play”, as he calls it. play it is. deep play. i introduce him to capoeira and to isaac asimov. he focuses my process into form, product, and accountability. he decides we ought to give diagrams of our sketches to each audience member so that they too can do the movements in the play we are creating. he also decides we ought to sell his origami at the show. and popcorn. charging no more that the exact amount we need to cover our costs for each.
we grow individually and collaboratively. in a studio every friday. something is making.
Cole G 