February 2012
19 posts
The fear of being forgotten
At the moment I, along with the rest of the staff at Scottish Dance Theatre, are in this interesting, hard and horrible process of being left by our current Artistic Director, Janet Smith. Janet is an incredible woman that spreads a palpible, touchable, traceable kind of magic wherever she goes that makes fantastic and transforming things happen. After 15 years at SDT Janet is leaving the sunny...
The Reflecting Pool-Bill Viola
Introducing Caroline to Bill Viola. Thought this related to the themes of Leaving-Limbo-Landing
The Reflecting Pool seems to be a full circle. Starting from the woods and ending in the woods. Is this an analogy for life—starting at one point and ending at another with many strange things occurring in between? Sometimes there is no explanation for incidents, just like the reflections and you...
Time
This morning Caroline woke me for sunrise, an accomplishment i feel proud of, as i am not an early riser. What this allowed us is TIME. A recurring topic of conversation that has come up on our retreat in the countryside. Time is what you make of it, something i feel living in London does not allow us to do. But then is that a state of mind??? The countryside has allowed me to breathe, to reflect,...
Maybe you can teach an old dog...
Yesterday Rachel introduced me to ‘treatments’. This didn’t involve lying on the sofa and coating my skin in all sorts of wonderful lotions and potions but is more like opening your brain and pouring my creative thoughts onto a page so that these can be passed on to other collaborators, dancers and anyone else who might need them.
Throughout our earlier conversations, and by...
The Straight Story →
Chris bought a number of DVD’s down with him that he thought might be relevant and this was one of them. It’s a story of a solo journey taken by a determined individual with a very clear goal in sight. Made by David Lynch, but not as you’ve seen him before, with lovely music and fantastic shots of the American countryside.
Reflections on a sunrise
7.47am is when my phone tells me the sun will rise in Somerset.
It was right and I was there.
The air was thick with the smell of cows, a weird mix of dung and acrid milk, which makes me feel strangely at home and a little bit homesick
Mostly it’s quiet, apart from the occasional crowing of the rooster announcing the beginning of another day and a dog barking coming from a nearby farm....
Somerset Escape
I haven’t written anything for ages but I need to get back into the habit - so apologies for absence and here goes!
Just to bring you up to speed, back in October I held my first ever auditions! I was seeking 6 performers who had skills in aerial, were confident in water, could communicate and connect with an audience and potentially had a story of leaving of their own to tell. 53 people...
The End of Belonging →
This is another fascinating book I’m reading at the moment. It is all about the experiences and sories of ‘voluntary’ or ‘existential’ migrants (of which I am one I’ve discovered). Many of the stories, feelings expressed or experiences ring true throughout my time in the UK.
The Arrival →
My beautiful friend Claire Cunningham gave me this book for Christmas as she thought it might be useful throughout my creative process. It is completely gorgeous and constantly sparks new ideas. If you haven’t seen it before check it out!
An afternoon with T.S. Eliot
Yesterday Chris and I were having one of our many conversations and he said something about ‘The Still Point’ in one of T.S. Eliot’s poems.
After he left today I did some investigating and found The Four Quartets and what an amazing afternnon I’ve had!!
The Wikipedia analysis of it (don’t judge me!) outlines that the four collected poems are loosely connected to 4...
Love is a force of nature - 1st February 2012
You wait
Strong, still
With your silent wisdom
No fears - trusting in whatever happens next
How long have you been standing there?
You are moved slightly but only around the edges
What would it take to move you at your core?
A force of nature?
(I wrote this about one of the apple trees just outside the cottage)
Inner sense - Tuesday 31st January 2012
Do we need to leave to find our inner sense or lose our innocence?
To gain a greater sense of who we are, what we want - who we want to be or become?
Space - Tuesday 31st January
Space is what I crave
What I look for
Space to see the horizon and see where the land ends
or keeps going
Open, unblocked, still and full of air and sun
Without busyness - just space - to think, to breath, to dream and imagine what could be
No barriers, nothing to interupt the view
A place to watch the movement in stillness
Everything appears to be still but it is constantly moving,...
