25 December, 2009

What happened in one year experience/ Xavi


Dear students from past, future students and everybody who is visiting  this page or is having some interests in the subbody school.  

I would like to share with you my last few months, my thinkings, my revelations and insights and in general I will try to put light in some things that I don’t know why they are big truths without argument, just by living life dancing nine months in this school.

A western mentality.

During the first semester I had many struggles which still now I have to work on them to become more transparent during my dance. I had to change my way of being on scene. The main problems were how to stop thinking, how to calm down my ego, how to throw out my theater habits, how to release from the tension of showing something to others, how to release from my judgment about what is butoh, the judgment with the rest of students, how to learn deeply resonating with others, how to keep some magic moments with the outside and the inside in my body for creation, how to understand the instructions from Lee...

Many work to do which apparently seemed impossible made me many struggles. So, during the first semester I couldn't solve at all this problems. But after coming back from holidays I realize that not me, my body was becoming friend of some movements, also I could control more my body, and listen more subtle. Some body borders (deep sensations, movements, hidden parts...) were crossed, and this give me the force to continue. This was a deeply living revelation for me.

So, next step was how to become more transparent during the dancing. For me, become transparent, means to find real movements, necessary movements which my life is asking deeply, overcome more borders, make the invisible imaginary more visible, be moved, just be without intension or tensions, become empty, go out from my human actual condition (maybe become another kind of human which could be in another moment in the universal history). Many interpretations or ways to understand or put some intuition using words to a living experience. Then, suddenly, I don't know how and why, I started to remember the dance and the self-research of Aska (a student from first semester) during my meditations in movements her subbody spirit visit me. It was guiding me in many ways: the best way for to follow the instructions, the way to follow my most necessary tendency becoming oneness with my mind and body (with all, I mean also with my ego, thinking and judgment behind my ears). I started also to play with the state of my mind when my body is between falling down and not, going deep on the relation with the gravity, when my body is very tired or sleepy, and with spontaneous movements.

To follow Lee's instructions, I understand that sometimes they are not completely instructions as we understand like students and a teacher in modern conception. At one point of this nine months process, for me they have to be understand not by thinking, by body, life and real necessities. This means that sometimes I didn't hear them, sometimes they became good suggestions to explore, sometimes not, sometimes I developed my own suggestions and sometimes I just resonate with his voice or with his body. The first step is to listen to my body and my life, that means my body condition (which is able to change at any moment by the power of the imagination forces) and asking myself what I want to do the most (a response which comes without the language channel). My teachers were the rest of the students, a monkey in the swimming pool, a suggestion from Lee, a plant swaying by the wind, an empty space, an object, an insect, the himalaya mountain, a movement to develop, an state of mind, a memory, an imaginary, an emotion...Infinite.    

Like this I open new doors to follow the condition of transparency.

A necessary dance.

Most of Fridays I had another struggle: why I have to perform today? Why the audience is there and I'm here in this part of the stage? I tried many things to release from this struggle which makes me not find the necessity of dancing in these precise moments and not just being during dancing. So I tried many things. I said once to Lee: today I don't perform. And I taste this sensation of not performing. Another day my performance was based just to walk in the garden, feel the audience, the sun, the grass and the wind, the mountains and the spirits around and don't react at all. Like this experiences and meditations with the struggles I could slowly release from the pressure of perform and I could find that the moment of perform is a gift, a precious opportunity to share a magic moment with the world.

What is dance?

These words came to me as a big revelation one day after a Friday performance. If dance is life, why I just have the necessity of dancing and being moved during the school timing? One day I was in my room washing dishes with music. Suddenly I realize that  my body was making a daily action but also at same time I was moved by music like an inner necessary  instinct. A big non-logic truth appeared to me: there exists a subtle delicate balance between what's my body asking for and an inner instinct of being moved  by anything (sound, imaginary, character, wind, emotion...). That Friday, I put music, I opened all channels and I didn't put a choreography on stage or something.. Like this everything could happen in any moment without prevention. Starting from these inner instinct of being moved by sound, a very rich and fresh experiment appeared. Because I surprised myself in a lot of moments, the audience was also surprised,  I could share the unexpectedness. My concept of dance completely change after this experience. Now there  can be a direct connection between life and dance. Dance as a way of life, not as an attitude, not as a job, not as a definition or a conception of ourselves as dancers, not as a culture, not as a classification of dances. Another door is open to give light about the question of what is dance. After the integration of  this conception, my daily life started to sway from outside between a healthy madness and chaos because I could dance in every moment everything.

The Possessed body.

When we work about the possessed body, another door to explore was opened for me. We study a little of shamanism. We dance and try with music, being possessed. A revelation for me was that we could easily enter in the non-dual world by the non controlling movements or states of mind, freaking out, releasing from everything. A very dangerous work, because by this way we can really go deep without controlling or taking distance from things that can hurt us. But we were already trained for this. So it was for me another step to enter in the non-dual world without controlling but being conscious that I'm not controlling, be friend with these state without scares.

The Creation

One of the most big struggle for me. I couldn't find the necessity of creation, nothing deeply to dance and share. My dance already became a dance from improvisation and transparency, so outside it was very rich for me because many stimulations and qualia appeared. But now I had to keep something, and I didn't wanted to lose the real, necessary movements and the transparency. I started to think too much and that's why a big dualism appeared to me: improvisation against choreography. This problem also appeared to me during the creation of the first semester which I couldn't solve. That's why my first experiment was completely a choreography of precise movements and states which didn't give me a non-logic sense at all. Now,  when I improvised  I couldn't keep the interesting moments from the improvisation and when I danced with a choreography, nothing happened to me and it was a fake dance. But I didn't give up. There must be a way. And the facilities and relaxing situation in the school with just three students were perfect to work on it. For five weeks of creation process, only last two weeks I could find a way. In a position of rolling on the ground I improvised, in a character I improvised, with a big cloth and a hat I improvised. Things that I don't know why I want to work on it. By dancing it many times I realized that there were patterns that repeated by an unknown necessity. But the last point was how to find the connections and the ending, like a total whole piece. I tried many times by thinking, making different structures. Many insecurities appeared. Then Chiara told me one day to just dance it many times without planning parts and the responses will come. Like this I could paste many parts. Finally Lee suggested me to dance all parts and subbodies and struggles and spontaneous movements at same time with a crazy music, as I did in one of the parts before, at the ending. Like this a deep necessity came for ending of my last performance. Dancing it many times and leaving spaces for necessary or spontaneous movements. A choreography which allows the improvisation it becomes something that is not completely an improvisation and not completely a choreography. 

So now I realize that I create something, a fetus of my own dance style which is open to be develop in everything and in every place, something from where I can polish and cut and add. For example the cloth that I'm using I already painted and give it life as a friend of my dance, as a spirit which is guiding me. Like this I find a process of creation which has just start and I hope I would be able to continue for the next uncertain future. I hope to continue learning from others, exploring different parts of my body, connections between body-mind-outside, discovering and dancing while living. Because now for me dance is life and this dance can be everything of human and not human, this world and other worlds, movement and stillness, daily life, visible and invisible, logic and non-logic, language and silence.

This is the method of the non-method in which slowly you can overcome your own struggles and create your own dance far away from conceptions and classifications. With your own effort which results more pleasant. To release from I want to do this or become like this and just find the responses from listening our lives throw our bodies. For me this and the other revelations above are the most rich gifts that I take after nine months in this school. Thank you Lee also for your big effort trying to manage all subbodies from all students through your dreams every night and your dedication. Giving and creating thousands of suggestions to help us, becoming flexible as a real guide, becoming a source of knowledge in all the ways, supporting everyday our training and dance and maintain the school with passion and love.

Hope to meet next year in the first edition of the Himalaya Butoh Festival,

Xavi