Writings on (re)MOVE: (re)TURN | April 2016 (Post 1/3)

(re)MOVE: Back Towards Again the (re)TURN Facing
Performed April, 2016
Velocity Dance Center
Seattle, WA

An evening of dance and live music ventures into personal and feminist injustices towards the earth and the female body, with original compositions by Michael Owcharuk, Nate Omdal and internationally-recognized, Wayne Horvitz.

CLICK HERE for more information, photos, and videos of the work >>

Full of turbulent exchanges, (re) MOVE: (re) TURN pulls from thousands of years of scientific, philosophical and spiritual writing on connections between women and the earth. Five female dancers weave patterns of separation and alliance, drawing connections between our bodies and the lands we inhabit. Chinese Five Element philosophy, mythical and mystical stories of the divine feminine, and the current denigration of the female voice inform Stevens’ choreography. This evening-length collaboration evokes ancient and forgotten truths as a call to action. Can a loving change be recovered?

(re)MOVE is a 70 minute dance with music by three Seattle composers. Movements I & II from These Hills of Glory by Wayne Horvitz are followed by The Upward Spiral by Michael Owcharuk (Commissioned by KSD). Movements III and IV from These Hills of Glory resume, leading to the final piece, A Day in the Life by Nate Omdal (Commissioned by KSD).

In December 2014, stirrings of inspiration for this dance began when a poem burst forth from me. I struggled with understanding this work pouring out of me like an offering.

Months ago during the incipient stage of (re)MOVE, I described it as an “earth exploration,” at the intersection of science, philosophy, art, and the movements of spirit toward a (re)FORM of imagination for our time. I believe that movement is the ultimate basis for all matter and matters. It was movement that birthed and evolved this work, connecting all the meanings and ideas that sought both to emerge and converge in this dance form. It is meant to be a return to something unnamable that has been and always will be.

The last five years I have journeyed through a process of overcoming, of moving toward myself and my real work. And if DJ Spooky is right, that “imagination is the greatest renewable resource,” perhaps this work of imagination may transform fear and hate into a renewable love that reaches beyond the walls of the rehearsal space and performance venue.

It has never been my intention to force onto viewers my musings and broodings, nor my oneiric hopes or affirmations of life in all its joy and suffering. Rather, I attempt to embody these concerns of my time and my relationship to history and traditions, leaving viewers to have their own experiences through the work.

One personal side of (re)MOVE is expressed in the poem below. In future posts I will begin to uncover, as much as I am able, other sides of the work; and give more specific details of the earth explorations ––ancient, present, and future­­––from science, philosophy, and movements of spirit (theology, religion, mysticism) that stir in this work. It is what I like to call, “Capturing Movement on the Page”, an elusive effort to make concrete the ethereal act of movement-­art-­becoming.

This work is personal and it is feminist. It is a work for the earth and for humanity. It is an art and practice of movement in contemplation of injustice and transformational healing, as it concerns women and the Earth.

Releasing myself from the tyranny of false beliefs, from the forces that denigrate the voice of the feminine, from the hegemony of my current cultural time, I (re)MOVE again in each (re)TURN to truly (re)BIND bones and tissues with a spiritual ligament to the essence of what truly matters. As Pierre Teilhard de Chardin once said, “Driven by the forces of love, the fragments of the world seek each other so that the world may come into being.” My fragments of imagination through this dance and writing process reach for what is being (re)FORMed and (re)TURNed. This movement flows toward hope through this turbulent exchange with our time and awakening. It is a movement of love.

Reframing

(re)MOVE

out of bent

(re)lease from boxes.

Back

toward again

the

(re)TURN facing.

|Inner contains the outer|

Flow

(Un)bound

my flow

is your flow

is / are / AM

The great free-flow interchange.

No innovation in all

(re)FORM!

Body not inventive at

the boundaries

of

(FREE)                                                                                                                                                                      radical

re:

movement

of

the

root

of

essence and BEING.