Together-ing

SCORES

FORMS

NOTES AS POEMS

(Dance of Companionship)

Dance of Companionship

maybe it's that simple

and I'm teaching myself how to dance

(12.2014)

Dance to keep yourself company

Let the sensation of your weight keep company to your dance

Keep company to the sensation of your weight with your dance

Let the visual sensations of light and depth keep your dance company

Dance to keep company to the sensations in your eyes

Keep company to the sounds in the space, the sounds of your dance, your sounds

Let the sounds in the space, and the sound of your dance, keep you company

Let your dance keep you company

Keep company to your dance

You keep me company, and I keep you company

We let our dances be each other's companions

Our dances accompany the space, and we are each other's company

Your feet press the floor your arm lifts your hand your head presses on your neck

whilst you undulate and stretch and draw lines that are a story

(11.2014)

Dancing at dusk under the blue pink and black sky

It's nothing complicated

Rather, it's functional

Keeping us warm

And the dirty wet ground

Keeps us standing

(no weather for rolling around)

So much skipping happens

So many sounds today

This is a different sort of quiet

A broiling well

A simmering dish

(09.2022)

learning how to live with dance

not to make a living

but to keep it alive

or just to let it live

let it live! Have mercy!

How can we live together?

Barthes has this fantasy of a large house and many friends

all living together

alone

I'm not sure if dance cares for friendship

but I do

(12.2014)

These days, I'm so tired

I can't dance very long

And it is a pleasure to write these notes

Slowly

While more dance-hungry ones do what they have to do

(03.2015)

Despite tiredness

And repetition

And the labour it takes to keep moving

It happened again, the taking over

of sensuality and formal pleasure

At some point I thought for myself

“I'm talking and talking and I have no idea about the movements I'm doing”

But trust was there

That the dance was taking care of itself

Jenny calls this “allowing oneself to not not move”

(09.2022)

Social dancing

without the drama of exposure

with the untragic possibility of being seen

Might be another formulation for the much-desired state of

“allowing yourself to be seen”

who phrased this? Deborah Hay?

(07.2022)

offer seats

choose the plates

pour some drinks

and the conversations will flow

you can go for a walk

(12.2014)

I can't understand why

But it seems that meaning

Has another weight today

A meaning that isn't attached to sensations

And barely to gesture

Maybe psychology more than theater?

I don't know

But it feels human

And social

And parallel to the dance

Social toddler, sensuous toddler, dance toddler.

(06.2018)

Question is: how to share the delight that conversing with dance can be?

Question is: how to honor this possibility with the most simple words?

To strip the practice from jargon

To find the language that reveals it

As special and possible

The work is knowledge is experience

It is not passed on like a piece of luggage

A vase, a tablecloth

It is communicated through contagion

Letting it take on your body – your person

And metabolized to become part of you.

And because this knowledge lives across so many

If I want to make a book I might need to interview many people

Collect the perspectives

Reveal the multiplied embodiments.

(07.2022)

Practicing Life

A sense of aliveness

That raises clarity

And slows down attachment

So we are moved,

Attached,

Ready to leave.

And then

Joy washes my face.

(07.2023)

dance to keep yourself company

to keep company to the sensation of your skin against the floor, against your clothes

to keep company to your weight moving

to keep company to the light changing in your eyes, and to the sounds of your body,

of my body, of the space inside and outside the studio

keeping company is what the nurse does, who reads a book by the sick child's bedside

the lady's companion strolls along, planning her upcoming holidays

(11.2014)

figures stacking up

are like a terrain

I give you a tour of that terrain

today

I've gone through it

stamped its ground

weeded and watered it

many times

Did I give you this tour on a motorcycle?

I hope you come again.

(10.21)

Eleanor once told me about this friend of hers

Rob I think

Who had his brain scanned as he was asked difficult questions

And as he was looking for the answers, searching his memory,

The brain was shooting out in every direction

(she said like spikes of an urchin)

And these tendrils exist also when we're not in panic

We stretch them and strengthen them

Brain Tendrils Fitness

Could be the name of the dance

Elements of a symmetrical relation of course companioning

The dance as companion receded a little

I must learn to keep it

Alive, autonomous.

I also brought a new figure

Loïc told me about 8 years ago:

that, as parents, we must shift from

guiding, directing, moulding circumstances

To embracing our role as that of the environment itself.

Parent as environment as companion.

(03.2018)

These simultaneous lines

processes

stories (storylines)

are not necessarily quick and flimsy

but I find myself spanning

this-this-this-this-this

on a steady, quick-quick tempo

When tiredness kicks in

And the space empties out a little

I start to be with all these lines

And with the dance

Then it can find its own tempo

(That took a while)

(09.2021)

That's too many partners

In me, in the others as a whole

In each other

I'll have to find a way

Draw a map to navigate that

Not so blank as to chase the Snark

Not so full as to blur everything

Ah, new companions showed up today

Guests of the same pension in the breakfast room

Sleepy eyes

Soap smells

Half hiding behind newspapers

Sharing the sugar

Passing the milk

(03.2015)

Think without demonstrating your thoughts

Sense without demonstrating your sensations

Feel without demonstrating your feelings

etc.

(07.2022)

A new figure showed up today

The emancipated shadow

As a shadow it is true to contours

And also to some moves

Yet distorted according to the source of light.

It also misses depth, color, mood, sound

and so much more from life.

And because it's emancipated

Sometimes it just goes its own way

to meet its body later on.

(04.2018)

here it comes again

the Zabriskie Point dream

the anonymous immersion

so alive so there

and it doesn’t matter who

yet who does make a difference democratic circulation of attachments, senses, sense

today it is a feast of absence and presence in abundance

(04.2015)

today's new companions

are wanderers letting each other

take some distance for a while

before catching up for picnic

walking side by side in silence

and suddenly telling a long or short story

walking on grass or on pebbles, along the same track

are limbs on a busy crossroad

old men, pregnant women,

toddlers and dogs and cars

in that instant on the same square meters

keeping company to that dance

(03.2015)

are two solos keeping company to a duet

Last week I brought up the taste for technicity

As another companion

This morning I blitz-called Anne to ask her for a technical angle

I could smuggle into the dance

She gave me symmetry. And reversibility.

I got so excited that the dance might have turnedInto more of a full-on technique class

Than I had intended.

Symmetry of the eyes, the ears, the lungs

(01.2018)

12, 18 persons

heating the room and their own skins

with stories, with language

slipping

and sensations, and movement

slipping

affairés et détendus

comme un jour de lessive

au lavomat du coin

qui fait aussi café

where we meet up and spend this dead time together

in peace

(08.2022)

I keep naming them as separate activities

Keeping, being kept

and will keep naming them as though it is

separate

until I can tell the difference as a sure thing

I'll keep on trying

to know the difference

another naming makes

all these companions that are named

are a matter of fact

and that might be the spell

that can make dance

just a matter of fact

(12.2014)

Ah. I think I found a new information for this dance:

never comment!

It doesn't need to be humorless

But irony or distance is no support here

(as little as correcting yourself)

Let go of control

make sure dance is more important than you

(07.2022)

Today i mixed everything up

into one big un-organised jumble

of occurrences and stories

anti-pedagogy: instead of sorting information

to guide a sense of coherence, confusions and over-abundance

like an all-you-can-eat offer

inviting customers to devise their own diet

(06.2018)

Like we declare our moving, “dancing”

we declare our writing, “poetry”

that is an invocation of form,

of complexity,

for itself

such a joy to let the sky

massage my eyeballs

and the declaration did its job

as an invocation:

we are all dancing now

without a doubt

(09.2022)

Today was less people, lower energy, more pausing

(05.2018)

First felt like oiling the joints

- bones, knobs of space and lightness -

Then opening up the door for images

(which sometimes are feelings or sensations)

then noticing the dance that had found its way in.

a warm-up indeed

of us as persons

and of us as a group

(09.2022)

oh mind how busy today

making toes busy hands busy ears busy shoulders busy

yet not very mindful

companionship is a place that comes along

a spacious place

tomorrow i shall tidy up before getting started

so dance might have more room

say hello muscles and lungs and bones

so dance might have more room

say hi dance how do you do

let conversations echo in far and close corners

(01.2015)

To be a companion:

offer presence

offer attention

don't overwhelm with your presence

or call for too much attention

do not vanish either

allow being seen

don't examine to the point of uncomfort

or demand to be guided

don't be ignorant though

acknowledge that you see

This sounds like a complicated etiquette

A Chinese code of yin and yang

There is a trick to escape moral codes

Reach the materiality of this mode

The trick is a doing

Cannot be a saying

Keep language oblique

Away from order and designation

Another naming of the issue would be:

How to be there as a person, fully

and not make dance a personal matter?

(07.2022)

SCORES

FORMS

NOTES AS POEMS

(Dance of Companionship)

Dance of Companionship

Ah. I think I found a new information for this dance:

never comment!

It doesn't need to be humorless

But irony or distance is no support here

(as little as correcting yourself)

Let go of control

make sure dance is more important than you

(07.2022)

That's too many partners

In me, in the others as a whole

In each other

I'll have to find a way

Draw a map to navigate that

Not so blank as to chase the Snark

Not so full as to blur everything

Ah, new companions showed up today

Guests of the same pension in the breakfast room

Sleepy eyes

Soap smells

Half hiding behind newspapers

Sharing the sugar

Passing the milk

(03.2015)

maybe it's that simple

and I'm teaching myself how to dance

(12.2014)

dance to keep yourself company

to keep company to the sensation of your skin against the floor, against your clothes

to keep company to your weight moving

to keep company to the light changing in your eyes, and to the sounds of your body,

of my body, of the space inside and outside the studio

keeping company is what the nurse does, who reads a book by the sick child's bedside

the lady's companion strolls along, planning her upcoming holidays

(11.2014)

Eleanor once told me about this friend of hers

Rob I think

Who had his brain scanned as he was asked difficult questions

And as he was looking for the answers, searching his memory,

The brain was shooting out in every direction

(she said like spikes of an urchin)

And these tendrils exist also when we're not in panic

We stretch them and strengthen them

Brain Tendrils Fitness

Could be the name of the dance

Elements of a symmetrical relation of course companioning

The dance as companion receded a little

I must learn to keep it

Alive, autonomous.

I also brought a new figure

Loïc told me about 8 years ago:

that, as parents, we must shift from

guiding, directing, moulding circumstances

To embracing our role as that of the environment itself.

Parent as environment as companion.

(03.2018)

I can't understand why

But it seems that meaning

Has another weight today

A meaning that isn't attached to sensations

And barely to gesture

Maybe psychology more than theater?

I don't know

But it feels human

And social

And parallel to the dance

Social toddler, sensuous toddler, dance toddler.

(06.2018)

oh mind how busy today

making toes busy hands busy ears busy shoulders busy

yet not very mindful

companionship is a place that comes along

a spacious place

tomorrow i shall tidy up before getting started

so dance might have more room

say hello muscles and lungs and bones

so dance might have more room

say hi dance how do you do

let conversations echo in far and close corners

(01.2015)

learning how to live with dance

not to make a living

but to keep it alive

or just to let it live

let it live! Have mercy!

How can we live together?

Barthes has this fantasy of a large house and many friends

all living together

alone

I'm not sure if dance cares for friendship

but I do

(12.2014)

To be a companion:

offer presence

offer attention

don't overwhelm with your presence

or call for too much attention

do not vanish either

allow being seen

don't examine to the point of uncomfort

or demand to be guided

don't be ignorant though

acknowledge that you see

This sounds like a complicated etiquette

A Chinese code of yin and yang

There is a trick to escape moral codes

Reach the materiality of this mode

The trick is a doing

Cannot be a saying

Keep language oblique

Away from order and designation

Another naming of the issue would be:

How to be there as a person, fully

and not make dance a personal matter?

(07.2022)

Last week I brought up the taste for technicity

As another companion

This morning I blitz-called Anne to ask her for a technical angle

I could smuggle into the dance

She gave me symmetry. And reversibility.

I got so excited that the dance might have turnedInto more of a full-on technique class

Than I had intended.

Symmetry of the eyes, the ears, the lungs

(01.2018)

Question is: how to share the delight that conversing with dance can be?

Question is: how to honor this possibility with the most simple words?

To strip the practice from jargon

To find the language that reveals it

As special and possible

The work is knowledge is experience

It is not passed on like a piece of luggage

A vase, a tablecloth

It is communicated through contagion

Letting it take on your body – your person

And metabolized to become part of you.

And because this knowledge lives across so many

If I want to make a book I might need to interview many people

Collect the perspectives

Reveal the multiplied embodiments.

(07.2022)

here it comes again

the Zabriskie Point dream

the anonymous immersion

so alive so there

and it doesn’t matter who

yet who does make a difference democratic circulation of attachments, senses, sense

today it is a feast of absence and presence in abundance

(04.2015)

Social dancing

without the drama of exposure

with the untragic possibility of being seen

Might be another formulation for the much-desired state of

“allowing yourself to be seen”

who phrased this? Deborah Hay?

(07.2022)

Dance to keep yourself company

Let the sensation of your weight keep company to your dance

Keep company to the sensation of your weight with your dance

Let the visual sensations of light and depth keep your dance company

Dance to keep company to the sensations in your eyes

Keep company to the sounds in the space, the sounds of your dance, your sounds

Let the sounds in the space, and the sound of your dance, keep you company

Let your dance keep you company

Keep company to your dance

You keep me company, and I keep you company

We let our dances be each other's companions

Our dances accompany the space, and we are each other's company

Your feet press the floor your arm lifts your hand your head presses on your neck

whilst you undulate and stretch and draw lines that are a story

(11.2014)

Dancing at dusk under the blue pink and black sky

It's nothing complicated

Rather, it's functional

Keeping us warm

And the dirty wet ground

Keeps us standing

(no weather for rolling around)

So much skipping happens

So many sounds today

This is a different sort of quiet

A broiling well

A simmering dish

(09.2022)

Despite tiredness

And repetition

And the labour it takes to keep moving

It happened again, the taking over

of sensuality and formal pleasure

At some point I thought for myself

“I'm talking and talking and I have no idea about the movements I'm doing”

But trust was there

That the dance was taking care of itself

Jenny calls this “allowing oneself to not not move”

(09.2022)

Think without demonstrating your thoughts

Sense without demonstrating your sensations

Feel without demonstrating your feelings

etc.

(07.2022)

First felt like oiling the joints

- bones, knobs of space and lightness -

Then opening up the door for images

(which sometimes are feelings or sensations)

then noticing the dance that had found its way in.

a warm-up indeed

of us as persons

and of us as a group

(09.2022)

I keep naming them as separate activities

Keeping, being kept

and will keep naming them as though it is

separate

until I can tell the difference as a sure thing

I'll keep on trying

to know the difference

another naming makes

all these companions that are named

are a matter of fact

and that might be the spell

that can make dance

just a matter of fact

(12.2014)

offer seats

choose the plates

pour some drinks

and the conversations will flow

you can go for a walk

(12.2014)

12, 18 persons

heating the room and their own skins

with stories, with language

slipping

and sensations, and movement

slipping

affairés et détendus

comme un jour de lessive

au lavomat du coin

qui fait aussi café

where we meet up and spend this dead time together

in peace

(08.2022)

Like we declare our moving, “dancing”

we declare our writing, “poetry”

that is an invocation of form,

of complexity,

for itself

such a joy to let the sky

massage my eyeballs

and the declaration did its job

as an invocation:

we are all dancing now

without a doubt

(09.2022)

These simultaneous lines

processes

stories (storylines)

are not necessarily quick and flimsy

but I find myself spanning

this-this-this-this-this

on a steady, quick-quick tempo

When tiredness kicks in

And the space empties out a little

I start to be with all these lines

And with the dance

Then it can find its own tempo

(That took a while)

(09.2021)

Today was less people, lower energy, more pausing

(05.2018)

A new figure showed up today

The emancipated shadow

As a shadow it is true to contours

And also to some moves

Yet distorted according to the source of light.

It also misses depth, color, mood, sound

and so much more from life.

And because it's emancipated

Sometimes it just goes its own way

to meet its body later on.

(04.2018)

Practicing Life

A sense of aliveness

That raises clarity

And slows down attachment

So we are moved,

Attached,

Ready to leave.

And then

Joy washes my face.

(07.2023)

today's new companions

are wanderers letting each other

take some distance for a while

before catching up for picnic

walking side by side in silence

and suddenly telling a long or short story

walking on grass or on pebbles, along the same track

are limbs on a busy crossroad

old men, pregnant women,

toddlers and dogs and cars

in that instant on the same square meters

keeping company to that dance

(03.2015)

are two solos keeping company to a duet

Today i mixed everything up

into one big un-organised jumble

of occurrences and stories

anti-pedagogy: instead of sorting information

to guide a sense of coherence, confusions and over-abundance

like an all-you-can-eat offer

inviting customers to devise their own diet

(06.2018)

These days, I'm so tired

I can't dance very long

And it is a pleasure to write these notes

Slowly

While more dance-hungry ones do what they have to do

(03.2015)

figures stacking up

are like a terrain

I give you a tour of that terrain

today

I've gone through it

stamped its ground

weeded and watered it

many times

Did I give you this tour on a motorcycle?

I hope you come again.

(10.21)