NOTES AS POEMS
(Dance of Companionship)
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 holiday
(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)
| learning how to live with dance |
| uh |
| 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)
maybe it's that simple
and I'm teaching myself how to dance
(12.2014)
offer seats
choose the plates
pour some drinks
and the conversations will flow
you can go for a walk
(12.2014)
| 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) |
| 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) |
| 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) |
| 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 |
|
|
|
are two solos keeping company to a duet
(03.2015) |
| 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)
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)
| 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) |
Today was less people, lower energy, more pausing
(05.2018)
| 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)
| 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)
| 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) |
| 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) |
| 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) |
| 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) |
| 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) |
| 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) |
| 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) |
| Think without demonstrating your thoughts |
| Sense without demonstrating your sensations |
| Feel without demonstrating your feelings |
|
etc. (07.2022) |
| 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) |
| 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) |
| 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) |
| 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) |
| 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) |
Each session of the Dance of Companionship ends with a moment when people take turns to write notes on the dance, in the form of poetry. Writing keeps company to the dancing of others, dancing keeps company to those writing. This is a selection from my notes, taken since 2014.
NOTES AS POEMS
(Dance of Companionship)
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 holiday
(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)
| learning how to live with dance |
| uh |
| 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)
maybe it's that simple
and I'm teaching myself how to dance
(12.2014)
offer seats
choose the plates
pour some drinks
and the conversations will flow
you can go for a walk
(12.2014)
| 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) |
| 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) |
| 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) |
| 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 |
|
|
|
are two solos keeping company to a duet
(03.2015) |
| 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)
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)
| 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) |
Today was less people, lower energy, more pausing
(05.2018)
| 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)
| 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)
| 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) |
| 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) |
| 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) |
| 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) |
| 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) |
| 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) |
| 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) |
| Think without demonstrating your thoughts |
| Sense without demonstrating your sensations |
| Feel without demonstrating your feelings |
|
etc. (07.2022) |
| 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) |
| 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) |
| 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) |
| 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) |
| 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) |
Each session of the Dance of Companionship ends with a moment when people take turns to write notes on the dance, in the form of poetry. Writing keeps company to the dancing of others, dancing keeps company to those writing. This is a selection from my notes, taken since 2014.