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Video Clips from Movement Research at the Judson Church “About Town”, Fall Festival at Danspace Project, November 28, 2011

Featuring works by Leigh Evans and Raïna von Waldenburg

MOVEMENT RESEARCH FESTIVAL FALL 2011:
DEVOTION/RIGOR/SUSTAINABILITY
The 20^th Year Celebration
Curated by Sondra Loring and K.J. Holmes

Read the rest of this entry »

Epilogue leads to legend.

Merrian Webster etymology:

Epilogue – to say in addition, from epi – + legein – to say – more at legend

Legend – to gather, select, read – (logos – speech, word, reason)

This afternoon is the last event of the MR Fall Festival.  I’m holding many days, hours, minutes of this past week of the happenings of Devotion/Rigor/Sustainability in me.  To say more about.  Words and the placement of them.  Choreography, occupying space.  Dance, not instead of.  Questions that collide with impressions.

Today’s Epilogue at 100 Grand is, as epilogues can be, not just a summarization of what has already occurred.  It is not explanation of past or determination of the future.  It exists in the moment as something in itself, a frame for the continuation of the beginning of the closing of a book, not just a chapter.

Come and read yourself into existence today, 2:30 – 5:30.

I’ll scribe on it, and other musings, later when I have added yet another punctuation to this time.

K.J. Holmes, Co-Curator, Facilitator, inventor

The first day and evening of the Fall Festival was so incredible.  From Miguel’s passionate class to Raina’s unique wildness to Leigh’s so beautiful Surrender, I am so moved by the vast amounts of heart in our midst.  I am devoted to these artists forever.

Please come and partake!  Class with Juylyen Hamilton and Raina today!  Studies project tomorrow night…

More later, I go surrender to this morning’s wild wind and find my passion in my dancing.

K.J. Holmes, co-curator MRFF

I interviewed brilliant improviser Lisa Nelson via skype yesterday.  First skype experience for me.  I loved the weird delay and sudden stops of Lisa’s video image as we were talking.  Reminds me now of the work I have done with her, the Tuning Score.  Measuring time in a single image, how long can we look at one thing without wanting it to stay the same, to change, to transform, to watch it die or find a verbal call to reconstitute it.  We do this again and again.  As we improvise in our work, in our lives.  The sense that time is not linear, but spirallic.  My computer tells me that spirallic is not a word.  We dancers make up our own words to describe a process of animating the physical language we are.  Did language not come from what we do, what are actions were? Creating our desires or desiring to create. To survive beyond desire, the desire to speak, to do more than survive.  To do it well?  Is being comfortable a sign of wellness?  Does surviving well mean we lose the edge to our curiosities?  Well, deep down, passing through layers of silt and stone, to find clean water.  Pull it up.  Drink it.

Two weeks until the first class of the Movement Research Fall Festival.  It’s already started…

K.J. Holmes, Co-Curator MRFF, among other things…

Driving through the rain last night, heading right smack into a rainbow on I90, like he was the treasure I was headed toward.  No doubt about that.  I was excited, nervous, and slightly lost, on my way to Earthdance.  And then there it was, all lit up at the top of the hill, just like the last time I saw it.  God, I love that place.  I scrambled out of my car, left the dog in the front seat, and ran up the stairs.  Steve was just coming out of the main house, and we hopped in his truck to go up to the B&B of sorts, to have some quiet.  So stay tuned, you’ll hear the interview right here at MR, ‘cause I got it, the recorder worked and everything! And he WAS everything; charming, thoughtful, dismissive, honest and very moving.  Very, very moving.

Sondra Loring, co-curator of the MR Fall Festival 2011

In the Meriam Webster definition of Rigor – “2. is short for rigor mortis…  From Latin, to stiffen.”

In beginning this blog posting, I have passed through a bit of this. A kind of holding.  And to write  requires me to have the first part of the definition of rigor – “1. the quality of being extremely thorough, exhaustive or accurate; severity or strictness.”

Rigor added to a process engages a ceasing of other activities, a channeling of focus on a singular attention.  It is more than discipline; it is having some kind of fortitude to use all that usually distracts one towards a particular frame, fulfilling it.  In a commitment or promise or agreement to undertake something with another or others with an independent mental engagement, I have to honor that commitment, that promise, that agreement.  I cannot just go bake more muffins (although I did this morning, hence eating while typing – a blur of my rigor or sustenance for it?)

So, o.k. then there is Sustainability. Read the rest of this entry »