off to Wales

I want to write something here before I go off to Wales for my second Discipline of Freedom workshop; my sixth of these workshops with either Kath Burlinson or Paul Oertel in two years.

I've been finding it less easy to write here recently. Perhaps this is indicative of the fact that this is a period of disconnection; a refractory period, after such an intense and focussed period leading up to the show. Breathing in, and breathing out. Feed, digest, rest, act. Act, rest, digest, feed. Act, digest, rest, feed.

In addition, some of the things that are coming up in the workshops now are too deep, too personal to write here. That's always been the case, but what comes up seems to get harder, and to be more fundamental, in terms of whatever the problems, issues, struggles, difficulties are in relation to being free to create as you want to create.

I've been pondering again on that quote of Paul's:

Never belabour your creativity.

Follow the juice.

Outsmart yourself by following the fun.

Follow the stream that is open.

Thinking about the streams that were open, I decided that:

• movement is now relatively open; it's the one area where I never had an agenda
• painting is now relatively open, at least in terms of doing it as a private activity
• sandpainting has appeared, and is asking to unite these two areas
• music and voice are still quite stuck, particularly in performance

I came to the conclusion that I wanted to work both with what's stuck and also with what's open. In terms of stuckness, I want to work with breath, voice, body, grounding, communication, staying present. In terms of what's open, I want to work with understanding and accepting that some forms come more easily now, and that there's no need to ask more of them, or try to push them over some kind of an edge, to try to make them get hard again. And then to focus on where that more easily coming work is trying to go.

The sand wants to join up with music and movement. And the painting wants to find out more about the Mattanchery thing; the Indian dancers and Indian forms that keep trying to find their way in...



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