Responses to Kaz Dance HUMAN’s performance: Theater “Curtain Call”
Ellen Kaz directed this movement/voice piece with 5 dancers, some of whom used wheel chairs.
Change
dance with wheels on your feet
Change
touch me with your voice
Change
touch me with your flesh
Change
dance, connect the changes
-anonymous
struggle and secrets
fighting invisible battles with your own private Idaho
scratching at the glass
no traction
locked
flip a lever
and suddenly mobile
moving, flowing
reaching out
looking out
and finding
others
connection
joy
exuberance
sharing
oh where
is the lever
-Mary Ramsay
I am such a beginner, Beginner’s Mind, open mind
-Kaçenka Hruby
Seeing how your arms
fly into the blue, carrying
the rest of anchored you,
unleashed, a child’s joyous
windy run across the field,
it’s as good as it gets.
And seeing how I settle,
remembering and recognizing
that inner breeze I felt
on the rapids, that’s where,
watching, I went. Thank you.
-Christie Svane
It was beautiful to see Deb reach her arms into the air and move them with complete abandon. The joy on all the women’s faces was as delightful as a gentle waterfall on a hot summer’s day. The way they framed each other’s faces with the bend of an arm or the arch of a reach was beautiful. The movement of the 5 women – fluid, circular, connecting with each other – was and continues to be an inspirational experience.
-Linda Stenlund
The children I never had crawl through
the partition where the sun leaks through
They have a game they play w/out words
but there is a language – and a rhythm
often times shadows dance long and
sinuously while outside leaves prepare
for winter. Moments like these last
through seasons. Moments like these transcend
the fears that haunt the floorboards.
Moments like these whisper as they
fade into dreams & memories.
-Kent Alexander
That was beautiful. Integrated. What I mean by that is that ultimately – or actually from the very beginning – I didn’t feel that – oh, that person is disabled, that person is not. The choreography was such that even those words didn’t really matter. No one was disabled. Or everyone was. It was for me another of those experiences that I am so moved by – it’s the Danes putting on their yellow stars so that everyone was Jewish – or no-one – and confounding the Nazis. What a joy – to see beauty in everyone’s arms and faces, in everyone’s gestures, and most of all, to feel both the solitude of the human experience and the possibility of utter connectedness. What beauty in that. And joy. I want to be part of that.
-Randi Stein
“Lifting the Curtain” this is the sequel
Veils. double consciousness. Web. Dulas
conference all weekend. words. but
here. we move
smiling, swimming, strokes
the air, head to head, leaning, trusting
in a wheelchair named Quickie
but not in a hurry – sensuous,
noticing, smooth operator smooth operator
I wonder, does the other chair
have a name?
-Gretchen Courage
Wonderland
Alice in Wonderland
Things are not as they
appear
As a wheelchair plie
through time
With grace on wings.
Sheer pleasure in the
moving.
Clear joy upon all
faces.
I am taken into my
body’s desires
to stretch & roll &
fly.
-Mary Ramsay
A calming body smile from
your gentle pace.
Your tender touches as you moved.
Exciement of fast wheelchair circles.
Strong support to each other
Exuberance and time – to be present;
to tears, to body, to spirit, to us.
-Alton Wasson
Graceful, flowing, wheelchairs that glide
Smiling, happy, people with pride
-anonymous
Stirring
in my belly.
deepening in.
Warm.
Edgy.
Yikes!
-Christine Olsen
fragments tonight. all of me.
tiny little pieces. all day.
i didn’t know
until i listened
will i always feel this?
the spaces between
the spiral in me more space
than form.
always
will i always stand alone?
i want to be inside the curve of your arm.
i want to enter that space.
i watch you watching
your watching you’re the space
here the curve of your arm
i want to enter here.
-Marcia Black
Breathe
Wrapped in joy wrapped in possibility hope,
tears, Opening Opening Opening
For dancer and watcher become one
We are aware only of wholeness
-Caroline Wenck
5 candles 5 wicks
5 flames dance
in the sudden breath
long and low and
slowly given through
the lips of the maker
of music –
-Kathleen Shewman
Musicismovingthrubodies
somebodiesrollinginchairs.
Touch is accessible.
Heart is close by.
Head upon shoulder.
We lean.
We come forth.
-Ziji Beth Goren
Flowing energy > sharing energy. Releasing.
Interplay of movement b/t people. Balancing.
Life > change, different shapes & forms.
-anonymous
Backs
Spines
and the importance of arms shapes Vees?
eyes open
eyes closed
wheels
feet
an empty
chair
-anonymous
did we did we did we
did we did we did we
did we did
-Ali de Groot
sweet, sweet, sweet face smiling
heart says yes-no, yes-no, yes-yes!
body histories
part of me wishing it had wheels; which part?
change, change, change, change
connect, change, contact, change
moving still,
still moving: curtain call.
I couldn’t have predicted how beautiful,
all around me
-------so sweet------
Congratulations Deb, Ali, Kaçenka, Katie & me.
-Ellen Kaz
Responses to Ziji Beth Goren’s performance
Ziji Beth Goren read poetry, mostly about living with the indigenous people of Papua New Guinea.
I wonder where feet go when
the dancing and the chanting and the
swaying hips find their
place beneath the moonlight?
Rocks, osmoth, sounds & links
that stream…..that river….. it
flows into genetic code into
the air and the clouds. Shh!
I hear the feet coming.
-Kent Alexander
1995 or so Apache ceremony 3 days long
that rhythmic drum dance step
up & back. young women & friends
cum dancers, fire, blessings. What do I do
1 of 3 white people. Father Ed – white man
knew so much his Franciscan rites
& that hat. step up & back.
up & back. He sd
mass w/ sage & eagle feathers
out the old wind of missionary
that the women of the sweat
lodge told me about
deny your past
be that kind of Christian
And the other white person at
the ceremony? a 12 yr old
girl. “You mean everybody knows
she’s started her period?!”
Spruce on the wind.
-Gretchen Courage
My head is filled with words
The edges blur between
Georgia & New Guinea
& the summit.
But I can see still
the motion of the
village far away
The sway & run &
row of bodies were
my own
Seething with life in mud.
-Mary Ramsay
Yams Purple with life
Wide with Time to town
In the rock, a well, a skull, picked clean by birds
Give me to gravity
Give me to gravity – a request sure to be granted.
My weight waiting
gravelling pool
not dry, not dust:
Rust, then liquid, then air.
-Ellen Kaz
“The ear that was like a womb.” Now that image stopped me in my tracks.
-Randi Stein
Who of us would return?
Who of us would come back to this world of
the work-week
and media saturated evenings
to this world of commuters and
unknown neighbors
and nourishment from places
better left unknown
Who of us would return
if we ventured out and found the spirit land
our tribe
our truth
our nature
our home
Who of us would return and for what reasons?
comfort?
convenience?
connection with the familiarity of disconnection?
Who of us could weather the challenges of living in so much abundance?
-M
“Decorated with feathers
and fear of the unknown”
Mud and stone, she comes
back to warm stone – this
makes me happy, I feel it
on my body. My forehead
opens in the jungle clearing,
dugout canoes arrive below
me, hilltop wind running &
singing, I’m there, no problem,
I’m there.
How we find, in a lifetime,
the tribe we have been
missing. How tonight I feel
my tribe right here, remembering
itself.
-Christie Svane
Pierced flesh
painted faces
arms & legs & other creatures
in the club
to the beat
in the endless techno heat
-Ali de Groot
moving images through my head
a dream, a memory, or from the unknown?
mesmerizing and hypnotic tales
-anonymous
Your light voice speaking words
Create sparks that flicker & flash
in the dark space of my mind.
A lightning bug with images.
-Christina Olsen
Dug out canoes far away from here
still sounding with each paddle stroke,
A girl “ti ti” teaching an ancient song
repeating & repeating.
Time to go into the highlands
to find our bodies and on songs-
lost since the stone age.
-Alton Wasson
will i always stand here?
my body painted with exhaustion
my body painted with stubbornness
bits and pieces of sesire stuck
here and there.
these are old paints
they wrinkle and crack
what new paints will i choose
-Marcia Black
Ancestors Smile as we Cautiously
observe, remembering oneness
-Caroline Wenck
Purple yams
a place to squat
imainge the frost
way up river
hovering over
the knowing stone
-anonymous
I love the stories about the New Guinea stone-age people.
I too felt at home in NYC’s Natural Museum of History
and I worked at school for Margaret Mead Film Festival.
I love the willingness to become so much a part of primal,
exultant, tribal people, dance, song, ceremony, mud.
I am glad to recognize a fellow Mt. Holyoke writer,
though we have perhaps not met yet. I like the journey of the spruce on wind. The story it creates. The deafening shot,
the upside down fetus of an ear. Exchange middle, beginning, end.
I love this Valley & the art/writing/movement we create here.
-Kaçenka Hruby
Spruce on the wind of her message
mountains here follow the horizon
How is Hadley a sister to the Nile?
I am a tree wearing my needles
like the shawl of my dear old Grandmother
The moment of transformation when
the women paint their faces with color –
as long as the color lasts and then they are
back to white.
The spirit alive, the ear –
like an upside down fetus which
hears the wind across the silent – moving.
Images flow and weave their way
as Beth shares her beautiful written
works of art.
-Linda Stenlund
far away – unfamiliar – dancing tongues with
new sounds – I want to stay in the fields of time
I want to stay in the mud of magic
I want to join the bare bottom dance with the women
Let me stay there
The familiar makes my mind drift
I hold the far-away near
I look for a new view
from the summit bringing the dancing
tongues near – I follow the water
the water that flows, the water that falls,
the water that makes the mud
-anonymous
How can I write about writings
I’ve written & recently read?
A red-green parrot’s on my shoulder,
says the same.
-Ziji Beth Goren
Responses to Christina Svane’s performance
Performed 2 poems asking the audience to echo her. For the second piece, all joined her in a circle, echoing the lines, in French, with gestures.
Echoe
What was it I read
today about
echoes
Something about the
voice needing an
echoe to be heard.
What does it mean to
say words back to
the sayer?
Where do the words
rest when they
land?
-Mary Ramsay
That was fun! Who would’a thought it – me speaking French again after 40 years. Sexy language. I love the feel of a different language in my mouth – I love the feel of my mouth and throat vibrating, shaping differently. I could learn to speak French again – like this! So many applications of this call & response form of poetry – teaching children, certainly, but other things too. It’s actually great to hear words twice, the same words, twice. Perhaps my 58 year old brain needs to hear things twice for them to sink in.
-Randi Stein
you is who am i in sober
flame inflamed
i’m forgetting what’s you,
me, him, or it.
I turn and we are
falling from the branch
flying and gone but where?
-Ali de Groot
Exchange – call & response – A
new church A new beginning An
ancient song & Answers beget
answers beget answers beget freedom
Exchange – call & response – climb
up that sinuous & sturdy ladder
where one word glows – yes!
(and we answered “yes”)
-Kent Alexander
What is it I want from these words?
Echoing me line for line through a poem.
Moving through the middle of my life.
Reassurances.
It is the earth that turns away from
the sun. I would never turn away from
you. I am here waiting. The relationship
is like the eye and light.
Moving with Christina is a moment of
pure freedom. Thank you.
-Linda Stenlund
I love to move to poetry. I love call & response,
from ancient Africa, from Aswat, to here. I know
some French, some not, but the movement makes it clear. This is how stories come, this is how stories arrive, this is how stories are told, this is how stories exchanged, are exchange, ex-change US.
This is what we need. Ritual makes community. As all the ancients, as all the indigenous, as all the people of the soul have known.
What I would give now for water, cool air, water.
-Kaçenka Hruby
anger –
longing –
was it anger is longing?
or anger hides longing?
what was it?
anyway I hate anger – mine of
course I mean
and longing I hate that too.
hate? what about equanimity?
I mean who wants to long for
things, people, the past
what’s gone, over
what you can’t have
what’s no longer part of the
exchange
exchange in the beginning
exchange in the middle
exchange in the end
-Gretchen Courage
Exchange
Exhale
Exhilarate
Exit Summer
Welcome Autumn
Welcome Fall
Welcome darkness
-anonymous
How do you do it?
How do you move like you move?
How do you speak like you speak?
How do you fill the room with such grace
with a gentle invitation and also
permission to decline
How do you smile like you smile with your voice and your
eyes and your soothing sway?
How do you welcome me into that world
So that I find myself
smiling.
-Mary Ramsay
Full of myself
I move with you all
Trade my sadness in
for a short French dance
with you on the first day of fall
this our equinox.
-Alton Wasson
Thank you
Ouvres Moi
Laisse la tete
Lariat des bras
Les Mots qui Dansent
-Ellen Kaz
Guttural, lush, sumptuous.
Reunification. True Self.
Connection. Ancient. Spiritual. Natural.
-anonymous
ooo la la
undulating
swinging
curving
oo la la
-Christine Olsen
i remember you remembering me.
the exchange of this
the protection of this this.
will i let myself reach into this.
unseeing as i am
-Marcia Black
Exchange - What fun
Echoing echoing echoing truth
Echoing echoing echoing joy
Echoing freedom
-Caroline Wenck
Le pièce de resistance
Sous de la mere
Le chat qui la regarde
petit chat abandone
et rou rou rou
a la mere.
Vent du nuit.
Vent du matin.
Vent de la mere.
-Ziji Beth Goren
The space between
you
and
me
The space between
two
lips
moving
Moving toward
Rest.
stillness
the quiet breath.
-Kathleen Shewman
In the darkness remember
I am waiting
-anonymous
At times like this
open as a wish-fulfilling
dandelion, in French – dent
de leon – tooth of the lion,
the lion of fear always possible
rolls in play, the dream
come true, come true.
-Christie Svane