*** Your solo- alone and while in duet ***
Here are some observations from the closing circle.
*** I’m curious about the dance I have where when I move to partner, it’s an enhancement of the dance I’m already having. This rather than the feeling of the dancing beginning and ending when I start and stop a duet.
*** Dancing with this focus, I had the feeling of my partner as furniture. It felt less personal.
*** With my solo in place it mattered less how my partner was dancing. I didn’t need as much for their dancing to please me.
*** If I’m in my “solo” I don’t seem to pour my weight as fully or as languidly as when I’m in my “duet.”
*** There was more room to dance, more spaciousness, and more room (ironically) for surprise, not of my making.
*** There seems to be a gradation of dependence to independence. I played with having my solo even while feeling dependent.
*** So often I come to a jam and I can’t get myself warmed up. The solo just doesn’t do the job. It’s in the engagement with another that I wake up.
*** With my solo in place, I’m more trusting of myself. Then I’m more trusting to let my emotional self into the room. Tonight it arrived in waves of sadness. This would not have happened if I had gone to my normal adrenalized style of partner dancing.
*** My solo lead to many images. I danced as a very flexible turtle.
*** When I’ve fully entered my solo in the past and tonight, it has lead to some of the best dances I’ve ever had.
*** Lots of different narratives moved me tonight: “She moved like lava over his landscape.” It was more about topography and measurement. With the focus on solo, I let my stories, my narrative play out for longer times.
*** I’ve struggled with the solo that sends out the message, “I want to remain alone,” and the solo that sends out a spirit of invitation, that says, “come join me!” Tonight there were so few people that of course, I’m going to dance with everybody. The messages were clear.
*** My struggle is I don’t know if I’d rather be dancing solo or dancing with others. How do I get my focus on the solo that really does want to enter a duet. And when I enter a duet how do I not lose my solo (which makes me not want to partner because of that potential loss). Once there is physical contact it feels so different.
*** All this comes down to: how do we define “solo”?
*** I had to let go of my summitivity concept -- that we have to create an opus, that the sum is greater than the parts.
*** It was easier to get in and out of duets, because the dance wasn’t ending and beginning, it was continuing.
*** We agreed that this would be fascinating focus to visit again.
*** Your Solo Dance –
while dancing alone and while dancing in duet ***
Some months we find the theme so evocative that we have to return to investigate it again.
Here are some observations spoken at the closing circle:
*** Sometime early in my dance life I received the message from different teachers that one must keep their solo intact even when in a duet. Over decades that lingering belief has interrupted many otherwise fine dances. Tonight I realized that the truth for me is the other way round. I need to play with carrying the fascination, the curiosity, the following of one movement into the next, that I so love in the duet form, into my solo dancing.
*** We didn’t have an opening circle tonight. It was good to not begin with the social aspect of our connecting, but to get right into the deep river of sensation into dancing.
*** I was disoriented. I missed the arriving that happens in the opening circle.
*** I woke up this morning not feeling well. I arrive and the theme is solo dancing. Perfect! But I did dance. I lost my attachment to staying in dances, or the sanctity of entering duets. Every dance, alone and with partners, became my solo.
*** I arrived and saw the focus and went, “Damn!” The solo focus brings up stuff for me around performance. I don’t like being watched. I really don’t care about my solo. It is not interesting to me. I’m interested in interaction -- with people, with the floor, with someone. Maybe my dance suffers from it but I ignore the solo and I *just* move.
*** I find the solo dance very different from the duet, and the transition from one to the other is difficult because I can get quite involved in and interested in my solo and then not want to dance with someone else. I realized after the last comment that actually the reason for my resistance to actually dancing in contact with others is a sort of the opposite: the duet is a kind of performance, whereas the solo doesn't involve anyone else. For me, in a jam context where I don't feel anyone is watching me, dancing a solo is completely free: I don't judge myself at all, I am only doing it for myself and it doesn't matter if it's interesting for anyone else. However, as soon as I am dancing with someone else I start worrying about whether they are enjoying it, whether I am good enough/have enough technique or whatever.
*** Where is the line between the solo and a duet? Where does my solo get lost to joint intention?
***This is my 2nd week here. My comfort level has quickly gone way up. I appreciate people’s ability to accommodate slower speeds. That CI is not just fast.
*** I realized at some point during my solo that when I am solo-improvising, I often stay near the edges of the room, so I experimented briefly with taking up space in the middle even if I didn't have a partner. That was liberating.
*** With a partner we were having s standing dance that was connected and moving around our hips. I let that be the place of the duet. My upper body and arms meanwhile were having their autonomous solo.
*** I moved the entire night blindfolded. It was filled with sensation. Almost like authentic movement. Early on I realized that I could possibly move the entire two hours without being approached to dance in a duet. I heard the sounds of duets —on the floor the grunts and exclamations—and I wondered, am I *missing* something?
*** My entire evening was a solo… even when I was soloing on the landscape of my partner’s body.
*** I was in love with the reflections on the floor, the sounds of footfalls – the small details. I found the details that attracted me and danced with those. In duets I danced with more than the tactile.
*** I decided I was not losing my solo when I let myself be influenced by someone else.
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