Life is an improvisation
Improvisation has been my main dance and performance practice since 2007. I like to play in any version from wide open space, to a deeply crafted focus of attention, body, consciousness, sensation, and anywhere in between.
It is such a clear way for me to "practice" life. You walk into an improvisation with everything you have learned up to that point, but then you attune to the moment. The unpredictability, the directness of what is right in front of you.
I watched the World Cup final and reflected on what a fantastic improvised score that was! There was a guideline, a score if you will, but the outcome was unknown. The players had to truly be in the moment without knowledge of how it may turn out. Like life.
Improvisation is deep listening, and finding the balance between listening internally and externally. I remember Deborah Hay saying “I don’t have time to get nervous, there are so many things to attend to….."
Let's start with just our own bodies, there are so many layers to attend to, layers that could guide us. Then let's think about listening to another person's body, to layers in the room, the sounds and vibrations, the architecture and geometry of the space itself, the undeniable fabric of our lives and days, and always there is the nothingness and the mystery to invite in.
Improvisation is a practice of opening and closing a lens, narrowing or widening a field of engagement. Aligning with what current of energy we want to attune to.
The process highlights the energy of choice and discernment, reminding us there are unconscious and conscious choices we are making all the time. Every single moment of every day we are engaged in a multiplicity of choices. What we attend to becomes a guiding factor for the creation and experience of our lives.
In a improvisational space the way we move, our attention and our choice making become highlighted and known in a experimental, playful container. You can go fully into a pattern and stay there, “what if I followed this to the very end?”, you can also in a split second make a completely different choice. You can imagine embodying the radiator, the music, the window, or someone else's shadow, You can move away or towards a desire.. You receive the immediate feedback of how it feels, feeling not as an emotion but as a sensorial experience. And a sensorial experience is vibrations (energy) playing through the physical body.
And finally, here is the thing; in life and in an improvisation- nobody really knows what they are doing. We can train, plan, be ready, be adept, learn and grow.. but in the moment of it all- let's face it; nobody really knows what is going to happen or how they will respond.
Listen in and listen out. Listen and respond. Rinse, repeat.