When I let myself get all porous softening into the porousness that I already am then I notice the hard part the stone I carry in me like the core of a peach that will crack your teeth only harder, darker Suspended somewhere below the heart behind the solar plexus the shape of clay squeezed in a fist, petrified shining with the wear of years a conglomerate of life's conflicts or grief condensed... What if this hard shell I'm holding has sweet nectar inside... what if this stone has soul, is soul radiant with life force in its obsidian density... what if its a seed waiting to be planted in a heart or in earth... Would I not reach in deep and plant it while still living and breathing to see it grow... or is it only with my death that this seed will burst open taking root in the ground branching towards the sun... Becoming soft fruit to feed another
I found my way to writing through dance. Through the experience of trance states in a somatic movement practice called Skinner Releasing Technique1. Words began to dance off and on the page. From the poetic imagery of the practice, integrating inner and outer landscapes, inviting creaturing and composting of the physical self. Windows opening in the spine, hair becoming electric tendrils, an endless sensorium of poetic kinaesthesia. Mystical experiences with no drugs, only poetic suggestion, movement and music.
Dancing is poetry in time and space. Written fleetingly in the body of dancer, in the place of the dance, in witnesses human and more-than. Releasing is a practice of allowing tension to soften into receptivity. Letting go (for a moment) of the hardening that happens with the gritting of getting things done. Reminding shoulders that creep up towards the ears that perhaps they can let go a little, dropping and opening to the sides, reminding them gently and reminding them again. Releasing of tension freeing up the energy that holding patterns otherwise consume.
Releasing, forever a process, invites freedom of movement, not just in dance but in creative practice, in living. Though I don't consider myself a dancer (professionally, thought I do consider all people and beings as dancers), dance is a key for nourishing my creative practice. Joan Skinner, the American dancer who developed this practice, had a saying – you can't make a leaf grow by stretching it. Suppleness as a source of strength and readiness is a principal of Skinner Releasing. Just remembering that makes me melt a little.
With weight shifting back, the front becomes softer, more open and receptive to resonance. Valley spaces, where the legs meet the pelvis, fall inwards a little. Energy lines through the legs and feet into the earth. Energy lines from the skull, way off into space, from the fingers into air. Suspended in relation, a dynamic counterbalance. I think of this as an alignment of trust. Not for the government or any certainty of the future, but of trust in the living world. Opening to receive the unconditional love of sunshine, the gift of fresh air from green beings, my water body melting, held by earth. Momentary peace in the chaos of humaning.
I found my way to dancing through place. I came to this practice as a visual artist, though I'd always loved to dance. Skinner Releasing dropped me into a sense of embodied ecology, dripping with memory from the temperate rainforest and sea of Washington state where Joan Skinner lived. Imagery of moss, fern fronds and sea sponges interwove with the place were I learned the practice, amongst the pines, by the Mediterranean sea near Tekirova in Turkey. A sensitive ecosystem nurtured by dear friends who built bungalows of natural materials and a dome for dancing, in the embrace of mount Olympus. A place called Sundance2. Where for a few delicious years Joan's students came, from the US and UK, to teach a group of us for one, two and three weeks at a time.
Situated on the only bay in the area free of multi-story concrete hotels, Sundance was paradise for diving deep in somatic movement. For weeks at a time our process of dancing was unbroken by the paved and commercial world. Dancing together in the dome, with trees, to the sea, in our dreams, gave a gift that continues unfolding. But this week brought news from my dear friend Deniz, her name itself meaning sea. After years of struggle with a corrupt and greedy government, their lifetime’s work of caring for this place, passed down through generations and shared generously with guests, has been demolished. Government officials, police and bulldozers arrived a few days ago and destroyed what has grown through decades of love. It is heartbreaking.
Nine years ago, during our Skinner Releasing teacher training in Istanbul, Deniz and I were wondering how to remember the pedagogy, 15 classes with complex layers of poetic imagery, partner work and movement studies. We listened to a book about memory and talked about Aboriginal songlines. Could we plant the memory of this practice in place? By chance we flew south to Sundance with my family just moments before a military coup. So while our training was stranded in limbo, we started seeding memory. Beginning at the pomegranates, along the river to the estuary, by the rocky beach to the dragon tree and the big swing, up over the hill and down to the dome, finishing up at the pond. We planted the images and practices of each class, anchoring them to plants and place, to features in the landscape, practicing as we walked.
I'm walking this path in my mind this week with a sense of solastalgia. A grief of loss of place. The place itself is still there but everything made by hand has been ruined and the holding with care has been broken by force. My friends are standing in ruins. I'm noticing how this place lives in me, in a way like no other, having spent so many weeks there dancing, letting it move me. I think of the tens of thousands of people who've visited, holidayed and played in Sundance over the decades, who've planted a piece of this place in their hearts. How place carries bodies and bodies carry place. Body memories at least cannot be destroyed or de-storied, as long as we blow on the embers and keep them alive.
I got out my mobile memory devices this week, to touch some of Sundance. I made them on return to Sweden after we’d planted the Skinner Releasing pedagogy. A board for each of the 15 classes, connected to each of the 15 places on our memory trail. With shells from Sundance and buttons from my Great Aunt, recalling each part of the class, threaded on to pieces of African Mahogany, recycled from our old sailing boat. These memory boards are inspired by the Lukasa3, memory objects made by the Luba people of central Africa.
Holding them now, I am touching place and preparing to teach Skinner Releasing again. To weave moving and writing together, to honour the gifts I've been given from Sundance and friends and teachers and Joan, from the sea and forest and this living breathing home of a body. As dark as these times be, they need our dance, our poetry, to make a fire and keep warm, and isn't it so that we tend to be come teachers of what we most need to learn ourselves? Releasing tension, to move and be moved through all states of being, dancing through tears and laughter, states of weight and buoyancy.
For folks in the Järna to Stockholm area, I'll be offering in person classes most Friday mornings at Light Hub in Ytterjärna, from the 22nd August. For folks further away, I'm hoping to find a way to share some juicy crumbs of this practice online in the near future. Do send a direct message if you'd like more info.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skinner_Releasing_Technique
https://www.sundancecamp.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lukasa
What a beautiful tribute and acknowledgment you have written here. This phrase: seeding memory, carries a life of its own.
So sad to hear about Sundance!!… for Deniz and co especially but also with a sense of your connection… made clearer by your eloquent words.❤️