Vigorous Physical Activity --- Real Food & Pure Water --- Outdoor Exposure in Nature --- Quality Sleep & Rest --- Positive Social Experience --- Play and Good Humor --- Meaningful Engagement with the World -from the short form pamphlet for Exuberant Animal Movement
I met this amazing exuberant animal of a man yesterday hanging upside down by a strap from a picnic shelter on the beach. A friend of his had watched my daily dance with the newspaper on the beach and said it reminded her of the "Barefoot Bard" named Mick who I had to meet. Well, it was true. I was stunned by the liveliness and kinship I immediately shared with this passionate fellow. He quickly introduced and articulated an entire program of fitness training that centers around connection with the elements of nature as playmates and guides. It is always done barefoot and outdoors with simple objects like sticks and stones that can be found and made most anywhere. He also designs and makes these objects and special non-shoe barefoot coverings and leads trainings in this work. I felt I had stumbled upon a very familiar and somewhat more yang/active/masculine form of my daily dance practice. This system goes by a number of names. The pamphlets he handed me were from a Seattle based loose organization of trainers called "Exuberant Animal." It made more sense and inspired me more than any fitness program I have ever heard of. Other titles of his work include Walking Mountain Yoga where he takes trainees out into the clear cuts of the Hoh Rainforest and they interact with the stumps, logs, sticks and trees as teachers. They also do tree planting and forest restoration projects as training too. Neat!
I love the entire premise and practice of this work. It is a way to achieve physical vitality, lots of fun AND meaningful engagement with the natural world. They call it "proven countermeasures to the challenge of the modern world." It is unique also because along with training the traditional Body, Mind, Spirit, they include equally important training with the Land, Ancestors and Tribe. Wonderful! One of my favorite parts of the propaganda he gave me is the logo that graphically represents the purpose of this work as an infinity symbol path. It traverses from the wilderness of the mountain through the village of community in the center and into the city of technology/culture/commerce and back again. It included ALL aspects our current earth system in one gracefully simple balanced and dynamic image.
So, my daily dance today was to take the paper "menu" he had given me with the basic "Short Form" of the Exuberant Animal daily movement practice for "vitality and physical happiness." Before I looked at it, I handed it over to my friend to read aloud the instructions as he filmed my spontaneous responses to the cues. It was a super fun game and the way I interpreted some of the instructions turned out to be quite different from the diagrams on the page. This is another thing I love about this system--like butoh, it is totally flexible, playful and responsive to who, when, where and what is available at the moment. Really, the best way to tell about this whole movement is to show the videos. Below are three from Mick and Walking Mountain and my own playful interpretation with thanks to AL for filming and directions. Enjoy!
Today's Question: How do you train and get fit? Do include your local tribe, ancestors and land as part of your fitness routine? How?
Everyone who I showed this headline to today was shocked, saddened and outraged. This time it was not three cougars near Quilcene or one coyote at Discovery Park or 408 wolves in Yellowstone. It was two red tail hawks killed by a shotgun blast and dying slowly of starvation in my neighborhood as they attempted to hunt for food with the handicap of buckshot in their bodies. Even with laws against this there continues to be such ignorance and disregard for life. I question what this indicates about the safety and survival of life?
Two days ago I wrote about working in the "relatively safe" context of my Butoh practice to discover new perspectives on my questions & concerns about love relationships. In response, a butoh dancer friend of mine asked "Since when was butoh safe?" That got me thinking deeply about just what one means by the term "safe." I think my friend meant that butoh is at its best if it risks breaking from conventional modes of performance/action by challenging boundaries of the understood, predictable, normal, acceptable and comfortable ways of being. This is certainly one way of butoh that I appreciate, but I wonder where the line comes when it includes acts of violence or things done with intent to forcefully dominate or harm another being? It could be said that the act of shooting these birds was all of the above. Was that good butoh? Of course not.
My dance today was in response to this headline. It became an investigation of how I feel personally unsafe and under attack when faced with news of something violent and intentionally abusive like this. I can find some solace and re-centering through my dance practice. Perhaps this process is what I meant by butoh practice being "relatively safe." Rather than hiding behind locked doors or heading out on a vigilante rampage when faced with something upsetting, I can enter the dance and a pathway toward integration and acceptance can spontaneously emerge. For many this kind of butoh might feel like an unsafe and most uncomfortable experience. By "acceptance" I do not mean I condone acts like this, rather that I feel more empowered and less afraid after engaging the issue through a fully honest embodiment.
I must also say that shock value, grotesquery or being dark, risky, arousing or edgy in and of itself is not what I value in butoh or even entertainment. This does sell though--so it must be very popular. I may be strange in my disinterest for horror, "action" movies or porn for thrills. I do not need that sort of amped up, sense numbing over stimulation when each delicate moment of life itself is naturally so rich with experience and full of adventure. In his butoh lessons, Yoshito Ohno teaches that our intent is to be open, concentrated and true. If that naturally and spontaneously leads to revelations of the painful, suffering or demonic sides of one's being, then so be it. Be brave enough to go there and reveal it even if it feels risky. But, it is still done within the "relatively safe" context of a dance which is not purposefully harming or causing suffering to oneself or another. Actually, my intent at all times with my butoh practice and performance is to promote freedom from suffering, well being and benefit for ALL life.
The risks I most appreciate, and feel are most powerful in performance, are often the subtlest ones that unexpectedly crack open the heart and mind or bring to question the entire nature of existence. This reveals the deepest secrets of being and opens both performer and witness to infinite possibility. We are literally dying every minute. Is that safe?
Todays questions are many: Is it safe to be alive? What does safe or unsafe look like for you? Do you think butoh is safe? Do you appreciate the horrible and grotesque as transformative, entertaining or artful? If so, how? why? Why not?
"Even the very notion of having a body bounded by skin is highly questionable. On any level the notion of a body with a particular form or limitations is questionable."
February 23, 2010 at 10am to February 27, 2010 at 4pm
I am planning a Butoh workshop in februari 2010, guided by Itto Morita. The workshops are held in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Is there anyone interested to participate in one of the workshops? Every workshop is from 10:00 hrs AM till 16:00 hrs PM, b…
