Author: wasswasswass

Posted on

Pussy Riot

i try soups
Suitor spy strips you, purist soy! 
Spits your sirup toys.
Pits yours, Tipsy Sour.
I roust spy; Spry I oust!
Yo, strip us!
Yo, strip us!
Yo, strip us!
Out, sir spy.
Posted on

Somatic – Compositional

Now – Future
Need – Want
Have to React – Want to React
Body – Space
Kinesphere – Spatial
Sensing Self –Sensing Space
Reaction to Self – Reaction to Other
For Self – For Other
Solo – Group
Self – Other
I – We
Compensating – Creating
Reacting to Change – Creating Change
Following – Leading
Habitual – Non-habitual
Unconscious – Conscious
Automatic – Forced
Exothermic – Endothermic
Anatomical – Cerebral
Poetic – Formulaic
Inner – Outer
Process – Product
Observational – Generative
Subject – Object
Instinctual – Cognitive
Fast – Slow
Evolving – Abrupt


a list of binaries generated during my third semester of my MA SODA at the HZT in Berlin
Posted on

There is no theory.

There is no theory.  

There is only practice.  

What you do is your practice.  

Whether you are sitting at a table or lying on the floor or doing push-ups or aligning your heels with your sitz bones or quoting dead lovers of knowledge, you are engaged in a practice.  If you are repeating it, you are rehearsing it.  If you are rehearsing it, it is your practice.  If you are sitting around a table discussing the possibilities of choreography, you are practicing sitting around a table discussing possibilities.  Why are you not stretching or sharing weight while discussing the possibilities of choreography?  

It has been scientifically proven that those who sit more live shorter lives.

Do you want your practice to lead to a shorter life span? 
one article
another article
a third article

This leads me to another point.  Philosophy.  Philo coming from the Latin for love and sophy from sophia mean knowledge or wisdom.  Therefore, someone who loves knowledge is a philosopher.  Anyone who is involved in a practice is therefore a philosopher.  The more rigorous the practice the more rigorous the philosophy.  Therefore anyone who has an interest, whether it’s comic books, ballet, baseball, anatomy, is a philosopher.  He or she loves knowledge of a sort.  It might not be knowledge that someone else finds particularly useful or valid, but it is still knowledge.  Whether Green Lantern could survive an attack by the Silver Surfer is just as philosophical a discussion as an aesthetic and textual examination of King Lear.

A chef is a philosopher.
A soccer coach is a philosopher.
A hair dresser is a philosopher.
A rancher is a philosopher.
An eye doctor is a philosopher.
A second grade teacher is a philosopher.
A Shiatsu practitioner is a philosopher.
A forest ranger is a philosopher.
A stat quoting baseball fan is a philosopher.
A contact improviser is a philosopher.

Posted on

This is the arch I’ve built as a memorial to my father.

Posted on

I.E.P.

Something I wrote on the subway today about improvised performance, especially in relation to my project as part of my third semester studies at SODA – 

Improvised Ensemble Performance intentionally has such a limited palette in relation to props, music, set etc. as each of those elements and the unnamed ones are all ways that we can distract ourselves from our existence.  Think of cell phones, portable music and video sources on planes, trains and automobiles.  We use those forms to pull us away from ourselves, intentionally or not. But consciously using the limited (yet infinite!) palette of shape, space and time, we are drawing our own attention to the barest form of our existence. We will not distract you, the audience, from your experience with sound, set, drama, overt story, magic, the space of appearance etc.  We invite you, maybe challenge you, to experience what is happening before you.

Posted on

A Quote

Dance [is] a practice that remobilizes language – Biba Bell, May 5, 2012