Introduction by Chris Reiter
Introducción por Chris Reiter

October 31, 2002 Posted by Javier
Los jardines nublados del cuerpo
Escribo desde el verde que inunda mi mirada. Respiro liviano, suave, fácil. En estos últimos días de la gira estoy viviendo en las nubes y no es un decir. Rancho Grande en Venezuela está dentro de una gran selva. Es una estación biológica en la cual además de árboles, orquídeas, insectos, pájaros de sicodélicos plumajes y otros animales también habitan las nubes. Cuando la fina gasa húmeda arropa todo este verdor el ritmo y la velocidad del tiempo se agota. La mirada se nubla y el silencio ya presente se hace contundente. Se ve pero de otra manera. Los sentidos censores privados del Yo instalados en el cuerpo se alteran percibiendo otras realidades. Desorganizado pero coherente mi cuerpo no regulado se mueve. El gesto aquí queda descodificado, no significa y a la misma vez lo puede significar todo. El movimiento cotidiano ahora existe bajo otras premisas y un extraño placer se acomoda entre cuero y carne, entre huesos y sangre. Indago, busco y rebusco en el particular placer que cargo y me alegra encontrarme bailando impulsado por un no sé qué. Soy muchos fragmentos. Como un móvil que conforma un universo en constante acción de equilibrio. El desequilibrio acciona una rara armonía. Me entiendo increíblemente relacionado con mi cuerpo y mi entorno. Mi corazón bombea y mis pulmones se expanden. Siento no cansarme y lo atribuyo al aire nebuloso y húmedo que me estoy atragantando. Me nutro... Admito no-razonamiento para codificar esto que por ahora llamo experiencia. La severa autocrítica y el cuerpo como sujeto y estudio de lo postmoderno no sé dónde lo dejé. Sí sé, que reina en mí un extraño placer y reconozco que en mí habita una contentura diferente y absoluta que me revela que estoy vivo de otra manera. Y que puedo navegar como un pájaro entre la neblina percibiendo mis propias rutas. Así como en un corredor de aves, en mi cuerpo migran a velocidades sensaciones y emociones las cuales algunas de ellas reconozco como físicas. Con Jennifer, Robin, Bárbara, Morgan y Alejandra en BirdBrain he aprendido muchas cosas, pero entre esas muchas he aprendido y sigo aprendiendo a observar a través de los sentidos. A traducir con mi cuerpo lo que sensorialmente he recogido para de ahí, crear dentro y fuera de mí un entorno o Landscape nuevo y particular. Han sido muchos los Landscape visitados, alterados y creados a lo largo de esta ruta migratoria trazada por el vuelo del Guaraguao de mar o Guincho (Osprey) que comenzó el 22 de agosto de 2002 en Maine, Estados Unidos y que pasando por Cuba termina hoy en Venezuela. Y recuerdo a toda la gente diversa con quienes nos hemos topado en este viaje. En sus afectos y atenciones. Y pienso en la generosidad del intercambio. En la sureña isla de Sapelo, Georgia, Estados Unidos donde Mr. Johnson nos contó con añejada negritud historias pasadas para luego a él solito y frente al balcón de su casa bailarle. En Cuba que además de sabrosos congrí sazonado por benditas manos femeninas se cocinaron conversaciones interminables con los santos y demás seres, mientras que en el patio de las escuelas visitadas los niños nos regalaron canciones, datos históricos de sus patriotas y el orgullo de ser cubanos. Ahora en Venezuela terminamos este recorrido entre cacao, tambores y niños bailadores que nos invitaban a bailar sus danzas y a cantar sus canciones a orillas de un río pedregoso. También en Venezuela en uno de sus corredores de aves anillamos a unas cuantas en su ruta hacia Sur para luego liberarlas no sin antes pedirles en secreto un deseo. Estoy en las nubes como dije hace un tiempo y desde ahí me muevo con ellas. Desde esa altura he podido mirar y mirarme. Dos acciones que en realidad se complementan y me complementan como ser humano curioso por la vida caminando, corriendo, saltando, jugando y regodeándome entre los jardines espaciosos y nublados del cuerpo.
Print This Entry

October 11, 2002 Posted by Jennifer
Miami River Inn writing
It’s hot. It’s been hot for days except for the unexpected chill after swimming in the dark at 6 am at Joanne McGhee’s house in GA. I ate Sopa de Pollo for lunch. I am lying on the hard cement next to the pool at the Miami River Inn. There is a smell of chlorine and the sound of a truck idling. They are setting up for a wedding party on the lawn. I can still feel the hugeness of the sky above me even as I feel pushed down into this asphalt urban landscape. I feel a kaleidoscope of images. I want to keep them all moving in front of me. I don’t want to lose the preciseness of each experience. I want to order each one here and then turn the dial to see the next. We drove out of NC into the night arriving late and hungry at the Edisto Beach State Park. We couldn't find any place to eat, dashing from one restaurant to the next arriving just after the kitchens closed. We walked into our campsite in the pitch dark and woke up to find ourselves in a forest of live oak, covered with moss and palmetto palms, a salt marsh scattered with egrets and herons at the edge. I’ve never been in such a forest –such a mix of northern and tropical plants. The morning birds had an outstanding chorus. I think I heard whippoorwills one night and I heard several owls. We worked with Jane Edwards Middle school for two days in a row. The students are amazing movers and I felt them very open to the experience with us. When we started dancing for them they laughed with and at us and it was so energizing. They gradually entered into our world – providing sounds for us to dance to. Javier moved right through them and Robin let some of them get behind the videocamera and shoot what they saw of our dance. Afterwards we all trooped into the computer lab and logged on to the outside world, siting at tiny desks surrounded by 2nd graders learning math from animated frogs on their computers. Robin told us that when she was working on her PowerBook in the library one of the students asked her where her mouse was. The second day out with the students they showed me birds’ nests in the bushes and bluebird eggs in a nest box and all kinds of bugs. In rehearsal at Edsito we worked on ugly obscene, radically different timing scores, our own inner locations and we started to work on new choreography based on a sensory map.
Print This Entry

September 30, 2002 Posted by Javier
En el horizonte
Me dejé llevar... Tengo las manos juntas frente a la cara como un corazoncito que late a ritmo lento, suave y acompasado. Las palmas están separadas. Solamente las yemas de los dedos de ambas manos se encuentran, se rozan, se conectan. Ciento que se comunican y que funcionan como resonadores. Cómo dibujando un puente entre el hemisferio derecho y el izquierdo de mi cuerpo las yemas crean impulsos que se expanden hasta los dedos, a hasta las manos redondas en forma y textura. Los codos apuntan hacia los pies, hacia la arena que conforma mi piso, mi base. Mezclo el adentro y el afuera. Oigo, presto atención. Miro con los ojos cerrados. Sin moverme me dirijo con la luz que atraviesa mis párpados. Desde adentro también oigo, veo. Escucho los latidos de mi corazón, atiendo mi respiración. No la altero, no me altero. No doy permisos y a la misma vez me doy todos los permisos. No abro ni cierro puertas a espacios imaginarios dentro de mi ser. Trato nada pero quizás lo estoy tratando todo. Sólo me dejo… llevar. Solamente quiero estar y a la misma vez no estar. Aunque parezca, no hay contradicción. Comienzo a moverme. Me muevo. Estoy moviéndome y me sorprendo. No sé hacia donde voy pero ya estoy de rodillas. Con ellas penetro la arena, hago huecos como nidos de tortugas siamesas dispuestas a desovar. Creo ángulos con mis extensiones. Zig-zagueo el aire, la arena, el mar. Ese es parte de mi entorno. El oleaje constate, furioso y salado se topa conmigo o quizás me topo yo con él. El rugir del mar me hace sordo. Ahora tomo o re-tomo ideas. Quiero transgredir la física. La arena es una cama ancha que recibe y acomoda mi cuerpo con inusual suavidad. Juego a inventar caídas… abruptas. Busco brincar, saltar, elevarme. Alejar los pies del suelo arcilloso y ver luego como cuerpo y mente reaccionan a todo esto. Quiero verme, agarrarme, fotografiarme cayendo sin saber como en realidad caeré. Quiero en esos ínfimos e íntimos segundos que hay entre el arriba y el abajo revisarme. También de alguna manera quiero mentirme y jugar a asustarme sabiendo que estaré relativamente seguro en mi caída. Ya terminé. Estoy cansado, agotado y algo desorientado. Ahora sí mi respiración está alterada. Ahora me duele el cuerpo aunque no está lastimado. Creo que está así por el atrevimiento y la sorpresa. Hoy jugué en el horizonte, entre la superficie de la arena, el mar y el pesado cielo. En resumidas cuentas siento que hoy bailé diferente.
Print This Entry

September 30, 2002 Posted by Jennifer
Ocracoke Campground, North Carolina
This is a small portion of some writing we did after doing some authentic movement on the beach. I start with my own experience of moving and go on to write about my experience of witnessing Alejandra. "I moved the dance up into my heart and organs and it took me back to a m more animal state, then away from the water, towards the dunes and dry sand. I didn’t have much movement left and I felt an intense paring down. Just my physical skeleton blocking the wind and the sun, a small piece of matter on the vast beach, just something simple and small, stripped of the complicated webbing of emotional and intellectual convolutions that make up a human consciousness. It was a very simple and profound feeling." Witnessing Alejandra. "When she came out of the water I felt like she was in another state- more connected to the landscape, responding to the rhythms and energies of the environment. She was elemental, moving through one element after the other. She did an amazing current of air dance along the edge of the surf into the wind. I could see how much her body has learned how to navigate and transform her experience into dancing." Later she was arching in the wet sand- the water rushing up around her. It was so beautiful, so surrendered, so integrated. I felt like it was too beautiful. Suddenly I had a slew of external judgement. Is this Art? It’s such deep personal, sensual experience. How is this experience mediated into an abstract artistic expression? Where are the contradictions of my complicated analysis of how we conceptualize nature? The sudden rush of judgement made me feel I was in a pivotal moment of creation in the work, very vulnerable…but able to see a new form of dancing in the environment developing. The work is in the process of maturing. Dancing later that afternoon with Javier We started with solo maps, then duet maps and then a quartet. The end of the quartet ended up a duet with Javier and myself. I felt myself flirting with both him and the landscape- thrusting hips at the ocean, my own awkward form of vogueing like an animal drag queen. Our dance was constructed upon and within the landscape now, merging human desire and consciousness into the desire of the landscape. This dance answered some of the questions that sprang up while I was watching Alejandra earlier.
Print This Entry

September 21, 2002 Posted by Jennifer
Navigation, Hawk Mountain Sanctuary
After talking to Morgan for a few minutes over coffee and cupcakes that Larry brought us from Manhattan, I realize how vigorously I am navigating my external and internal worlds and desires conceptually, kinetically and emotionally. Today as I prepared to start the performance I didn’t know how to orient myself. I felt inappropriate drawing the attention of the hawk watchers who were listening intently to Keith Bildstein's eloquent descriptions of hawk sightings, migrating behaviors and local geology away from the hawks to watch me beginning something I wasn’t’ sure how to begin. I chatted with Keith briefly and he gave the appropriate, simple and generous introduction that was needed to allow me to make my odd, shy transition from person to dancer. What is that transition? What is the difference between me as person and as dancer? Because of Keith’s introduction of the dance as interpretive of osprey behaviors and because I was feeling the layers of process embedded in my body I felt like the transition had to do with an animal’s keen awareness. I became more watchful, more intent, more conscious of each movement- it’s effect on the landscape, on me, on the space between me and the audience. The thing about being a person is that most movement has a task at hand- drawing the binoculars up to your eyes to spot a bird, reaching out to catch your balance or to unbutton your coat. That’s true of animals as well, catch the thermal up, dive towards food, preen a feather. There is a directness and efficiency to each action. Yet my dancing is about sensation, opening up pores, eyes, nostrils to sensual input in order to respond with movement driven by my imagination. I navigate the world between representation, abstraction and sensation. Is it less representative to look up at the architecture of the branches in the trees and have that trigger me to splay out my limbs in angular, crooked movement, or to feel the wind take my arms into a swaying swirling wind current, than to stick out my arms and imagine soaring like an osprey? Arch up my throat and imagine shrieking or swallowing fish bites or regurgitating fish back to my fledgling? My mind and body ran rampant with literal images today as I swerved between the immediacy of responding to the humidity, the sky sprinkled between leaves, the hard ground and rocks, the image of osprey and the sensation of movement transitioning me up the trail towards Javier and on to Alejandra and Morgan.
Print This Entry

September 13, 2002 Posted by Jennifer
Transitions
As Robin and I headed down the Garden State Parkway in bumper to bumper traffic, I couldn’t help but slow down. Physically moving through space slowly ,yet mentally my brain was still racing with the multi-tasking and anxiety of NY. I could feel the familiarity of being on the highway. There is a certain way that time seems to hold still in the car. Nothing is happening until we arrive and I am absorbing and processing my internal experiences as the outside world flashes by. I am realizing now how essential that time is. Even though I hate driving, I hate sitting for hours, I hate gas stations and service centers. I don’t’ like the transition from the car to tent. Even though both are made out of something like plastic and they both offer shelter and comfort in their own way. I like how my tent makes me feel the immediacy of the elements. It amplifies the sound of the rain and the wind. It magnifies the heat of the sun. The car insulates me from the elements. We listen to the radio and music so I am connected to the world in a more long distance way. In my tent I am connected more intimately with dirt and air and bugs and plants. I think about Yuri when I am on the road. Moving through space and time allows me an emotional trajectory to Japan. Last night Yuri talked about how I sound in the mornings-softer, less like a leader. I’ve really been struggling with the transition from personal space to group space. Yesterday I realized too late how frustrated I was becoming with our group decisions. The stop and go of adjusting to everyone’s needs and desires… The undefined nature of our down time. For example at the restaurant where we ate after the Noyes Museum performance and panel there was such a bouquet of desires- mine to talk to Ulla and Peter Murphy, and to make sure that everyone was ok, Alejandra’s to be with Horacio, Morgan to organize her visit up to her mom’s surgery, Robin to have some time on her own, Javier to talk, Ulla and Ulrike to make the bus back to NY. I don’t know how to keep from getting irritated. How to be clear without being uptight, how to be generous and organized. I suddenly felt my own need for personal space so strongly and I don’t take that into account enough. Our transitions have felt truncated. Event to event. Not buoyed up by our joy of dancing outside together like we did in MA. I miss our rehearsal times. They provide a kind of transition into self, imagination, relating that are essential to support the performing. The evening and morning transitions… the liminal moments in the day when I suddenly pay attention to the details of a raindrop running down my cheek, the leaves turning red early because of the drought down the east coast, a thick orange stripped caterpiller pulling its corpulent body across the hard, tan sand scattered with acorns. Birds we saw with Jack Connor at the Forsythe Wildlife Refuge Black Ducks Blue winged teals Peregrine falcon Night heron, juv. Yellow crowned night heron, Mallard ducks, Blue heron Swallows, Northern harrier juv
Print This Entry

September 7, 2002 Posted by Morgan
Snug Harbor
I'm supposed to reflect upon my performance today at Snug Harbor, but instead, I find myself wanting to watch. I want to feist my eyes upon the bridal parties that keep flowing through this formal green space. The fact that there are so many seems ironic to me. Here we are covered in dirt and grass, and there they are, all dressed up, posing for pictures with a forced smile and a flash. I am fascinated by weddings because of the extreme performativity of the ritual. The birde, virginal and frocked in white is like a bird in someways - apparently fragile, her dressed fluffed out like a peacock, minus the rainbow of green, blue and yellow feathers. The bride seems delicate even. Her sturdy legs are camoflaged by the ample puffs of tool and silk. The green formal gardens and open space attract all kinds of species and events and human interactions: the bride and grooms, the 200 species of birds that pass through this area, and us, the artists. Green and open air change the mind and state. I felt more than relaxed during this performance. At the beginning I was tired and unfocused. Then, a large hawk flew low, over my head and landed in the bow of a tree next to me. She/he was watching me. I felt a deep enrgetic connection. My nervous system perked up. I felt self-concious and vulnerable. I wanted to fly up, to join the bird on the branch to peck, preen and flutter, to scan the ground for mice with black darting eyes. I felt myself struggling with self-censorship. To relate to the hawk would be too obvious, too literal. The audience might see me as a "bird": the mutability of my body, compacted into a single meaning or representation. For a moment I lost faith in my own process of abstraction and poetic reflection. This felt dangerous. Then, I noticed that the open space pulled me away from the tree....I don't know why....and the hawk flew away. At this point, I wanted to hide. My pants were tight and inhibiting my movement. I found the archway of vines and bushes a cool refuge from the blazing sun and the audience's gaze. I just wanted a little break. Instead, I cycled through a narrow repetoire of gestures: legs thrusting out, arms curling, hands cupping; creating air pockets of soft feathers and mini-tornadoes. All of these images, these kinesthetic apparitions were crystal clear to me as I moved. I wondered if the audience could see them too.
Print This Entry

September 6, 2002 Posted by Jennifer
Prospect Park
I started at an over-grown ditch by the lake. A mallard duck was snuffling its bill in the moss/algae in the pond. I wondered for a minute who was watching who. Behind me were some kids on bikes. I could feel their curious gaze. I felt their willingness to look at something weird- to enjoy it. I started building my dance, expressing something about my feeling of space. The sensation of the duck’s bill in the water as center of the moment, rippling out to my own body; then to the gaze of the boys on the bikes; the trees beyond them; the streets of Brooklyn beyond the park; Long Island, Staten Island, Manhattan, the plane above and the dome of the sky and then beyond that. My body felt like a quicksilver cipher, reflecting off so many energetic sensations and thoughts. I could sense the gentler gaze of the audience dispersed across the four of us. It gave me space to move in and out of self-consciousness. The audience’s attention felt diffuse not directed. I felt like their gaze was open to the whole environment, birds, trees, sky, other movement and people. I enjoyed dancing through the audience with Alejandra. I felt like we discovered a very intimate and sensual language right at the edge of the water. I enjoyed the fact that people were close to it. It felt like a comfortable contrast to the kind of interaction we had with the kids that we recruited into our dance moments earlier. I felt the audience’s attention follow us from the playful interaction with the kids to the more private and intimate nature of the duet with Alejandra. This event fulfilled my vision of BIRD BRAIN in so many ways. I loved our audience that came from the bird world, the dance world, the queer world and the neighborhood. I really enjoyed the dancing and felt connected to our environment, our audience and the clarity of the movement. The panel discussion afterwards was informative and positive about migration and conservation and was summed up so beautifully by Peter Mott. First he pointed out all the birds that had been watching us during the performance- a hairy woodpecker, a green heron, a night heron, mallard ducks and throughout we were accompanied by the song of a starling. He also mentioned that migrating birds often recruit local birds to join the migration and he asked our audience if they noticed our recruitment. We were spontaneously joined by some of the kids on bikes in the middle of the performance. That made us all very happy.
Print This Entry

September 5, 2002 Posted by Alejandra
Notas sobre el ser observados, , presentación en SOHO, NYC
Antes de comenzar hicimos cuatro solitos para calentar de unos tres minutos casa uno. Ese formato nos dió la oportunidad de ensayar en escala menor la experiencia de la que participaríamos luego. Bailarines en las calles de SOHO respondiendo a y actuando sobre los espacios de tránsito y transición cotidianos: esquinas, teléfonos públicos, aceras, postes, puestos de periódico, buzones, calles, autos. Observé la intimidad de un solo cuerpo cuidadosamente interactuando con estos espacios físicos. En mi experiencia y en lo que aprecié en los otros, trabajamos con el sonido, la textura, la imagen visual y por supuesto, el panorama interno (la imaginación, los sentimientos y los impulsos). Entre el cuerpo que baila y el espacio o cuerpo de todo lo demás, hay una membrana delicada, maneable y húmeda de sensaciones y comunicación. Me fascina apreciar la inevitable conspiración entre el bailarín y los peatones "very cool" de SOHO. Mientras calentábamos, el público accidental que tuvimos y que no había venido a vernos, en su mayoría trataba de ignorarnos, pero su caminar los hacía partícipes del escenario y el movimiento. Cuando terminamos el ejercicio, me quedé concectada a la observación del vaivén rítmico de todas las personas que pasaban en una y otra dirección. A veces improvisar no es tan difícil. Las decisiones parecen ser inevitables como una carretera que se va abriendo a tu paso.
Print This Entry

September 5, 2002 Posted by Jennifer
Urban Migration: Patagonia to The River Project
There was an Old World era from Thompson Street on through to Ave of the Americas. I could see people sitting on chairs in front of their stores, hanging out, contemplating the world as we approached. Javier and I were drawn to a shop window full of Styrofoam mannequin heads with glued n wigs of aduki, mung and white beans. The wallpaper in the back of the barbershop had drawings of men’s hair do from Elizabethan times on up. Two white haired men in blue barber shirts, one inside and one outside seemed to run the place. One made a joke with the other to not break the camera as Robin went by with the video camera (later I found out that my friend Laura stopped for a quick hair cut and then caught up with the performance later). The next store over was a kind of chachka shop with feather boas and sunglasses and hats. I knelt down next to a woman sitting on a chair in front of the shop. I needed a little rest and the energy on that part of the block was calling for more interaction. She asked me where I was from and a tumult of answers came tumbling to the tip of my tongue-The Patagonia Store; Wells, ME; Massachusetts; Brooklyn; California; the world of experimental dance? What does that map look like? Then she asked where I was going and the same thing happened- to the Hudson River, Cuba, Venezuela, the integrated world of art and conservation? How would an osprey answer the question? The NE nesting grounds? Latin America? The journey in between? I keep talking about finding home in movement and I felt that way dancing through the streets, relaxed, nervous, resting, bored, interacting on private and public levels. Then I asked the woman where she was from originally and she said Russia and my mind made both a geographic and cultural map. I tried to place each of us on that map together – like those big city information maps that with a big red dot and arrow that says, "You are here."
Print This Entry

September 1, 2002 Posted by Jennifer
Field Notes: Sandwich, MA
(Shawme-Crowell State Forest, Sandwich)

The mornings start out cool and cloudy. By afternoon the wind is scuttling the clouds away and the sun heats us up. The last two days we have been dancing out on Boardwalk Beach, which is on the bayside. There is a beautiful salt marsh and the beach is accessed by a hovering boardwalk across the marsh. There is a low and sturdy osprey nest out in the middle of the marsh. We had our first osprey siting of the tour there on Friday. My theory was that we saw a juvenile on his last day before heading south. I imagined that the conditions were good for beginning the migration. There had been a big rainstorm on Thursday night. If felt like the winds were headed in a southerly direction and it was clear and beautiful. We went back to dance on Saturday and were there for about 3 hours and didn’t see any osprey at all. The nest stood alone and empty. But when we went back on Sunday, there was the bird again. Hanging out on the nest. I watched her/him for about an hour and I could hear it calling now and then (I recognize the call from the one we have on our web site when you draw the mouse over the osprey) Finally I saw another bird which I assumed was a parent bird swoop up and deliver a fish to the bird on the nest. So perhaps it is the juvenile still being fed by a parent who hasn’t headed south yet or perhaps it’s a chivalrous male feeding it’s mate before the long journey.
Print This Entry

September 1, 2002 Posted by Jennifer
Rehearsal Notes: Coast Guard Beach, Sandwich, MA
It was difficult to start after Morgan and Alejandra’s beautiful duet. My first impulse was to settle into my own state, to wander until I found a location with Javier but I was afraid that would be too isolating so I sent my radar out to receive his movement. The presence of the wind and the ocean is immense. A huge amount of energy. I feel like it fills up about 50% of my being. Lots of things go undetected. We started with our feet in the sand, a pushing back and forth. It felt like a deep force, slow and even like the tide. It built up into a sweeping rhythmic curving leg dance. The lighter sand blown up by the wind giving us a carpet of deep sand and sand smoke up to the ankles. My arms also attempted to build up a windmill type swirling pattern. I can’t remember the transition out of it. The next thing I remember is squatting in the sand; Javier perched on my back. (A lot of this duet was about pushing sand around) I was scooping the sand up into my center. It felt like nest building. As Javier transitioned his weight off my back I was able to push my way through his legs and propel myself on my back through the sand towards the water. Effortful, awkward and fast. At the end of that, Javier stood near me and I felt like we had the same intention. I don’t know if that means we had the same "location". Our arms and hands were like sails catching the feel of the wind and reflecting the gray off the clouds. After that I had an amazing few moments where I felt my body clearly articulating my environment without interference form my conscious mind. Almost as though I were drawing the sky with my arm and that allowed the energy of the moment to burst into my body and come back out in movement. It was euphoric. As I turned to the ocean, I saw Robin with the camera and got self-conscious. My gaze went to the sky and I found a fierce fisted dance as I tried to tear myself up into a hole in the sky. It felt like a familiar and quixotic and impossible dance that floods my body with compressed energy. I’m not sure what happened after that but I know I felt drawn back to Javier. I think we got pulled into spirals together. Then it was start and stop, hard to concentrate, heavy conscious decisions but a beautiful moment of stillness at the end, our arms riding the horizon together.
Print This Entry

September 1, 2002 Posted by Javier
Reflexión: Coast Guard Beach, MA
A veces siento que necesito más tiempo de lo usual para crear lo que Jennifer llama en inglés "Locations". Yo lo llamo "Locación". Este término lo defino por ahora más o menos cómo: acciones en un espacio físico (Landscape) en el cual el bailarín entra, asume y transita. Transcribiendo en el cuerpo ese espacio, para luego crear, desarrollar y de marcar otro espacio. Un espacio corporal dentro del espacio físico o "Landscape". Este espacio corporal será construido y definido por modalidades, calidades y cualidades de movimientos estimulados sensorialmente por el espacio físico: colores, aromas, formas, texturas, sonidos, etc. Es este espacio corporal creado y definido a partir de un espacio físico existente, vivo y en constante tránsito. Habitado por múltiples elementos como el agua del río o del mar, los árboles y plantas en movimiento por las brisas que provocan los vientos. Los pájaro y demás animalitos que anidan y cantan. La calle, el cemento, el alboroto, el brillo de un piso pulido. Las bolsas plásticas danzando acera abajo. El olor a comida china o criolla, o la peste de un zafacón desbordado de basura. En el Coast Guard Beach en Cape Cod como ejercicio, estaríamos trabajando el desarrollar "locaciones" en duetos, Jennifer y yo mientras Ale y Morgan nos observarían. Después invertiríamos los roles. Crear locaciones junto a otra persona implica no tan solo apropiarse del "landscape" que existe y el cual la pareja debe compartir, sino también pide apropiarse del espacio corporal del otro. En este caso el de Jennifer. Ella es rápida de energía, a veces contenida otras veces explosiva. Desordenadamente organizada a la hora de ejecutar frases de movimiento. A veces lírica. Otras veces imposiblemente pesada y densa. Definitivamente su velocidad no era la mía. La "locación" la debíamos crear juntos pero yo la seguí. Me fui por la tangente: su propuesta no propuesta. Anulé mi tiempo que debía para estudiarnos y re-conocernos. No fácilmente la seguí hasta encontrar un punto para mi cómodo para comenzar a intercambiar y desarrollar las transiciones que nos llevarían a crear "locaciones" en conjunto. No era un dueto aunque habíamos comenzado a bailar muy juntos. Nos mirábamos. Creo que el "landscape" terminó dándonos las referencias para llegar a un consenso de movimientos que nutriría nuestra danza. Entonces fue que comenzamos a crear "locaciones" en conjunto. Fue difícil llegar hasta ahí. Las transiciones llegaron pero pidieron paciencia y atención. El recorrido fue más largo y confuso. Me perdí, me encontré y la encontré. Ella también me encontró. Las transiciones en el teatro, el baile y la música es una de las cosas que más admiro de un artista o de una pieza de arte. La vida también está llena de transiciones. Creo que a veces no tengo la paciencia, la madurez o ambas para bregar con mis/ las transiciones. Y ahora puntualizo en las transiciones porque crear "locaciones" las exige. Necesitaba tiempo para crear una "locación" junto a Jennifer, pero no me di ese espacio. El dueto de Ale y Morgan frente a la mar fue hermoso y abarcador. Hermoso por la pura frivolidad y deleite placentero de observar a dos hermosas bailarinas moverse libremente en un espacio casi infinito. Playa fría de ancha orilla y de arena grisásea y compacta. Donde el agua marina también grisáceo y frío se veía lejano, juntándose con el también grisáceo cielo. El dueto fue abarcador por el diálogo e intercambio intenso y constante de sus cuerpos desde principio a fin. Ellas crearon fluidamente variedad de "locaciones" en conjunto montando y desmontando a través de transiciones coherente en sus cuerpos.
Print This Entry

September 1, 2002 Posted by Alejandra
Rehearsal Notes: Coast Guard Beach, Sandwich, MA
Looking into Morgan’s eyes, feeling the edges of where her body touched the sky, the horizon of green against blue, the air from the ocean. Having a taste of that which surrounds her at the same time as feeling my feet deep into the sand. Wanting to move from that sensation. Swaying lightly overtly conscious of the weight on my feet and their intricate dance already happening with the sand. I wondered who was going to shift the gaze first. I had an impulse but couldn’t let go of her eyes. Then she looked away, slightly, not for very long, and came back. Our weights were massaging the sand and we were looking for balance and angles to let go of the frontal relationship of our bodies, like magnets. It was hard to let go. Nothing was sudden. We moved together finding a rhythm and a relationship to the ground and to each other’s bodies in space. The relationship became rhythmic and movement based. I felt comfortable in our connection and free to find variation but stay in relationship. I arrived on the horizon and the dome of blue sky for energy when I felt tired. Other times I stopped and took a break. I followed Morgan in a diving frenzy and picked sand up with my lips once when I let myself rock forwards with my torso lifting my hips behind. There was a moment when we played close together making contact and taking each other’s weight on the sand. My initiations were mostly thinking of the negative space, between her legs, inside her elbow, etc. I was drawn towards the ocean at one point and that marked a location or a distinct desire to do something by myself. Morgan followed shortly after. I think that was close to the end. We were separate but I felt her behind me. I bent at the hips with my arms extended up and fell seated on the ground. I heard her dropped too. We could have stopped but the slow movement that started to emerged felt to me like a further layer of connection. I turned around on the floor and Morgan was sitting, kneeling, looking at me, still.
Print This Entry

August 31, 2002 Posted by Javier
Qué se ve
¿Cómo se nos ve al bailar? Eso me hace recordar como una gaviota grandísima, pesada y gris que muy bien se camuflajeaba entre los chinos de río y la arena por largo rato se quedó enfocando sus amarillos ojos en otro pájaro. Un “pájaro raro” que insistía ejecutar atrevidos y sinuosos movimientos en la ancha y pedregosa orilla del estuario de Boardwalk Beach en Massachussets. Esa cosa, también animal sin duda era un ser humano. Aunque su peculiar y continua manera de aletear su cuerpo lo ponía en duda. Esta duda estaba fundamentada en el ir y venir de sus movimientos. Morgan era ese pájaro. Su comportamiento corporal muy bien podría llevarnos a pensar que este ser humano alguna tuerca le faltaba, que algún desajuste emocional debería tener. Un humano en sus cabales no acciona así y menos en público. Pero la sanidad mental de un ser humano puede ser más o menos aceptada y hasta entendida si sus acciones son ejecutadas dentro de un contexto. Nosotros en Bird Brain bailamos dentro un contexto. Abordamos espacios naturales: ciénagas, orillas de ríos y de mar, estuarios, bosques y dunas. También accesamos calle, aceras, estacionamientos. En esos espacios abiertos ensayamos, investigamos y presentamos bailes / movimientos casi siempre a partir de improvisaciones a veces estructuradas. Transcribimos y re-interpretamos sensaciones e imágenes. Pero nuestro contexto a veces no está presente para el espectador que despierta su mirada a una bandada de cuerpos que se le cruza en el camino. Cuerpos que se expanden en múltiples direcciones y niveles estimulados por un entorno particular. Entonces con mirada insistente como la gaviota de ojos amarillos o con mirada esquiva y disimulada como el que no ve nada, el espectador a veces fugaz y casual comienza a elaborar su propio contexto: ¿Artes marciales? ¿Yoga? ¿Ritual? ¿Qué ritual? ¿Baile? ¿Qué baile? Si adolece de un vocabulario corporal reconocido. En el Boardwalk Beach el agua dulce y la salada se juntan. Como espectador cargado con una mochila de referentes viejísimos de cristiandad pude haber contextualizado las acciones de Morgan como un bautismo, como una limpieza o despojo espiritual. Pero sé también que ella estaba articulando un baile con relación al sol que la abrazaba, con la brisa que la bañaba, con las piedras redondas que detenía su paso, con el sonido y el ruido de plantas y otros animales que la acompañan. Al fin la gaviota de ver tanto aleteo excitada también alzó vuelo. De eso también quizás Morgan se apropió para seguir navegando su vuelo. No sé que se llevó la gaviota excitada cuando se elevó. No sé en que contexto sus ojos amarillos acostumbrados a ver gente caminar, nadar o pescar acomodaron a un ser humano que lanzó su cuerpo a un todo para trazar a los cuatro vientos figuras irreconocibles en un canvas amplio. No sé cómo se nos ve al bailar. Hay gente que nos acompaña con la mirada al pasar. Otros, muy pocos, se han atrevido a tumbarse a bailar junto a nosotros arriesgándose también a crear sus propios contextos. Nuestro baile no se traduce simultáneamente. No es pasivo. Si se quiere como espectador hay cabos que hay que atar para encontrar algo que le signifique. Esto tampoco quiere decir que es una danza vacía. Al contrario esta danza está llena de mucho y por ese mucho el espectador tiene asignaciones que hacer. Buscarle un sentido personal, contextualizar esa danza migratoria y efímera es la travesía a la cual de alguna manera invitamos al espectador a seguir.
Print This Entry

August 31, 2002 Posted by Jennifer
Boardwalk Beach, Rehearsal, Sandwich, MA
Immediately the wind is the strongest influence to me. My arms and fingers start to ride the air currents. It feels very familiar and a tiny bit trite. I try to let that go and send the airy energetic flow down in to my torso through my organs and bones. Then there are the waves lapping against the rocky shore, a gentle ripple with an internal pulling back. Then there is the ever present roar of the ocean waves coming up over the dunes, then the feel of rock and sand on my feet, then the searing sun moving through my skin and the reflected light off the rippling water. All of this is literally effecting me and I dance it through me at a quick pace. My mind lightly moving from sensation to sensation, trying to integrate it all in a complex system in my dancing. One arm moves with the wind, the other with the lapping waves, my spine rolls with distant sound of the ocean, my legs attempt to reflect light, my organs drop into the solid small round rocks between my feet. As I transition to building my own "location" I feel the relief of this concentrated task with its many dimensions and layers. I get pleasure from moving into the energetic leftovers of my authentic movement-the wily comic fighter, twisting into the sand, battering the space around me with stiffened arms and fists. My movement feels more active. I am able to travel more freely. An imaginary world of shadowy figures and a stifled energizing sense of laughter bouying up my movement. I am joking with myself in a physical language I can’t quite keep up with and just barely understand. I feel more full as I transition back into responding to the landscape. The energy of the suns fills my arms. I feel the energy come coursing up through me, calmer. Not as pulled into the complex task of the first try. There is more trust and balance in this second attempt.
Print This Entry

August 31, 2002 Posted by Morgan
Boardwalk Beach
From here we go anywhere. The landscape is coddling us now. The silence wraps us in a benevolent embrace, pushing us into the future and bringing the not so distant past with us. Those authentic movements, those shiney duets, are accumulating in my bones like sand falling through the narrows of an hour glass. The environment has not a hostile gesture, really. It has framed us each, just now, in a grandiose picture. We flatter one another, and the landscape too. The inside is free to come out because of its benevolence, intension, reinforcement, never ending desire to synergize. Can a landscape have desire? I take notice of small creatures, I bend and bow to their flattering gaze. We are sexy together, energy flowing mysteriously back and forth. Mostly, I'm infused by the silence. While my mind jumps from memory to intellectual reflection, I can still hear....the rhythms of the waves, the clucking of the birds, the lapping of the tidal pool. I can't escape my desire to dive in, to strip down and plunge through the surface, to turn buoyant and eddy down the current, to catch my eye in the glint of the sun bouncing of the water; the dappled shimmering surface of gold, silver reflecting a firey warmth.
Print This Entry

August 28, 2002 Posted by Jennifer
Field Notes: Province Lands Visitor Center
Sunny, clear afternoon, hot sun with a breeze coming up off the ocean. The visitor center is placed on a high spot with a 360-degree view of the tip of the Cape. Sand dunes, pine and oak woods and cranberries surround it. Sue Haley is an interpretive ranger there and she gave us a great introduction. She mentioned that the park recently received funds to study and restore estuarine habitats on the cape.
Print This Entry

August 28, 2002 Posted by Alejandra
Performance Notes: Province Lands Visitor Center
The gravel was hard but I enjoyed giving weight into it and feeling the roughness on my skin, briefly. We started with Javier doing a solo then I came in followed by Morgan and Jennifer last. Javier set up a slow and calm pace, very softly focused right on the edge between internal and external landscape. I could see him navigating out from his thoughts, feelings, state of mind, to his presence, his movement and his body. Watching him calmed my anxiety of performing and of not knowing what to do. I followed his example and felt pretty relaxed dancing. I got stuck several times repeating or finding what I was doing uninteresting. I was mostly focused on the architecture and the visual input of the place: the shadows of the auditorium’s benches, the benches themselves, the lines of clouds in the sky, the gravel, the grass on the edge, the shrubs, the short wooden fence that marked the walking and bicycling paths. I didn’t have a view of Morgan almost at all. I could continue seeing Javier towards the beginning of my own dancing, and I saw and danced with Jennifer at the end. I felt the attention of the audience very clearly, and liked the inversion we created where people were sitting on benches but looking back to the rear of the auditorium. My body and my movements were athletic, a little hard. My arms are always very prominent in the movement initiation as well as gesturing. I yearn for a more grounded and integrated feeling of my body when I dance. I think of Jennifer’s dancing and how the earth seems to come through her legs, into and out of her belly, her whole torso and out through her limbs. When we were rehearsing yesterday, she said that she felt like a princess, in terms of her movement. I wondered if that feeling lasted through the performance.
Print This Entry

August 28, 2002 Posted by Javier
Province Lands
Hacer el taller con el público antes de la presentación definitivamente logra una sintonía común. El taller hace que el espectador/tallerista reconozca desde su propio cuerpo algunos de los conceptos que en BirdBrain estamos trabajando. Además de refrescarnos (a nosotros los bailarines) ideas, conceptos y formas las cuales estaremos trabajando a lo largo de la gira. También va adelantando de alguna manera el reconocimiento por parte de los bailarines del espacio para la representación. El taller antes de la función nos acercó al espectador deshaciendo de alguna manera esa incómoda división que casi siempre está presente entre la escena y la platea. El escenario fue rápidamente abandonado. Fue el lugar para iniciar nuestra danza improvisada la cual se desplazó a otra área: el espacio del público. Gradas, pasillos, escalones, cemento, espectadores, pasamanos y las delicadas dunas a los extremos del anfiteatro fueron los elementos que dieron base a nuestro baile. La "locación espacial" estaba configurada. El público desde sus asientos nos prestó atención. Giraron sus cuellos. Los torsos se llevaron todo lo demás. Las piernas pasaron de una dirección a la contraria. Estaban de espaldas al escenario duro. Ahora el espectador tenía como telón de fondo las delicadas dunas. El espacio era un espacio nuevo, más abierto e inclusivo. El "show’ no fue un "show", fue más bien un espacio para compartir lo que estamos queriendo hacer. En resumidas cuentas, el espacio en donde bailamos no fue el ideal: Un anfiteatro de concreto, de arquitectura nada particular al aire libre dentro de una reserva forestal. El cemento se hacía más concreto, árido y duro particularmente cuando mirábamos más allá del anfiteatro. Entonces nos sorprendían un infinito de protegidas, delicadas y movedizas dunas. Para girar o hacer una pirueta había que pararse sobre los montoncitos de arena que se creaban acomodándose como minúsculas dunas sobre el concreto. De eso en alguna medida se basa gran parte del proyecto de Bird Brain Dance. Adentrarnos y habitar espacios físicos, espaciales, y corporales. Navegarlos, viajar, migrar y transitarlos hasta llegar a otros espacios creados o por inventar. Eso es lo que estaremos tratando de hacer en nuestro viaje migratorio bajando y bailando por toda la costa este de Estados Unidos, pasando por Cuba y terminando en Venezuela.
Print This Entry

August 28, 2002 Posted by Morgan
Performance notes: Province Lands Visitor Center
This is a repeat performance. What I mean is I’ve already written a great deal about yesterday’s performance at Provence Lands. My entrance into the dance was clear, like a bright stream of light. No twists or turns, no indecision. I crept along the parallel benches, traversing the audience that was spiraled around to watch Javier dropping deeply into his dance. Once at the side of the amphitheater, I burst across the next section of parallel benches. My main concern initially was to connect with the edge of the bench. In my minds eye my lower leg and the bench created a cross- shinbone headed to the earth and the wood of the bench thrusting perpendicular. Once I connected the soft tissue of my calve to the bench, I was through. The execution of that specific activity left me dry. Not one shred of intuitive or cognitive inspiration emerged. Then, the rush of panic filled my veins like a junkie’s heroin. I vaguely remember bouncing along the benches, moving towards the isle of the outdoor theater. I felt like a faker, a cheater, a copycat. My fear was running show. ( A judgement emerged-that feeling afraid was inauthentic, not worthy of expression.) Major suppression. I was craving an awareness of sinuous antennae, or tendons, or joints; any sensation that would interrupt the dominant flavor of fear. Meanwhile, swinging arms and legs, in a habitual pattern, squared off to the torso, head cooked I turned in a steady rhythm. I remember one moment vividly: balancing upside down on the edge of the bench, one hand pressing into the concrete and the other folded into my side. I created an inverted three pointed shoulder stand. My balance was formidable. I felt power and control. This was the most focused moment for me. Everything before and after this point was about feeling management. Fear and more anxiety. My duet with Javier at the top of the hill was an ongoing question. I just want to stop and have a conversation. "What do I do next? I can’t think of anything. Numb." Even as those thoughts passed through my consciousness, my body moved on. Where I went I really don’t know. I was only aware of the panic mounting, driving the dance and turning into a black hole.
Print This Entry

August 28, 2002 Posted by Jennifer
Performance notes: Province Lands Visitor Center,
The transition from workshop to performance, a quiet moment with everyone. I felt myself become a part of the audience. I was aware of the shade, of the wooden benches, of a moment of silence in community. I appreciated the quiet authority of Javier’s beginning. His immediate, playful, physically astute use of the benches. I was aware of a kind of optical illusion of depth, his height on the benches, the space below the benches, his command of the space. It felt dark and comforting to me, easy to watch. Alejandra was quiet as well, pushing softly into Javier’s landscape. I saw her inhabiting the softer edges of his location, a clump of new grass at the edge of a sharp cliff, careening down to ocean and up to sky. She was close to the ground, rolling. Morgan entered sharp and intricate, tasting of the location and sending it out – dispersing the energy of the dance out into the landscape, foregrounding Javier and Alejandra. I felt like she was imposing her dance. That’s not quite the right word…. digesting and regurgitating the bones and flesh of Javier’s and Alejandra’s dance. Like an owl. It was difficult for me to come into the dance. I stopped to talk to a young boy about his cockroach just as I began. I felt the layers of Javier, Alejandra and Morgan very geologically. Javier quite deep, Alejandra in the middle and Morgan at the surface. I didn’t feel like I had to "make" something or create something. I felt like I was entering a complex and rich location that I had only lightly to refer to. I did so through energy response, memory of movements seen and sensation of experiencing movement. I was gently aware of the audience and felt a soft boundary between my own self-consciousness and experience, and the audience. As I moved off into my own location I kept grabbing at elements of my environment with my mind. I mostly felt the wind coming up the hillside off the ocean, buoying up my limbs then rippling through my organs into my pelvis and legs. Sometimes I watched the wind in the yellow grass and responded to that, and the sun hitting me from the west, wilting that side of my body. I responded to bikes going by, rolled down the asphalt path, felt the prickly cranberries. Dancing with Alejandra back to the amphitheater, I was sucked into the shape and energy of her dancing like a bird sucked into the vortex of the lead bird’s flapping wings and movement forward.
Print This Entry

August 23, 2002 Posted by Jennifer
Morning in Wells
It rained last night and the air is refreshing and cool. It'a busy here at the Reserve. Congressmen are coming for a visit and this afternoon there is a Just For Kids Program on small mammal droppings and signs of wildlife. I loved setting up my tent last night. It felt like coming home. Listening to the rain, the crickets, smelling the earth and woods. Today we will head out to the estuary and beach and have our first rehearsal. We are on the move again.
Print This Entry


Wells, ME Cape Cod, MA Bronx, NY New York, NY Brooklyn, NY Easton, PA Kempton, PA Oceanville, NJ Stone Harbor, NJ Columbia, NC Outer Banks, NC Charlston, SC Edisto Island, SC Sapelo Island, GA Darien, GA Miami, FL Cuba Venezuela

2013 BIRDBRAIN DANCE. All rights reserved.