SUNDAY SLOWDOWN | Creative Muse - Pina Bausch

What I try to do is find a language for life. These are Pina Bausch's words but they could very well be my own. Pina Bausch is this week's Artist in Residence creative muse. Recognized as one of the most important choreographers of our time, she is perhaps still unknown to many.  PINA, a documentary by the great director and one of my favorite film makers, Wim Vendors,  (City of Angels,  Paris, Texas, Perfect Days)  is a thoughtful tribute about how Pina Bausch "transformed the art of modern dance."   More than a choreographer of dance, Pina was more interested in what moved the dancers than how they moved. Repetition and ritual were the threads she weaved through all her works of art. 

 

 

 

 

Dance, in some form, has always been a part of my life. From making up dances on the front lawn of our Chicago neighbors, to choreographing a performance during fourth grade lunch period, to moving to my sisters' albums in the early 70's,  to creating and practicing dance moves in my parents basement in high school, movement is the medicine that has always moved me. It's the most honest way I know how to communicate and articulate what I truly feel, how I can fully express myself.  Whether through my Japanese ink art practice ensO, or the free form dance I now practice (and practicing to teach) called The 360 Emergence,  movement is not only my medicine, it's my favorite form of meditation. It's the way I release, restore, recalibrate and re/set my body, mind and heart.   It's an ineffable language spoken without words. It's a language that may not mean much to others, and sometimes I don't even know how to articulate what I feel, but I know it is a way I can articulate how I feel. And that is the medicine. Repetition and ritual is the foundation of that medicine.  Music is the muse. 

 

Pina's choreography is all about how humans express their everyday experiences and emotions.  She creates a a place and a platform for these universal themes to be explored, for others to see.  As today unfolds for you, I invite you to create your own sacred space and a safe place to explore movement. To move and to notice what moves you, how you are moved. To find the grace in the falling forward, the beauty in the repetition, the nervous system regulation and regeneration in moving with your inhale and exhale, contraction and expansion, gestures of grief and gratitude. Dedicate your dance to the you that is waiting in the wings, that has something to say, to express, to create.  

x Alisa