Harvest Freiburg, Germany

2012 global UnderScore harvest Freiburg i.Br., Germany

A short very personal preamble from me, ines. I was facilitating the global UnderScore in Freiburg, Germany. I came home happy and tired, nourished from a full day of dancing, when a friend called, telling me that my long-time and very dear friend Rainer passed away the night before.

The dancing slipped to the background immediately.

Rainer was 49, in the middle of a good life, dying an unbelievingly sudden death.

A memory popped up: i recalled the global underscore solstice on June, 23^rd, 2007, when we satellited in Berlin, meeting with what we call our “chosen family” (mutual friend Karen Schaffman being part of it). We small danced, baked and savoured pizza that night (grazing with the ingredients and engaging with the end product and us being together… hmmmm…)

So tonight, from 2:30 til it got light out around 5:00, I skyped with Karen, who lives in California. We cried until we started laughing, sharing photos and quotes and memories of Rainer. I’m so sad.

We started the afternoon with transitioning from the UnderScore day jam (that we hosted for the sixth time) to the global event. Some people left, some joined those who stayed. We were 13 then. There was some confusion about the directions to face (while the drawing suggested a north-south progression, we faced east and west and both sites, Donnersbach and Munich are in the east …) oh well, we decided to let go. Also about the confusion that  had turned Freiburg to Freiberg (which is somewhere else but in the Black Forest…) and led to the announcement that “FREIBURG HAS MOVED!!!” – big laughter.

It was an afternoon full of sun, wild and quiet dances at the same time, a huge variety of whole group compositions, of fun and community.

Here’s what Jenny scribbled down during the sharing:

Everybody enjoying strawberries (“Thanksgiving”…? Well… thanks for giving the strawberries ;-))

Michael: I found out, that I would like to create a bodily Underscore (filling the skeleton of the underscore structure with physical details)

Alyssa: I have the “want-to-do-everything-at-the-same-time-syndrome”. In the Underscore I have the feeling, I CAN do a lot of things at the same time. Also it is a practice of letting go of judgments.

Ines: I was able to go into a deep investigation about weight transfer and small physical changes. I could let go of taking care of the whole composition, because I new the others would do so and I would still be part of it.

Anir: At one point I had the image of different kinds of weather conditions. “Are we still in the same thunderstorm?” Image of “thunderstore.” Image of 18^th century (Response of someone in the group  > maybe that’s because you hit your head on the window before… laughter… )

Jenny: I enjoyed to find myself energetic though I was really tired and I finally found a real rest. I feel much calmer inside now and yet more fresh.

Ines: I was amazed about how much knowledge we have about the moving body. Like a gardener or a chess player… to have quite a precise idea about what will happen when we start something. (e.g. joints, momentum, inertia etc.)

Simon: It felt like traveling far away. Long but joyful journey

Zina: Sharing space and movement.

Conny: It took me some time to arrive, maybe an hour or more. this time these things (bonding with the earth etc…) didn’t help me. But I pushed the idiot button. That always helps.

Anir: The whole space was in a kind of idiot button for an hour.

Zina: Normally if I don’t like something, I cut something off. Today I could stay with it easier.

Alyssa: I have done the underscore before, but never the global underscore. It is really powerful to me to see all these names of people I know… 

23.6.2012, Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany, 19:35