Global Underscore Montréal, 2012

Parc Lafontaine, Montréal, Québec, Canada,

Saturday the 23th of June, 9am, Elizabeth and I arrived in the park.

The temperature was perfect. Sunny sky, a soft wind, trees all around our dance spot, even one surrounded by thousands of lite pink flowers...

We were ready for that Global Underscore :-) Here some of our harvest:

Benoit M.:

It was a little early to be fully awake... It felt a little bit awkward to be in the open space...

Nezha:

I felt like being in the “real life”! Techno music (around), group that was walking by, talking and shouting... I was feeling the connection with New-York and Brazil, they where probably hearing a lot of noises from there studio...

Elizabeth:

Looking at the list, it gave me the impression of an electronic web, a little bit like if we were connected by tubes that was giving us the opportunity to sneak a peak into each and every group around the word, dancing simultaneously. A growing community!

Daniel:

I'm came back in the city yesterday, and was feeling a bit disconnected... This morning, arriving in the park, observing the beauty of the nature, and my friends smile, I felt connected again :-)

Pierre-Luc:

I discovered how amazing it is to dance in the nature, being upside down on someone's back, and observing the trees, the sky, the other dancers... Wow!

Stéphanie:

Today I decide to re appropriate my Kinesphere. I fell asleep twice... my skin in the grass... it was perfect :-)

Benoît A.:

I never felt as connected to communities around the world! I also can relate to what Pierre-Luc said... Being in suspension, and watching to world in that angle is great :-)

Elizabeth:

It is so great to be disoriented in the nature!!!

Justin:

There was two very interesting aspects today... reaching for connection and receiving connection. And also, being present for both! That worth waking earlier than the usual Saturday morning ;-)

Pierre-Luc:

I also observed how weird we seemed to be for people that were passing by.

Eryn:

I arrived late this morning. When I entered the park, I asked someone if he saw a bunch of dancers around. He said:”Dancers? Nope! But there's a bunch of oddballs over there”. Well, CI is really different from dancing. But, what is it then?... It was the first time I realized how odd it is...

 Thanks everybody for being part of this! We all made it happened! A particular thanks to Elizabeth (who facilitated with me :-) ), Benoît M., Stéphanie, André (who was also our photographer), Manon, Daniel, Francine, Nezha, Justin, Chrystèle, François (who wrote down the harvests), Eryn and Pierre-Luc, a small and great glimpse of our beautiful community :-)

Benoît A.

New London Harvest

During the Global Underscore

The evolution of the dancers in space through shapes and patterns both foreign and exploratory to the every day familiar

I’m excited by the end of a stretch that hangs in the air such as when you hang your arm back behind you as far as it will go while twisted in opposition on the floor. I’m really curious to explore that place, its depth and its use in a springing action for momentum. 

The vibrations of my own body merged with the vibrations of moving bodies through the ground. The connection to each other and the earth simultaneously.

The sensations coursing through my body after flowing from vigorous movement to stillness. Being part of someone else’s moment of touch. The freedom to participate in that moment and in creating your own moment of touch and connection.

heat of skin through cotton

creativity without inhibitions

this we have been doing since we were born...We just didn’t realize anyone else was doing it at the same time.  Until we saw ourselves again.

No judgement 

stimulation through the feet while being blinded by the sheer simplicity of bodies moving in space

i smell like you now

Thoughtlessly surrendering your body to the motion of another.

expect anything for there are endless possibilities

we started a connection of many, it developed to a parting where i didnt know who i was with as we moved, but we were connected, and i loved them. the dance came to stillness and resolved as i we gazed at each other for the first time.

belly buttons are the funniest looking things, especially from upside down

eccentricities

It is interesting to watch each partnering group non-verbally agree on a world and enter that world together as they dance. It is exciting to see that world created because each one of them has completely committed to that world and believe it to be true, and so from the outside you are watching their reality as they know it to be at that moment, and every other thing in the physical space seems to transform or disappear. It is however hard to join a group, or a person, with this serious sense of time and space, and perhaps goals, if you weren’t there for the creation of that world (and in that world you may just be a rock in the way.) Thus it is an interesting challenge of the mind and emotional status to figure out how to join the group, person or the world. We/ I can also ask the question of, why do I want to join at that particular time, or dance with that group in that world or any other. Some times it does feel like an audition, a “will you dance with me?” a “will you allow me into your world?” And questions of why do we strive to be included in such a way, rather than sometimes just looking for every open door?  It brings me to the moment of the invitation to dance. When we begin a dance does it begin with eye contact, a movement in your own kinesphere and someone entering your space? I think all of these and more are invitations to move together but it is the creation of the world that binds us. It is kind of like Raja said, fall in love with your person and I guess questions of another either being included or including themselves in that world, and in that love....

Post-Underscore Harvest-

It was interesting to see these meta-beings throughout and happening... connect with each other and these themes, that’s what today’s about.

I loved how the room would organize itself; there was a frantic side and a calm side; a swirling center with smaller things outside. I enjoyed seeing that. Reminded me of the ocean. 

I smelled the cities that are participating. I almost thought I was there, which is beautiful. I like the idea of doing things when others are doing the same thing far away. 

I had a lot of space; I had no idea what I would feel like based on the week, but it felt like a nice thing to do. 

The space became so much more full and beautiful to me today, even though I’ve been here all week. The atmosphere allowed me to flow through the personalities of those here and elsewhere in the world. 

I was able to develop dancing relationships with people; the transitions were more comfortable, the space was safe and ready for people to do that. 

I have a friend across the globe thinking of me; I’m being thought of while they do what I do. And that’s beautiful. Acceptance, contentedness. 

I felt this weird sense of... it’s inherently political; what does it do for the global economy? We’re together and learning and dancing and it’s fantastic that we aren’t productive. The fact that people took time off from work to do something like this is incredible. 

I really enjoyed being able to take the full amount of time to do anything... feel the brush of an arm or just stand and be still. I never get to do that in New York; I didn’t feel rushed or like I had to be doing anything else. I felt like I was in the moment today because I had time allowed to do this. 

It’s nice to be open to surprise. In my life, there are a lot of surprises that I’m not ready for, and I haven’t been open to them. I was surprised for over an hour.

Everyone is feeling all of these emotions; safety, tiredness, laziness. It’s nice to have this time together. I think that’s beautiful on its own. 

I’m struck by the relationships I go through. I learn something about who I am and what I could be that I don’t always honor. That’s a great education. 

The expectations that you go into these; thinking you know what will come, imagining what will happen. Then you throw that away when someone comes into that. The either acceptance of my view or the change of view (pulling a fast one on you) is nice. 

This was based on acceptance, so you could be yourself; your emotion. I discovered that in myself and my partner. Today was a day of learning for me. 

I lost my mind. You go kind of crazy in the end. I have all these urges right now. I want to talk for 10 hours, I want to go outside and take off all my clothes. But then it’s like “whoa, that’s not what it is”.  Then that’d defeat the purpose. It was interesting to make circles around the room. 

I was trying to keep the underscore going in the real world. It was more difficult to come back to it. I should’ve stayed in the room to keep the world out, but it was hard. I like it because in a short meeting of people, it makes it more of a practice to work with new people. It builds relationships. 

I think having the time element helped allow myself to sink into it and move around the plane. I never get a chance to do that at home. It’s nice to just lose yourself in this sense of reality and dive into that. It’s freedom to explore. 

I feel like I was really aware of the current of air in this space and how it moved around. I felt like the entire experience was a slow cycle; I felt carried from one partner to another idea to another space, unaware of the movement, just swept through. The space was charged and moving me. 

I always think of what becomes contagious to myself in the room. Something might pass by, I’ll see something and I’ll, without thinking or realizing, I move towards it. Just thinking about what happened between the two moments that made me go towards it the second or third time. And the same thing in a dance where an opportunity will come and something doesn’t go in one direction, the opportunity repeats and goes in a direction. And at one point, I was really aware of stillness. I thought I would never move. Then I, with somebody, I don’t think we were thinking; we just moved. 

I felt like I was falling asleep; I knew I did it but I don’t really know what happened. 

The timing of it was nice for me; getting this movement, cells dropping in the earth. I was experiencing my own energy and other’s energy because I trusted everyone. By doing so, I could find myself and how I related to each person I connected with and give it to another person. It’s such a short amount of time. It reminds me of why I love and do what I do. 

I feel like a lot of times, we don’t feel like we have agency. Taking the time to do this gives remembrance of what our full agency feels like. 

I started to hear a lot of civilization going on, and I would glance over and be like “oh, it’s disengagement”. Suddenly, it just wasn’t words anymore. Some people had it going and every once in a while, people would laugh. It was nice and unexpected to hear agreement. 

Contact with improvisational voice flowed into conversational. Aside from sensations of being involved with bodies; when I stepped out, it was inspiring to watch based on the level of voices. 

Allowing myself to watch and participate, I could feel the openness of everyone in the room; it inspires me in so many ways. 

NYC Harvest

Real Time Harvest

Red nail polished fingers with lines of amber swirls walking past…

There is a trio where I don’t know if it’s a trio where I find the surfaces definitely not with my eyes and they roll sometimes bumping out into other surfaces and all the while it is tumbling and faces and skin and eyes are seeing and breathing but if you don’t look to close you’ll keep going and if your limbs know the wood of the ground then all is well.

grazing en masse

extending love through the floor

being a welcome committee with my heart

trusting that the underscore, the world will hold us, extending the support of the floor into our everything

  

I listen to my body,

it knows the story.

I allow it to guide me,

I trust in it’s wisdom.

I feel it soften,

open,

become joyful.

There is no reason

but to simply play.

Thanksgiving/Sharing of the Harvest

(When we begin, nearly everyone speaks for only a moment.  We go around the circle once time this way, and then invite everyone to speak again and this time to also say their name.  This is the transcription of the whole sharing.)

Thank you.

Triple thank you solstice brought tears to my eyes.

Thanks everybody.

Thank you.

Thank you all.

This is my first underscore experience and it was a very special one.  So thank you.

Thank you.  I’m still absorbing.

Thank you.

For me that was like a kind of dream.  I feel like I just woke up from a really rich dream. 

It’s been a while since I’ve done contact so it felt like coming home.  So thank you.

Thank you.

The group dancing I found to be so compelling and beautiful and satisfying and loving.  Thank you.

I’m really glad I’m here today.  This is also my first time experiencing underscore but I’m really glad sharing all the time here.  Thank you very much.

I had a phrase in my head at various times when we were dancing together: “dance what you feel.”  It has to do for me with what I draw or paint.  We say paint what you see, not what you think.  So that’s what I was doing today with my dancing, not what I think, not anything else, just what I felt with my body.

I had a wonderful sense of interconnectedness today.  Sometimes it was overwhelming.  And I had a little bit of worry that I didn’t connect to everyone in the room.  Then I had a moment of seeing a dance that I had a great part in initiating the quality of that dance and I realized that the connections between dances are over time.  It’s not just the people in this room but all the people we’ve danced with throughout our lives.  My summary is “we are with.”

I had a moment where I stopped and watched for a little bit and it was nice because I remembered the gratitude I feel in this moment of the underscore.  A sense of anticipation for the richness I would feel in this moment, as well as in the present.  And I loved that sort of squiggly ribbon-y kind of line that was always moving.  Almost everyone in the room was connected to except for a couple of satellites.  It reminded me of the global underscore pattern.

As the one who was observing that amazing line, it felt amazing that it was in important piece that it was being observed.  It was incredibly beautiful, everyone was so beautiful today.  Everyone was very much themselves and we were all part of this bigger thing.  In the last 15 minutes I really started to sense this energy from the fact that there were multiple sites all around the world.

Jesse
Container of mercy…expanded to contain the globe…we are always in.  I let the Underscore whisper all I forgot or didn’t have time to say.  I let the Underscore reassure and guide, hold and protect, welcome and liberate.

I notice that it’s been a while since I knew what we were doing.  I remember that the Underscore grew out of a moment like this in Nancy’s history, and I wonder what will come from this gap in my experience.  I feel the whole Global Underscore through the floor, through the center of the earth.  I extend my love and support to them, my welcome, and feel their support and appreciation coming to meet me through the floor.

We mass together like continents throughout the score, unable to really distinguish ourselves too frequently.  I appreciate many personalities, those I dance with and those I do not.  It is clear to me that we are taken care of. 

Brandin calls “Now” to mark our final resolution and everyone stays for a long time.  Lying together, many many feet.  Two in the center stand and laugh as they play, then stand in solemn seriousness, performing “end” for another couple of minutes.  Then they move in slow motion.

I like feeling the world here. 

I like Pat sleeping on the bench by the windows.

I like the light turquoise-y blue curtains, and all the blue and green clothing in the room. 

I like moving my body.

Mark

That line I tied to figure out what letter this was, and it was like DNA.  It was very squirmy and dynamic.  Engagement.  Speedy spirals.

Wolf

I felt like a lot of things were being redefined.  Different uses of different parts of the body.  And then when that happens in a big mass, it was just redefining what we can do with everything.

Toby

Screeches.  Heat.  Sirens outside.  Inside honey, melt, touch, connection.

Ophra

I actually found myself to working technically today.  Which is very rare for me at a jam.  So it must be something about the container, especially with my attention.

Marcel

Somehow I ended up with a bindi on my forehead.

Lucy

I’m really grateful and happy.  I feel like I made the choice today to be in joy.

John

I feel like I haven’t really started harvesting yet so I don’t have anything to share.  But I guess that’s worth sharing in and of itself.

Kiori

Once I zoomed out what I saw was caring.

Lauren

I actually found zooming out way easier than zooming in.  I found the score to be very visually appealing.  I spent more time watching than I usually do.  I couldn’t figure out why that was but it was just really nice to see the whole room.

Megan

I think it’s hard to conceptualize the distance between the groups of people that are around the world.  But in some of the quieter moments I was thinking about that and feeling extra appreciative

Julia

I’m just happy so many people came.  I keep looking at the circle and thinking about a globe.

Brandin

Name repeating score and flower gazing before the stand.  Something about this year…that there are 70 places all over the planet.  It’s almost like it’s a wormhole, warping time and space.  This is a global movement, it may grow, it will grow, it may shrink, it will shrink, it may change, it will change…

Leah

Today strikes me…there’s a sense of time and patience, quiet and focus that isn’t always there, serious play that I really like.  What we have here versus out there is that here we can pause and wait and see what happens, and sometimes that’s really hard in the regular world.  I feel really blessed to have a space in my life where that’s allowed.

Christine

I tried to zoom out to the global a few times and I was less successful at that but I felt really connected to the whole room a lot, and that I could let go into the whole room, like it was a big hammock.  I could watch how a shift over here would ripple through the whole thing.  Some nice dances without touching, almost across the whole room, connecting in surprising ways.

Sarah

I often treat a jam as a place to check in with myself, a dynamic structured supportive space.  I get the sense that

Open to change, feeling present in themselves, not perfect.  It feels good to be able to come into a space and do all those things.  In a way that I know what might or may happen but there’s no expectation that it will.

Eryn

Craig

Thanks to the rest of the world for allowing us to be early in the morning.  It was so easy to fall into another amazing dance over and over again.  It was beautiful, thank you.

Chisa

I think this kind of play and what we nurture in ourselves and our community when we do this is so incredibly important for the world.

Shawn

I think we all put a lot of care to others, and as we give more and more care we receive more and more care, and we give more and more attention to our own bodies.

Susan

Loren

(imitates sirens louder!!!) I always get what I want if I wait long enough. 

Rebecca

Thank you again

Ben

yeay, lets play ! ! ! * * * underscore 2012 berlin

hey there , it was wonderful using the dance space in tanzfabrik- berlin for the global underscore *
i was impressed by the feeling of sharing the "same" experience with contact dancers around the world, in many places at the same time *....(...) thanx to heike , who organised for us, thank you all for dancing * thanx for sounding with me , thanx for letting me take pictures *
thanx for the nice dances i had !!! wish you all the best * lets go on dancing * loving * healing * and enjoying our own body and soul and each others bodies and souls * respect and touch and CONTACT-IMPROVISATION :) yeay, lets play ! ! ! see ya ! love karin * by the way, i can very much recommend to look at the blog with the mosaic option in the left corner up ;) !!! *  *  *

Brandin Steffensen's Poems (NYC Harvest)

I-IV & IT WILL

I

All contained boundlessly

EARS and FINGERS SEE

what I or YOU 

CAN NOT

Our cells KNOW IT

and WE do

when 

WE FORGET ENOUGH

II

The rugged terrain

unfolds along the silky

grace of bodies 

that let go of what they habit mostly

(or is it mostly)

Whirling I realize

I am vapor in a 

billowing human cloud 

rustling slower

than ease 

III 

Empty lips closed

over stillness falling

down down into 

fine grain wooden boards 

The light glows over dyed cotton

and locks of hair

The drone of fans is reassuring

IV

LET IT BE

WHEN IT IS MINE

TO BE SURE

                                she says

and I know there is ease just

beyond all stress

IT WILL

IT MAY GROW

IT WILL GROW

IT MAY SHRINK

IT WILL SHRINK

IT MAY CHANGE

IT WILL CHANGE

IT

WILL

BE

IN SOME PLACE

IT IS THE MOST

MOST MOST BELOVED THING

LOKE THE ROMANS 

LOVED THE GLADIATORS

AND THE UNFOLDING

DELICATE and HEFTY

PLAY 

of the

BEINGS OF 

PEACE and CURIOSITY

MAY HOVER

in the BIOSPHERE

AND 

SATURATE ALL OF TIME

love 

b

Gay Pride Glyph

An anonymous participant wanted to post this in honor of the Gay Pride Festival that happened over the whole weekend...and so (perhaps unconsciously) joined us in our practice...

Ekurhuleni South Africa Underscore Harvest

The participates names: Lucky, Vuyani and Senzo
We acknowledge the following for their enormous contribution: South Africa National Civic Organization (SANCO), Morojaneng Primary School and Motse wa Dijana - Hlahatsi Shopping Complex in Katlehong township.