Diamond Baby
Bytom, Poland (30 June, 2005)
Direction: Licht Kamiya
Performance/Co-creation: Hofan Chau & Licht Kamiya
Music: Bob Marley
I learnt a lot from the process of creating Diamond Baby. I have a clearer idea of how to grow my dances. When I say 'grow' I really mean this: to come to a dance without a preconceived notion or theme, to build a shared vocabulary, and then let a theme and a structure of the dance emerge. In this sense, every dance is rooted with truth about a relationship.
One of the things I am particulary satisfied about Diamond Baby is how it reflects the lightness, humour and wonder in my relationship with Rihito. I am glad we are able to share the magic and laughter in our transformation of the cups with the audience, because it is one of the best parts of my relationship with Rihito. In the piece, this quality serves to open up the audience, before it flips to loss to solitude and then back into joy.
I am searching for this bridge, I think, to transform the tools we have acquired into something honest and true. The tricks/tools we are learning in Lecoq are old ones, and I get the sense that I am riding on the wave of collective knowledge. There is a certain logic in the discovery of what is "new", and there is much ground I need to cover and digest before being on the cutting edge.
One thing I have learnt from being around Rihito is the non-linear nature of skill. While there are certain things which one acquires through diligence and practice, there are others which one acquires through finding the right connection (the right state). Once you tap into this source, you can go very very far, much further than years of practice can take you. I've seen him so it in voice, and in art. In dance too, when one considers that he has only been moving for two years. To reach this involves a high degree of listening and waiting for the right moment. Then you go.
1 Comments:
Hi Hofan!
I really appreciate your observation through Rihito on the nature of learning in the arts, what you call "the non-linear nature of skill."
I am neither patient, nor diligent. The stress of impatience and lack of preparation have not necessarily slowed my development as a movement artist, but perhaps block my access to "the right connection", which I am now finding to simply be relaxation in the present moment. It is hard to live in the moment. We are often busy rethinking the last moment, planning for the moment to come. In all of that business, we forget the moment, and the moment passes.
In my training here I am finding this in correspondance to the body directly, in terms of the fullness of sequential movement. That is, not just going from A to B (say, shoulder to fingertip, head to tail), but through every dot and dash, every muscle, joint, ligament between. I am finding that time slows down in moving this way -- stretching out time laterally.
Now I sound like a fluffy artist!
-MEL XXO
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