Listening to Move
By Bronwen MacArthur, Bebe Miller Company, Dancer
I danced in a trio today with dancers Roger and Viviana of the Kinesfera group based in Lima, Peru. The score for the dance was grounded in the work of initiating movement in your partner(s) with varying degrees of force with different parts of the body. A swipe along your partner’s arm, for example, might send them following the arm into space in the trajectory of the swiping action. Roger uses a wheelchair and dances with his chest, shoulders, neck, head and arms. And his eyes, voice, energy, wit, breath, smile and spirit. Viviana and Roger have worked together on past projects. As the three of us rotated roles—initiating, responding, keeping track of all three at once—the profound listening and intense focus and attention on each other made for a deeply felt connection and creative space. Our trio left me feeling vividly awake and emotionally/creatively overflowing. At the end of the day, we shared thoughts as a larger group and I was contemplating the idea of “exchange” that has been the backdrop of our trip. Looking around the room and feeling the work of all of us resonating in my body, I was struck by how much everyone was giving to the moment: Bebe was sharing the wealth of her observations, revealing her gift of seeing each person and relationship. The translator, Vanessa, was translating Spanish to English and back again with clarity and force. Viviana was sitting directly in front of another Kinesfera dancer, Otto, who is deaf and partly sighted, so that he could read her lips. All the dancers sat listening, reflecting on and processing their own duets and trios. The word “exchange” somehow didn’t seem adequate, didn’t seem complex and big enough to encompass all the offerings, sharing and generosity in the room that day. The experience made me reflect on the nature of exchange over the course of our time in Colombia and Peru working with so many different groups. There have been so many moments for each of us, and collectively as a company, that we take home with us. Moments of real, human connection through movement, through sharing little parts of ourselves across language and experience and circumstance. By my perception, not one group approached our time together with an energy of waiting for us to deliver a particular outcome. Again and again we were given a true openness to receiving whatever it was that we and the experience offered. And in exchange, we learned everyday what it is to be human, problem-solving and laughing and crying and moving with other humans.
Photo: Lila Hurwitz
