Wintry reflection
In snowy January NCCD ran an advanced retreat course in Wales with Gill Clarke, independent dance artist, as facilitator. Open only to those dance practitioners with over ten years experience, it catered for the dance artist looking for new directions in their work. During the course participants dug beneath issues that were pertinent to their situations, and used the course to air their concerns and blocks about new initiatives and collaborations.
What follows isn't a hard-edged review of that part of the course, but rather offers a window into the essence of the participants' collective experience. It is, writes Gill, 'a "manifesto"- not in the sense of a carefully worded outline of future plans, but instead a container that might conserve something of the spontaneity and passion of individual reflections that emerged during our time together, balancing the serious attention that was given to better understanding our own practices with a lightness that came through the opportunity to share with peers.'
Image: National College for Community Dance, Advanced Course held in Wales January 2010. Photo: Nina Atkinson.
Welsh retreat manifesto
Monday/Tuesday
No to boxes that confine
No to information without discovery
No to delivering
No to the homogenous, and monochrome and monotone
No to fixity
Yes to 'being with' and 'letting' and 'allowing'
Yes to the magical journey
to following a line
and knowing there is a next time
Yes to TIME
To be
For me
(But not tooooooooo much!)
Yes to spaces
for experiences
and active stillness
Yes to integrating
and exploring
and ebb and flow
Yes to discovering for yourself
Yes to the individual and to commonality
Yes to confidence, to creativity and collaboration
Yes to suggestion, and imagery and to self-awareness
Yes to adapting
Yes to what lies under the stuff
And to nourishing ME
Wednesday
Yes to TIME
Yes to discipline and to taking time
Yes to going out and coming back in
and re - investigating
and stripping away
Yes to sharing exploration
Yes to experience
to the unspoken
to immersion
and
... readiness
Yes to noticing
Yes to garnering
Yes to re-visiting
and to centring
and to trusting movement
and Hoorah for the 'Ah-has'
Yes to the journey
to passing on the journey
Yes to the person
and to taking bits
and to making it new
Yes to traces and to gubbins and to sparks
and to fires that burn
and snow and stew
and
Yes to ...TIME
Together
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Animated: Spring 2010