People Dancing

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.'

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