This is a phrase that I have been meditating on this entire week, one that resonates with the complexities of my life as it has come to be thus far. Thinking about how it is that we, as human beings, and me, as a changing, evolving being, balance flying and stretching our wings with planting roots and attaching ourselves to places, to people, to things.
This week brought on a strong bout of homesickness, not dealt with well. It has been an exhausting, backbreaking week (kashe, in Hebrew!) and I was not sure when it would end. I needed to restore myself to a mental, emotional and physical place of solidity and balance. Thus a day spent skipping Hebrew class before the other dancers and I took a trip to an Eco-Art Kibbutz. I attempted to find that place of peacefulness that I so require in order to participate responsibly in the world. Isn’t it fascinating how quickly we attach ourselves to things and to people, regardless of their impending end. I leave here in about 3.5 months and find it difficult to not already regret parting with some of the amazing people that I have met and with this oh-so-complicated place in which I live.
Anyways, let me tell you about my travels! So, I went to this Kibbutz which is the home of Vertigo, an truly beautiful, interesting dance company. The project, housed on this Kibbutz, was started by a woman named Noa. Today, after an exhausting, sometimes painful day of rehearsals, she sat and spoke with us. Noa is a true storyteller. She talked to us for hours about her thoughts on life, how the company came about, her relationships with her dancers, how she creates her choreography…Just watching her was fascinating. I heard in her explanations many themes that I have encountered as I have begun to choreograph and think about the creation of art. Noa lives on this kibbutz with her three other sisters and their 12 children. She emphasizes the importance of honesty in her life and in her dances. In dancing as a human and not as a dancer, an element that was strikingly clear in her dance “Birth of a Phoenix”. My favorite dancer in the entire piece was a dark skinned, sinewy man. He danced with dark brown eyes so open and alert the entire dance that I would have been fascinating just watching his face. This was true of many of her dancers: they did not look like typical dancers. But they moved with such alacrity and poignance that their being brought new dimensions of meaning to the word dance itself. She told us how she questions the usefulness and sustainability of dance as is now. How can one live on a Kibbutz that is concernced with being environmentally friendly when one must carts tons of equipment and humans around to places around the world? However, she said, it is something she is researching. Always researching. “The best teacher is one who is not afraid to be a student,” she said with a sparkle in her eye. This is so true of both of she and her sister, who have taught us: they are fascinated by everything. Their work with us is always teaching them new things even as we learn from them. It also spoke directly to my recent thought, one that floats to the forefront of my mind when I am feeling frustrated with my inability to execute a movement in dance or to truly feel what I am doing for fear of being left two steps behind. In those moments I think about how much I JUST want to choreograph. That is where my passion lies, I tell myself, and this is good but I won’t always be struggling to keep up with others. Luckily these moments are balanced by others that remind me just how much I have progressed in the past few weeks and how good this program is for me as a dancer and as a human being. Like today when I gracefully completed a shoulder roll that flipped me over completely and a classmate congratulated me with such enthusiasm, as she knew I had been working so hard on it! Or when the director of the program looked me in the eye and told me how noticeable my improvement and hard work was. How well I was doing. But even more meaningful than those moments of praise are the moments when I myself feel truly immersed in what I am doing. When I am the one leading the group and am sure of the move to come. When I am able to stop worrying about where I am supposed to be moving to next and can really appreciate the place that I am in, even if only for half a second.
I left the Kibbutz feeling incredibly inspired and as though my feet are placed more solidly on the ground here. The faces of my peers are so familiar to me now. The different way that things work no longer make me blink. I am beginning to forget where I need to move to next and am actually sitting in the movement. This is making my experiences that much more fun and rich.
Random moments that I would like to share: This morning, waking up to shower at 6:30 in an open air shower with luke warm water. I was freezing. And very awake after it!
My hilarious roommate researching the difficult life of a T-Rex. How, for example, do you drink a glass of water when your arms are so tiny and you only have three fingers?
Walking into my apartment unsure that it was in fact my apartment. This is not actually a rare occurrence. The other day I was sitting in an apartment diagonal from mine and one of my roommates walked in. I mentioned that I was surprised to see her there and she asked why. “Because this isn’t our apartment?” Thankfully, turns out that one of the roomies had simply bleached the floor and put everything back in different places. And again, this makes me wonder about the need for comfort and stability. I am still not adjusted to the new living room configuration.
The several dinners that I have made with new friends. How important it is to have friends. The qualities you look for in a friend (people with similar views, levels of judgmentalness and bluntness, people who make me laugh).
How difficult it continues to be to connect with people from home. How sometimes that feels so important and affects how I feel about myself so much and how at other times, I really don’t feel that I need to be in contact at all.
How hard it is to walk when your ankles and knees (and shoulders and hips) are bruised. The marks of the art, darling!
What strange skills I have. Like the fact that making rice sounds strange and difficult to me, but making a caramelized pear sauce does not.
Life goes on. As does the research. As does my attempt to find a balance between roots and wings.
Great post!!!
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