November 17, 2007

If we understood it all mysteries, the interest would fade just as quickly...

During a day like today, I often think back to a trip that my mother, Aunt Thelma and I took once across country. We headed directly west from Lake County, IL, just north of Chicago, across the great plains to get to the west coast- San Jose. We then head south to more relatives in LA, area and then head straight east. I remember in St. Louis, with the great arch in the background, some other driver flipped my mother off, and I flipped her off right back. I was probably 11 at the time. I asked my mother if it was ok that I flipped the other driver the bird, after I had done it instinctively. I don't remember what she said.

But: I digress.  The highlight of this particular trip was stopping at the Grand Canyon. I was in a foul mood, and in response to my saying that I wanted to stay in the car, my mother tilted her head forward and looked out of the top part of her eyes, a sign she was about to say something she really meant.

"You will get out of this car immediately, young man, and you will go over to the edge of that canyon, and you will look at it, and you are going to enjoy every moment. Do you hear me?"

I noticed today something I looked at, enjoyed every moment of, but remained in the car to do so. I have been savoring fall since my drive across the midwest earlier this week, and now that DC has a sense of fall, here, too.

The trees are in beautiful form. I spoke aloud to myself as I passed a house here in Takoma Park. "What a beautiful tree!".  When we are younger -do we choose not to see the beauty, have no appreciation for the beauty?  Does nostalgia for other trees from family yards, or wonderful picnics, or the ever elongating spans of years make you appreciate the trees - or the beauty, or the possibilities in life? - or the Grand Canyon? - better?

I am re-writing the script contained within the dance for "Funny Uncles". We have stumbled upon a new character - one inspired by the beautiful dancer Asanga Domask. Asanga will not appear live in this year's version due to work schedule. But a lucky happenstance: we are commissioning Molly Ross, our projection and puppet designer, to create a series of Asanga puppets. The use of Asanga as this Shadow character has been a lovely turn for the piece, I believe.

She has become a narrator of sorts - and the deus ex machina (if that is possible with shadow and light!) toward the end of the piece. We will find out.

But just like my new found appreciation for the trees today, and I am guessing if I were nearer the Grand Canyon I would be more entralled than I was in the past, I have an awe for whatever creative process truly is that feels also new found. We can rattle off tools and methods to create raw movement material. We can study forms of writing and narrative and dance composition. But how we all put it together or it puts itself together as we sit observing it happen in the studio, or on the page or on the screen, well, that is part of creative mystery.

As I finish up the script for today, I am humbled that I get to do what I do for a living. To have mystery to create awe is as spiritual an experience as the glaciers cutting through the rocks of the canyon as the turning of  a leaf as the turn of a phrase, the editing that allows a truer articulation of word or movement to fall into placce.....

Great day.

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