Tag Archives: Dance

Spring Show: NaPoWriMo

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Spring, University of Pennsylvania

Monday Morning Musings:

“Dance is the hidden language of the soul, of the body. And it’s partly the language that we don’t want to show.”

–“Martha Graham Reflects on Her Art and a Life in Dance” (31 March 1985); republished in The New York Times Guide to the Arts of the 20th Century (2002), p. 2734.

“A study in scarlet, eh? Why shouldn’t we use a little art jargon? There’s the scarlet thread of murder running through the colourless skein of life, and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it.”

–Arthur Conan Doyles, “A Study in Scarlet”

 

 

From a garden

nature sings

dressed for spring

she puts on a show.

Can we,

do we

should we know

the answers?

They blow to the sky

in pastel petals—

Why?

***

We board the train

(no more rain)

So, notice the patterns

of shadows and light

the people shedding jackets,

the delight

of sunlight on the skin,

the day begins.

 

We walk—

a limited edition

cityscape

in an oeuvre that is vast

at last

feeling spring is here.

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Oh, look at the river view,

and how the artist expresses

something both old and new

Schuylkill River from Walnut Street

See the trees?

A work of impressionist art

Combined with naturalism,

Realism,

And there a bit of abstract expressionism.

A study in pink,

I think.

(Love in the air.)

Notice the light.

in this installation,

and the palette of hues

the vivid blues,

the pink, the white,

yellow added to this site.

Spring, University of Pennsylvania
Spring, University of Pennsylvania
Spring, University of Pennsylvania

Now inside,

the dancers dance

bodies tango

they go

this way,

slide from couple to trio

fusion of moves

cues

(she’s in high heels)

catch, swerve

in gender-fluid dives

into each other,

what divides us–

the sensual steps,

the turns,

we yearn

for what?

“No exit,” Sartre says

(ideas compressed)

from seeing ourselves

as others do,

and how do we hold on to

me or you?

We wander back

outside where spring

dances, prances, and glides.

An aside–

we converse with Ben

once again.

And the next day,

I’m once again outside

spring fever,

I decide

No cure,

but to immerse myself

once more.

See, there–

we drink some wine

our thoughts aligned

with others

of similar mind

the winery is crowded.

At William Heritage Winery

But this April day—

I wish it’d stay.

Then it’s gone—

another painting on the wall

but yet, not banal.

Don’t you adore

the artist’s shading?

Watch how–

there now–

see the bright light of day

slowly fading

to darkness,

come the night.

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Day Eight of NaPoWriMo challenges us “to think about the argot of a particular job or profession, and see how you can incorporate it into a metaphor that governs or drives your poem.”  I used some jargon of the art world.

On Saturday, we saw Union Tanguera + Kate Weare Company, “Sin Salida,” at the Annenberg Center. Here’s a short video from the company.

 

 

 

 

 

Sweetness Restored

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Monday Morning Musings:

 

“I know you feel it

The sweetness restored”

From Leonard Cohen, “Leaving the Table”

 

A ship sails across an ocean

crashes, in furious motion,

its treasures sink in the deep

as though asleep

while centuries creep

a chunk of bronze, fragment of the past

did it predict this future, forecast

another ship sailing through a sea of stars

carrying our past to the future

suturing time with invisible stitches?

Beings we will never know

blow forward and back

ghosts drift from stardust

near and far, they must

I think, walk beside us,

(that gust)

whispering in the wind

bringing horror or bringing joy,

bringing completeness

restoring the sweetness

of what has been lost

 

In the year of the dotard

when real is thought fake

(so much at stake)

when false is declared to be true

and people go about life

(without a clue)

when Mother Earth vents her fury on land and sea

and like a banshee

the winds wail and roar

and as the darkness gathers and soars

and millions sit without a light

in the dark, body and souls

between the poles

of north and south

they go without.

When all this takes place

here

in this space

we sit at the table

thankful we are able

with challah and wine

we dine

in honey dip our apple

watch the sun and shadows dapple

the walls,

as evening falls

here in this moment,

here in this place

the sweetness restored

 

We watch a movie about a dancer

a child who dances in the Russian snow

aglow with the joy of moving, doing, being

receiving the best training

(her parents work hard)

and she does, too

through pain of body and soul

is it worth it all?

and she struggles and questions—

technique or feeling?

finding it unappealing

tired of dancing others’ creations

sensations, ideation

she moves in a duet by the water

to find that child again,

form and feeling

to find the sweetness restored

 

My husband and I walk

we talk about the film we’ve seen

watch the street scenes

a pretty window and door

an urban street with more

we see nature’s destruction

turned to art

despite the ignorance and the hate

we humans love

we need to create

art, poetry, and stories

of the fantastic and the real–

we feel–

the family behind us

answering their son’s funny questions

wondering will they be troublemakers

and we are partakers in this bit

strangers meeting on the street

and then we go our separate ways,

stroll a while

but we smile

the family’s moment struck a chord

the sweetness restored.

 

Daughter and I go to a wine festival

the autumn day disguised as summer

We talk and taste wine

and we are feeling fine

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buy bracelets with literary themes

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of hopes and dreams

the sweetness of wine and books

of strangers looks

(okay, perhaps not all)

we people watch as we stand in line

behind the drunk couple

all entwined

the man with his roving hands

the woman who might fall as she stands

our eyes meet

standing there in the heat

no need to say out loud what we are thinking

mother-daughter interlinking thoughts

we talk of teaching

of The Color Purple and Langston Hughes

we talk of friends and we shmooze

if days could be like this

without dotards to lead

without a world full of greed

without hurricanes and earthquakes

without racism and hate—

is it too late?

if we could wrap up and hoard

all the love, the light, make the world bright

would we feel it,

the sweetness restored?

 

We saw the movie, Polina. Trailer here.

We went to the Heritage Vineyards Wine Festival.

I’m kind of fascinated by the antikythera mechanism.

Here is a beautiful video for Leonard Cohen’s “Leaving the Table.” This song is from his last album, made just before he died.

 

 

 

 

The Footbridge: Tanka

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glimmer-green dancers

flow in Sarabande rhythm

beneath the footbridge

music travels through space, time

captured by the artist’s brush

 

1963-116-11-pma

Claude Monet, The Japanese Footbridge and the Water Lily Pool, Giverny, 1899
The Mr. and Mrs. Carroll S. Tyson, Jr., Collection, 1963
Philadelphia Museum of Art

 

 

Claude Debussy, Sarabande pour le Piano, L95 

This is a tanka for Colleen Chesebro’s Weekly Poetry Challenge.

The prompt words were music and art.

 

In Flight: NaPoWriMo

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I watch the birds from my kitchen window,

circling, gliding, floating,

a wondrous sky dance,

ancient patterns or improvised movements,

fluttery Bob Fosse jazz wings,

concentric circles form, intersect, break

to avian rhythms unheard

and movements unknown to us,

(mere humans)

I gaze, dreaming, wondering, thinking

what must it be like to rise so high

without fear of falling?

 

This is for NaPoWriMo, Day 5. The prompt was a poem on nature or the natural world. I used the Secret Keeper’s Weekly Writing Prompt words: Think/Rise/Rhythm/Float/Fall

 

 

 

 

Rain Dance

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“Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0″CC BY-SA 3.0,

 

The dance of rain

on window pane, all misty grey

the dance of rain.

The first few drops, a slow pavane,

the lightning flash, a sky ballet,

to boom and crash, twirling away

the dance of rain

 

This poem is in response to Jane Dougherty’s poetry challenge. This week’s challenge was to write a Rondelet using the prompt “summer storm” and the photo above.

 

Dancing Off the Path of Life

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A man and a woman performing a modern dance.

A man and a woman performing a modern dance. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“Those who dance are considered insane by those who cannot hear the music.”

—George Carlin

Some mornings as I’m out driving, I observe a man in a bike helmet at a nearby intersection.  As I stop at the traffic light, I see him on the corner, on the other side of the street, and to my right. It’s a suburban area, but not part of a housing development, so there are few pedestrians. He stands alone, bike on the ground beside him, and then suddenly he’s dancing. His arms move; first one goes up in front of his body, palm out, and then the other arm comes up from the side, as if he’s directing the traffic through the intersection. He sways to a beat that only he can hear. I wave to him as I drive by.

I’ve seen this man several times now, and I can’t decide if he is truly dancing to his own inner drummer, or not. Is he insane because I can’t hear his music? Perhaps he’s doing some form of Tai Chi during a bike-riding break? I really don’t know, and it doesn’t matter.

And who am I to judge? I was singing along to West Side Story (and picturing the dancers in my head) as I drove past him. We all have our own music; we all dance our own dances. Sometimes the music and the dance of life takes us straight down a path; at other times it turns and twists, and we march, crawl, leap, and pirouette along with it.

Martha Graham said, “Dance is the hidden language of the soul.”  Dance exists in every society and culture. It comes in many forms. Babies dance before they can walk. They move and sway to music naturally and without caring what others think.

Sometimes as adults we need to be reminded that we should not be so conscious of what others are thinking. That we should “dance as if no one is watching,” as one Zumba instructor I know often says.

I opened a fortune cookie the other day to find a fortune that said, “Choose your own path.” Some circumstances are thrust upon us and unforeseen—illness, war, natural disasters, and accidents. Some people end up on a Bataan Death March. But most of the time we choose and take a variety of roads, some smooth and straight, and others bumpy and loaded with traffic humps, or tortuous twists. As we navigate the streets of life, we make selections about and choose destinations for education, relationships, and careers. I think of my daughters, two bright, talented, young adults, and I want them to choose their own paths. I want them to feel free to meander off the path to explore—and dance. I want them to create new trails and new ways of seeing, feeling, and experiencing the paths they choose. I hope they never stop hearing the music in their souls and in the world around them.

Perhaps today I’ll turn up the music and dance off the path—and I don’t care if anyone sees me.