ON FEAR
I came into this city 3 weeks after it suffered a terrorist attack, a series of bombings in public places, killing innocent people. I was afraid. I carried a big ball of fear with me into this country. And although I am experiencing more joy and hope each day here than I would on any other normal day in my life, there is still a part of me where this fear sits.
I hate the idea of fear. Even more than that I hate the idea that I am being affected by it. I hate that the people who are using fear to paralyse us, to hold us back, to stop us, or to enrage us and convince us we have enemies, that there is a them and an us, are winning over me in some small way.
Warning: This entry may appear as self-indulgent. I had made an agreement with myself to keep a blog of my 3 month residency here at Darpana as I knew it would be an experience that would bring up interesting thoughts about art and life and they ways in which they connect and interact. And so I have written pages and pages to myself the past few days and then self-edited until there was nothing left that I felt worthy for public eyes. Then I watched a performance piece made here at Darpana by another foreign woman, an Italian, called ‘Western Woman’,s that was in essence a monologue of her emotional journey being here in India which I connected with so strongly that it brought me to tears. And so I decided that this ‘self-indulgent’ tangent I have been on with my writing this week may in fact contain more than is assumed at first glance. So I write…..
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I have been in this country for 7 days now. It is my first time to India, a place for which I have always held great curiosity, but never ventured. This first week has been both unsettling and settling all at once. It has been a bombardment of actions, of people, of information, of unfamiliarity, but most of all of emotions and thoughts swirling through my head and heart.
It has been an extreme week.
A week of educating myself on the ways of the world here. Of working out where my boundaries are, where I can push and where I need to fall into line. Or more precisely, where are the lines?
It has been a week of meeting some wonderful, fascinating and inspiring people. Darpana is an incredible institution in that it attracts perhaps the most forward thinking, humane and just human beings in this state. I have already had many political and social conversations with people I have only just met. These people are open and warm and have passionate views and dreams of the world that match mine. The work of the company continues to impress me, in its scope, its impact, its bravery and its intelligence of head and heart. They are taking positive action in meaningful ways every day.
And then there has been the extremities of my emotions. Of loneliness, of fear, of being the ‘outsider’, of questioning my place and purpose here, of wondering what exactly it is I have to offer. The idea of 3 months in this foreign place seems at times like an eternity, with no familiar distractions – a home with no tv, no internet, no windows, no cd player, and a barely functioning toilet. I have felt naked without my luxuries. I have felt dirty and unsafe without my “axaj†and crisp white kitchen benchtops. And I have felt ridiculous for thinking such things! But slowly I have also felt myself relax over the week into the rhythm of this life, to find space and comfort in this way of living. And it is a good feeling.
So at the end of this first week I am a whirlwind of thoughts and emotions. Still the idea of 3 months here in some ways overwhelms me, and in other ways excites me. I have moments of fear, moments of loneliness, I have moments of inspiration, moments of awe, moments of connection, moments of excitement, and I have many questions…mainly…. What will I do here? What do I have to contribute? This is the challenge to come.
Arrival Date..Monday 18th August
where I am now…
My latest investigations are simmering and skating around the idea of hope, as it fits or sits in our current world. Do we feel hopeful? What do we really think about the future?
I am increasingly becoming aware of the mixture of anxiety, fear, frustration, hope, passion etc that sit amongst us all/ that is floating around, in and between us, in regards to the current state of the world. In all the tragic news and facts we are bombarded with every day, do we still carry hope. And if so how do we show it? How can we show it? How do we hold onto it? How do we make it grow and act on it?
These are all huge questions, and maybe you think I’m naïve to think I can address or ‘solve’ them through dance. But firstly, I believe the body holds an immense amount of knowledge. It holds our emotions, how we truly feel, what we truly want, our dreams as well as our reality. Our past, our present and our future. And secondly, movement is the only way I know how to research life, it is my tool of research, it is through dance that I have trained myself to research life. And so…..I endeavour to tackle this issue. If fact, I just spent 3 weeks in Taipei making my first work around this topic. It was hard, hard, hard, and I don’t think the final product was anything wonderful. It became for me more of a representation of ideas of stage 1 of my research! And so….I hope to continue down this road, with maybe a second, and a third, and a fourth piece. But there is much to discover and try along the way.
Any thoughts?
Latest adventures…..
I just spent an incredible 3 weeks in Taiwan having been invited there to make a new work as part of TaipeIdea’s Asia Young Choreographer’s Project.
Amazing people, incredibly warm hosts, phenomenonal hard working dancers, too many photographs….typhoons…..selection of cuisines more eclectic than I’ve ever seen….millions of motorbikes……and fabulous night markets….3 weeks later I’m back
Here are some pics…..(to come….soon!)
First Entry.
Over time this space will be filled and flooded with random bits of information, thoughts, questions, inspirations, behaviours, sightings and philosophies about art… and its relationship to life………..(at least from my very one-sided perspective!).
Let the entourage begin.
….Comments are welcome…x