Lucia Dancing

The summer of 2020 has cautiously crept towards us over the last few weeks, often retreating into hiding for a tad longer and then slamming us with sweltering humidity. Unpredictability in weather feels fitting to the social context we live in. Life is a contrast. Staying home, nestling with loved ones, trying in vain to develop any sort of  ritualistic routine for the day to day;  Masked up and marching, confronting as a recent college graduate the erratic world of pandemic and the uprising against the perpetual state of white supremacy of our nation. This body always reminds me of rhythm when I feel it is missing. She is saturated with cyclical life; menstruation, emotion, blood, oxygen. Her heartbeat. When everything feels a bit lost, this is what I come back to.  Black Lives Matter. I am encouraging, urging, insisting everyone get involved in this antiracist movement and support Black people. There are a wide variety of ways to do this and I hope we all take t...

These queens Emma Dewey and Shayna Olsan joined me for this dance in celebration of our bodies, this shared sunny moment, and fresh air to breathe. The elemental joy of movement, together, is an irreplaceable gift. So much fullness in this dance! Waxing and waning sways and falls.  I am going to miss these women when the summer comes and those few of us left in Brunswick go our separate ways. I know that the wisdom and love we have all shared will carry me on in the coming months/years of this new twilight zone world. Until the next outdoor dance! Note: Video footage condenses space! Music:  Funky Sensation by Disclosure ft. Gwen CcCrae Blue Tirana by Tony Malaby, Johnny Åman, Peter Nilsson, Per-Oscar Nilsson

In honor of Nancy Stark Smith (1952-2020). The percolation of your profound movement wisdom reached me last year and through the Underscore I learned how to see my body as firmly whole in its own place. Embodying "streaming" (the sense of ongoing lifeforce flowing from one's body) gave my work Like Water depth and perspective. In your honor, I share some of my authentic reflections after the first two Underscores I participated in. In addition, a short (very silhouetted) dance ruminating on the wisdom of your teachings.  "In the beginning, I was a sea creature. A jellyfish, a squid, a fish swimming around the dark ocean trying to find her school. I was underwater but I could breathe, floating, diving, slithering along the ocean floor, luxuriating in the feel of the sand on me. I am not sure who I am but I transform, ahh legs to carry me. Wanting to curl up like a leaf in the crest of her tree's trunk, nestled just right. Play like newborn jaguars, along the st...

This post is dedicated to my grandmother, Nana, for inspiring me to sink into form and fill up space fully with my body. I love you and am thinking about you as these days pass in quarantine and spring blossoms. Emma Dewey joined me for this exploration and it was magical. A full 25 minutes of improvisation in the glorious sunshine and this wide open field, I felt truly struck with a creative energy I haven't in a while. I am so grateful for this moment and this duet. A dear mentor shared an article with me by the Chronicle for Higher Education, about the idea of productivity during COVID-19. This is a quote that she highlighted in particular, that resonates deeply with me in these times: "Now more than ever, we must abandon the performative and embrace the authentic. Our essential mental shifts require humility and patience. Focus on real internal change. These human transformations will be honest, raw, ugly, hopeful, frustrated, beautiful, and divine. And they will b...

Today I honor the earth with a dance I did under this incredible birch tree. From the moment I began dancing, it was intertwined with a deep love and reverence for the natural sanctuary of Vermont's woods and waters. I learned to dance and move and live as a human from the land and rivers and forests. Thank you to the earth-- her winds, her waters, her soils and creatures and fires and ices. I have learned profound lessons from you about movement, humanity, emotion, growth, and grounding. I honor you today with my own dance. Begin freewrite: "Sun, my love! Welcome. My face smiled at her. Thank you for your return, thank you to the birds for their symphony, this silky jacket, the peaking of grass. This tree carries sorrow, power. I feel shy, timid, I want to give her space and wrap myself in her embrace. I dance a duet, her strength is shared. I am still cutting through cobwebs of emotional complexity and oooh the bend and off-balance dance of muddy ground helps shake som...

On Earth Day 2020, I am honoring an amazing dancer and a close friend, Kitrea Takata-Glushkoff. This is her dancing on the frozen Lake Baikal in Russia, the world's oldest, deepest lake. Her movement and this sacred space embody the grace, vulnerability, and gratitude my dancing journey has been touched and inspired by. I am so excited to honor the earth and all its waters today with her dancing. Kitrea's words: Reverence Baikal’s sound is a feeling. a feeling – in the soul of every being whose lifecycle she has nurtured, since her own birth 30 million years ago. a feeling - physical - as I lay my back against hers, and share in her movements – her ice shell plates rifting and subducting and colliding into one another. Baikal awakens. She slurps and scrushes and crunches. I dance to her life. her life of feeling. her feeling of sound. I sculpt her through dance. She paints the melody. I move in reverence. She rests- a never-ending pearly smooth plain. I rest, and inha...

Saturday was National Water Dance 2020, a day to honor our earth's water and give gratitude to the land while sharing in a collective dance across the country. Here is the full video of our work, featuring dance based on my work, Like Water. Danced by Lucia Gagliardone, Shayna Olsan, Siena Wiedmann, Emma Dewey, Lydia Roe, Kitrea Takata-Glushkoff, and Lucy Sydel in Maine, New York, Pennsylvania, and California. Music: Arvo Part,  Spiegel Im Spiegel Honoring this water has never felt so sacred, so profound. We dance with the country, in the same artistic space as millions, bodies coexisting and swirling around in the fresh air like the tide rolls over the rocks. Thank you. For the sustenance you give, the power you possess. The life you nourish. Thank you to this body, my body, our bodies together. I can feel our touch even as we stand at a distance. A palpable shared heartbeat. I feel very full, embraced with the love of this national dance and the feeling of being welcomed in...

My movement has been slow, heavy, a bit caught in the same rhythms. Body is processing the thoughts and emotions that built up and surpassed my capacity to feel all at once. I know and accept that right now, my movement isn't fully ready to emerge out into the world, is still working around inside my body and choosing to stay there. I know soon I will feel a release into full movement, but until then I accept and honor this state of slowness, of weight and inhibition, as important in the processing my body is doing to contend with the world.  Thank you Nana for encouraging me to lean in to form and shapes, I love you! Shot at the old foundation in Sharon, VT, and the graveyard tree in Brunswick, ME.

Today I feature Emma Dewey and Lucy Sydel, two of my biggest movement inspirations. Missing these two a lot! Here is a dance we all joined in together, to the song Heartbreaker by Alabama Shakes. I danced to this song in an earlier post, "explorations of the couch", and found that my movement was yearning for something new and more melancholy here as I dance in the snow. Perhaps it was the emotional intensity in the song matching with the unsettled world and the cold air and the knowledge that out there in the world Emma and Lucy were also diving into this dance. Together and alone. Alone and together. I love watching the way that everyone leans into the reverberations of the song in their own unique style. Emma spinning, Lucy playing with balance. There is a shared energy even though we are all far away. This song reminds me of those 8 am warmups while snow fell outside Edwards and we all woke our bodies up with swings and twists in unison. Bouncing up and down, the power ...

In my improvisation class last year with Professor Shaina Cantino, we dove into the concept of habitual movement for a while, and I became fascinated with how my body came back to certain movements again and again. Now during these COVID days, I return to my habits and find comfort in them. For an advanced rep class project, we filmed short little dances, and I decided to compile all my explorations into this video. I love how my body slides into a lunge with ease, relying on my two legs stretched out in two directions to balance me and keep me centered. The way my arms follow similar dives and swirls, tracking their well-trodden pathways in the sky. I love the moments when I allow myself to relish in these patterns, rather than search always for the new, the unique, the un-danced. Sometimes the greatest wisdom is found in those moments that my body returns to again and again. I wonder why. A mark of my pedestrian life? A innate whisper, left over from a womb dance? Or just the most c...

Here are some other moments from the barn, exploring movement from Dan Wagnor's piece Miss Otis Regrets in an improvisational format. I hope to get back in the barn soon. This is dedicated with love to Carol Langstaff.  Begin Freewrite: "I danced a ghost duet with Emma, in the barn, alone. I felt the weight shared, the trust, oozing breath like swells in the depth of the Atlantic. Ebb and flow, the bond catches me in a shudder, a whisper of forgiveness sings out in the dance. "Today I died" she says. It is April 1st. But I will be reborn anew. Some moment, for some present in the future, rushing like a hurricane gust to engulf your body in electricity. You will rise up with wings of movement swirling around all of you, like spring. She is certain of this truth. I close my eyes and the presence of multiple reincarnating bodies hold me. And I hold them. I open my eyes and I am alone. I smile. We continue to hold each other."

This barn, where I spent the very beginnings of my life as a dancer, surrounded by a community of movers, bound by our fierce appreciation for the earth and hippy Vermont roots, gives me new breath. Breath of crisp spring (still winter?) air, breath of space and quiet. Breath of my piece. I have been soaking in thoughts about Like Water for weeks, through the loss and chaos, the connections from afar and the re-aquaintance with home. Here, I played with this movement, on my own, in this solitude and the sun peaking through the window. This post is dedicated to Carol Langstaff, my first and most profound inspiration. Thank you for the wisdom you have saturated this land with and given me over the years. I dance these dances from my thesis for you! Begin freewrite. "She came back to my body like a bird flying home after winter. I am overcome with the rush of reunion, 'dance in me' I scream I want to feel your whisper. The coarse barn wood greets my feet and I am ...

One of my favorite dancer friends, Lucy Sydel, and I, collaborated on a duet to this song we love. Dedicated to Professor Aretha Aoki. Thank you Lucy for creating the video choreography! If you are interested in looking at more of her amazing work, check out Dance Indoors on Instagram. To see my full explorations of this song and the sunny corner, see this blog post:  https://luciadancing.blogspot.com/2020/03/sunny-corner-by-stereo.html

I dedicate these dances to Professor Gwyneth Jones, who has and continues to share her wisdom and give me light to keep moving and find my way through this madness. This is a moment of joy as I explore my couch and three songs inspired by Gwyneth's amazing dance classes. Its remarkable how unstable it feels to move on a surface that is not guaranteed to be steady like the floor--I am learning to explore this wobbly sensation in my body and my heart. Thankful for the sun! Songs: Billie Jean by the Civil Wars For Once in my Life by Stevie Wonder Heartbreaker by The Alabama Shakes

Out in the world for an afternoon to buy some groceries for a neighbor! I had to stop by my favorite river beach from high school. The sand and sun are so nourishing, even as the wind still carries the cold of a lingering winter. A little bit of Like Water  crept in and I relished in her. Begin freewrite. "I am showered in her sound. Its a full immersion. my body lathered in the nipping wind's kiss my lungs breath the gurgle of every single droplet. Coming together in one body rushing down to a different world. She is full today, nourished with spring's gift of melting. The rocks play hide and go seek I am alone. My body still feels a sense of incompleteness. I'm hopeful for time to work her healing powers and give me the fullness of the river, someday. Sadness is my companion, I choose to welcome her in this dance. The streaming current shows the ephemeral cycle that all life wrestles with. A constant sense of loss and return. Always becoming." ...

It was a stormy, grey day. Its easy to be a chameleon and absorb nature's mood into your own body. More than ever I wish we had a leader instead of a narcissistic dictator. Sending my thoughts to all the families that are struggling right now. Dancing in the wind gave me some energy and light. Begin freewrite: "Wind rush so forceful it gives me more oxygen so I can fly higher and forget the ground for a second. It's not a cold wind, kisses on my raw, hand-washed skin, a little pirouette in each hair strand I am caught in the swirl. The gust chooses for me where I move my body--a whirlwind. Sometimes it feels deeply pleasurable to give in to the habitual twist and lunge that my body relies on as its foundation. a yielding to the known, as everything is so damn dark        grey              gloomy                       unsettling           ...

I unearthed my room from clutter and years of dust. It's still a time-capsule from middle school, but I now look upon it with love. I am at capacity for uncertainty and unsteadiness, although I know it will not go away, the unclear, wobbly, terrifying state of things. Unsteady future, unsteady health, unsteady community, unsteady wifi connection. Unsteady emotional state. Here is a dance and some writing where I try to face some of this lack of clarity. Begin freewrite. "the floor is sliding away from me like my sense of security and rhythm these days. Feeling the creases in the wood gently crash against my feet as I slide around. Ice cold wood slick like a Popsicle, my body can always catch herself. A symphony of sounds. Instability feels like rugs being pulled, but yet we bounce back, balance inside, pleasure in the falling and catching. This is where agency is regained".

I feel like I am in a state of suspended time and space. Days are blending together! We don't have hot water right now. I stress bought 20 mini Velveeta mac and cheese packs. Send me your address and I'll send you a letter. Sometimes when I dance I find myself struck with a deep sadness. A sadness owned by the phantom of my community of movers, my teachers, that shared space space. It had woven itself into my capillaries and bone marrow like oxygen, so this moment feels like a severing of a body part. Saying goodbye was always going to be painful, but I ache for those last two months that now are gone.  But when I dance, I am also reminded of the fact that my body is here still, it is mine. It is healthy and very intelligent, forcing me to feel this string of complicated tidal wave emotions even when I try to avoid them. I can try to capitalize my quarantine as hard as possible--projects! Letters! CLEANING! The spirit of capitalism is ALIVE AND WELL-- but my body always...

I am, as all other humans in this currently intense world moment, trying to process rapid change and unsettling uncertainty as I settle down into a period of isolation. Home is safe and for that I am grateful, but my heart aches for those who do not have this privilege. May you land in a place you can nestle with comfort and care as soon as possible. Endings have always been painful for me, but this one came unexpectedly and without time to have meaningful processing or to honor those people and places that matter. I am grieving, and scared. But this I will learn to carry, as I have in the past. The feeling of disconnection and separation is great, but we find creative ways to alleviate this. My body is mine, still, and she is here with me always. We will dance through all the feelings that arise, the fear and the stress and the sadness and the anger, to reach joy and healing. Now is a time of unexpected discovery.  A brief freewrite: "My body is sad, but honoring ...

This is weeks, months late. I have been home, my first and deep home, and left again in the time it took me to make this last post. I blamed the internet, the video wouldn't load, I was working, the glory of Vermont in the summer took me away from work, what else did I come up with. I think really, it was hard to close the experience up in one post. To put it to bed, this is the last post everyone its over in a nice, neat package. No, of course it was messy, it was painful and strikingly marvelous, Vermont is special and melds with my soul in a seamless jigsaw and breaking away to go back to school is never easy; like separating two strong magnets. It's hard to summarize and conclude six months of living. We just keep living, so this life didn't end when I left. I am going to continue my practice, and continue uploading movement and words. It is my meditation in a sense. Chile is a special place, it is a hard place, all places are both. I found new parts of myself, I le...