forgotten space, my partner and me

Find a space with your partner, listen with your body and note your noticings

With Hannah Graham-Martin...

Whispering walls, telling stories emitting chatter but faceless. Cold, alone but not alone. Loud feet sqeaking fading, fading gone. Cold and hard, white and clinical yet warmth from the familiar. Itch, moving muscles pressed against the wall. Loud deep voice, soothing, giving guidance, but not to me, can't quite hear, it's not for me. Smell... smell, I can smell perfume - hers - and wood or at least I think I can. HELLO?! Not to me, not noticing me. Creaking. In my own world but life is still going on around me. So alive, so loud, wedges of space and time more accessible than others. Open doors. Closed doors. Stomach growling. I'm hungry, my body knows this. What do others see? hear? smell? Am I alone in my own observations? World is muted until each new big bang in which a flurry of activity invades my ears

Myself

My stomach hurting, pulsing. I find positions where my back expands and relaxes but won't settle. I like my own little world of darkness, exploring through feeling and sensation. When I slowly open up my eyes to the light I feel like a newborn bird in a nest, squinting through my eyelashes. Different sensations of hardness of the floor. Skin on floor cold and smooth, through fabric warm and spongey. Always supportive.

Even when I think I'm seeing I'm Not

Deep Listening

Deeply listening to YOUR body
                      Individual Needs

As I move I am aware of different sensations, sometimes to the point of overload. Noticing what is new to me as well as my habitual patterns.

It is important for me to notice what I want to pay attention to but I need to practice trying to keep with what I'm with.

Where Am I?

Eyes closed
Being led
Responding
Exploring
Trusting

Where am I? Being led around the room, eyes closed by partner. My other senses come alive; pieces slowly come together, remembrance from my eyes but also noticing new things that my eyes are unable to pick up: The course fibers of the floor, the musty smell that clings to the curtains.

Surprised by how easily I trust my partner, I felt as sure footed as when I can see. I trust my partner to watch and protect me as I would watch and protect her. How would I be if I did not trust?

Denise Rowe

Denise Rowe is a choreographer, dancer, movement artist, singer and mbira player with 10 years experience performing and teaching traditional and contemporary pan-African dance.

To know her personally has been a gift. Denise is a lovely, inspirational woman who has indeed took me on a movement journey that has been incredible, educational and just generally inspiring. I know that she has taught me many things and the memory of that will stay with me for a long time.

Never put together a piece of choreography together in this way before. Seemingly non-related pieces of structured improvisation fitted together as if it had been the grand plan all along. None of it was forced and we were open to where the choreography wanted to lead us.

Site - Coombe Abbey

One of the sites at Coombe Abbey used for inspiration for Rooted. A place so familiar to me now yet still contains the magic. Memories of my time there will linger. I hope I left an impression there no matter how insignificant. Conversations with trees, details of life, being still yet open and full and being part of the landscape. Calm, Peaceful, Magical, Quiet, Interruptions, Connotations, Flickers of Movements in the outskirts of my eyes, Cannot control anything here... why would I want to?

Expanding my Movement Vocabulary

After participating in 5 intensive dance sessions with choreographer and performer Denise Rowe, I feel like I have expanded my movement vocabulary and explored an entirely new way of moving. We focused on moving within the landscape of music, articulating different parts of the body and leading with different body parts. As we were working with aspects of African dance we were also thinking about being grounded, whilst being full and open. I can't believe some of the movement that I was creating. Things I thought would work wouldn't and mistakes or falls would suddenly become this new burst of movement. I learnt just to let go and instead of looking for new movement, just being open to new movement. How can you continually find new ways of movement? I'm constantly using my body in various ways everyday but still manage to do things I didn't know I could do. Be aware of being stuck in my old ways of movement.