CUACK
This tab in my website tries to collect my experience in Melpignano, it's not a linear excersise -don't even try to find a logic secuence-
What I found were some pieces. Glimpses. Attempts.
My practice
Dancing, perhaps, returning to dance, is one of the things that has emerged here in Melpignano
Moving, moving a lot, getting up in the mornings and running through the streets while imagining things, a kind of daily physical maintenance, a form of preparation. That has been reinforced here.
Being very afraid and feeling insecure. Facing creative tasks where community plays a key role. That, that has also happened here.
And yet, still doing it. Showing up. Meeting the creative provocations and asking myself:
Why am I here?
Where is the compass of my desire pointing?
Community and others as a source of infinite energy?
A provisional answer:
I am here to trigger my inner energy, to find poetry in everyday life, to build a routine grounded in beauty.
CONFUSED BODY
Melpi 8
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Veo mis vídeos bailando en distintos momentos y lugares de Melpignano.
Me pasan varias cosas:
Me pregunto ¿Dónde quedó eso en mi?
Veo pedazos de los vídeos y se me calienta un poquito el pecho.
“Disfrutamos bailar”, me digo.
Me dije a mi mismo que quería que el proceso en Melpignano fuera la oportunidad para retejer mi relación con bailar.
Y ocurrió.
Era privado.
Pocos lo sabían.
Era yo bailando en esquinas.
En marcos y spots que me gustaban.
Subía un pequeño fragmento a instagram.
Le ponía un número. Creo que llegué al número 8 o algo así.
Empecé improvisando una canción.
Luego dos canciones.
Luego 15 minutos.
Luego 1 hora en un gran pastizal cerca de casa.
Luego 1 hora con una mesa en la mitad del pueblo.
Luego 1 hora en la banca del pueblo.
Luego hacía pequeñas improvisaciones cuando nadie me veía.
Hubo una especie de crecimiento.
Algo creció.
Puedo bailar por una hora sin parar.
Puedo improvisar por una hora sin parar.
¿Podía?
No lo he vuelto a hacer.
Acá en Bogotá me da un poco de miedo.
Creo que puede ser peligroso.
Pero también pienso que el miedo puede que venga de otro lugar.
De mi miedo a bailar.
Una práctica que se me escurre por las manos.
Quiero volver a bailar.
Siempre quiero volver a bailar.
Voy a volver a bailar.
A COIN
Heads
Melpignano was sour for me.
I didn't imagine that the question of practice and community would be so heavy for me.
I would spend hours lost.
I didn't know how to activate myself.
I wanted to do very little.
I wanted to keep to myself.
And at the same time I wanted to try.
I wanted to go out, I wanted to dare, but I didn't know exactly what.
Freedom became heavy.
I felt creatively dry and that was new.
Not the feeling of being blocked, that wasn't new.
But the feeling of drought. That was new.
I blamed it on being squeezed dry for a year.
But I know it wasn't only that.
There was a genuine fear of daring to create in Melpignano.
But I don't know fear of what.
I really don't know.
I promise.
I don't know.
The heaviness of the question would pull me into bed.
I was capable of very little.
Creating one or two materials a week.
Having one or two ideas.
Not knowing how to collaborate.
How to relate to people.
How to build bridges.
Tails
Melpignano was sweet for me.
I felt challenged.
I felt pushed.
They put the question of practice into my brain like a spinning top that wouldn't stop going around.
Practice first connected to me through a path of wellbeing.
Sometimes I feel like this won't be well received, or that it will seem selfish, or superficial, or disconnected from the arts… I don't know. It's probably my own prejudice.
But:
I developed a morning practice, one that started in Valga, became stronger in Melpignano, and from there has not left me, no matter where in the world I am.
My practice was and is literally training, exercising.
This practice comes from the past.
Before starting CPPM, I strongly wished I could set aside some time to give the body what the body needs. A moment for maintenance.
In 2019, a teacher shows a group of students the sequence of movements she does in the mornings. She explains it as a ritual that allows her to connect with herself, with the present, with her body. A ritual that is good for her physical body. I saw the importance of that morning in her body at 6pm, I didn't know how to explain it, but I saw it… and I wanted it.
In the second semester of CPPM I also created a morning mobility sequence. I thought of it as the minimum my body needed in order to respond to the demands of a rehearsal, and for me to feel that my body was “ready for anything.” I knew that sequence and that routine were the seed.
Then, in Melpignano, something emerged.
I know it was thanks to time, to the time available, and to the question thrown into the air about practice.
The question of practice is also the following questions:
What do you need?
What inspires you?
What do you need in order to move?
What is your material today?
My morning schedule was quite strict.
I would get up at 6am.
Two options: Yoga or Running.
Either one would take me between an hour and an hour and a half.
Yoga made me look for the perfect patch of grass.
Running meant running all over Melpignano until I reached the forest.
In both cases there was a moment to listen to a critical and thoughtful analysis by Carol Ann Figueroa. A journalist I love.
When we were in Melpignano, Colombia was in the middle of elections.
After finishing, once I felt I had completed the exercises I had set for myself in one option or the other, after having collected multiple ideas that jumped like popcorn while I moved… after feeling that I had fulfilled my task around 7:30am, I would head home.
Several times, before going back, I would choose a place to return from. Two songs. Phone recording:
And dance.
I would buy a coffee from Giorgio.
I would get home.
I would make myself the best breakfast.
And read a book.
That
Was
Fucking paradise.