Juniata College, Pennsylvania, USA Harvest

[ken manheimer]

Harvest from Global Underscore Solstice for participants at Juniata College in Pennsylvania, USA

[daniela schwartz]

Real-time notes from participants
in the Global Underscore Solstice
at Juniata College / CI36,
Saturday, June 16, 2008.

11h22 : Nancy introduces everyone to the global underscore

about 200 people facing east wall

11:24 a lot of eye contact communication while Nancy talks

11h39 the room heat up, energy is going up.

And now it begins!!!
Here we go, preambulating through the warm gym, the cool gym, the stairwells, with outside beckoning, supporting

Yeeaahh boyeee!!!

12:10pm just passed the dance on. What a powerful feeling. I am in love.-Erica Kaufman

12:15:01 sounds come alive. Birds are in the room and some wind blows.

12:20p sensing open space, the void, peaceful
My name is Roger.
I am an addict.
My addiction to contact improvisation underscores my entire life.
Please help me continue my addiction.

12:33 Seeing through movement. Spacing in – not spacing out!

12:35

A wind arose underneath my arms during the stand. The Stand. The part of the underscore where we faced Buenos aires, tuned in to the earth, encircling the earth, with a tiny thread then mesh shiny silver fishing net of … breath. Each individual puff of air meeting another, moving forward, charging the next one, a powerful wind tornado hurricane blasting forth at once from this hot, humid sticky slidy gym, sounds of squeaky bare feet like basketball shoes from every corner echoing off the floor, reflecting the tiny Christmas lights strewn about.

From here, a massive breathing. I felt it flow forward towards argentina. And in that moment, as we all stood silently, my arms began lifting. It was not my intention or impulse, but I felt the breath of mexico city behind me. Levitating my arms, forward in front of me about bellybutton height, just as if a strong wind from behind were blasting me, lifting me.

I have never felt anything like it.

And at that moment, I knew our power. And I smiled.

Walking into a room full of standing people. Joining. Thinking of the world. Bones going up. From ground to sky. From earth to heaven, Tears rolling down. Heart going out. Melting expanding. Flame of hot and harder energy dancing to me, Collectin me. Mass to mass. Spirit to spirit, And the dance goes on. Feeling myself separate. Feeling myself connected. There is no effort,

Veo la carabela, esta vez no vienen a matar

So touched to see familiar names in the lists of people standing dancing with us now

The stand like the daily practice made sacred by repetition, bones balanced upon bones - this is me - this is us - this is the structure of a human being, so marvelous and complex, so simple and perfect. I reach with my sitbones to the insides of my heels, and somewhere on Earth someone is doing the same. ---

The first touches I ignore, I am still in my skinesphere, I let them travel through my body without engaging. What is it that makes me want to engage? My right foot touches a woman, the arch of the foot creating a shallow bowl where her hip fits. She is the same size as me and we have the same colour eyes, but that is not the reason I begin to move. There is the touch and the invitation in the presence and its simply being there. I follow the touch without effort, welcome, home.

Daniella Thompson, England – This is my first time doing Contact on such a high level of intensity, I’ve learnt so much and come to appreciate and this love form even more than before. To sum up I’ve realized that Success isn’t a destination but it is a journey, just as is Contact Improvisation. Thank you.

Jessica Wilcox, England – before I came my knowledge and understanding was minimal, but after all the help and support from people, I feel I have come a long way!!! Thank you for all support, advice and guidelines from you all!! This is truly an event I will never forget!! It has been an experience of a lifetime!!! I will continue on my way to become better and hope to see you all again, very soon!!!

Thank you. xxxxxxxxx

In out in out in out in out in out

Grab it now, tender, loving

[Ronja Verkasalo]

--- and reading this now, in hot and rainy brooklyn weeks later, reading my own text brings back in my body the memory of writing it: the warm air and the fans, the sounds of movement and breath behind my back, the in-the-middle-of-a-dance warmth in my muscles and the sensations of the space spherical not linear. The stickiness of the floor that i forgot every time the dance took me, the awe at this extraordinary apparatus that is me, my body, reflexes, sensations, feelings, actions, reactions --- and then turning around, seeing the hundreds of moving people, drawn to move towards the middle of them, you, and in the next adventurous instant sitting on the head of my dear friend, to begin another round of dances.