Vinn's Journal
March 2010 |
Recently at Madrona Mind Body in Pt.Townsend there was a workshop
with the fabulous Ruth Zapora and her Action Theater. I was introduced
to this work many years ago through those who were studying with her.
After being with Ruth this past week I realize just how influenced I
have been from these teachings, and how they continue to inform
present day Soul Motion pedagogy.
Ruth Zapora works from her fathomlessless gut. Her approach is
straight- ahead and analytical. She dies each moment so the next can
arrive unfettered. Everything is useable. There is no hierarchy in
content. She insists on occupying space, hers and the vicinity, with all
perceptual cylinders firing. She meets each moment of the living world
with curiosity and courage. She lives in deep respect with presence; she
cultivates continuous awareness of three levels of sensation, feeling,
and story. Her B.S. sensors are set on maximum alert ready to sound
the alarm for any contrived communications. She provides tools for
crafting the moving moment with presence and power. She will never
give into her or anyone else “buttering the butter”.
The following is a narrative of inner sounds, images, and body
happenings during Action Theater.
Moving in the midst of an ever present, constant drum role, he is aware
of vibration traveling space and shape in his body; it sounds a call to
action. In the room he hears the sound of many going berserk on a
rough formed road.
Making sounds, narrative, and shapes in space, there was not always
making sense. There was encouragement not to let this stop him from
exploring the land of love and loss with a ravenous craving to excavate
and bring to the surface what lies beneath.
Topics burned inside becoming ashes of memory and imagination,
settling in his body. Noting how each moment was a point of choice
between saint/satyr, he savored each instant as a dismantling and he
heard inner voices murmur in his ear… What will you choose? when
do you maintain openness? how do you continue to be available for
each moment?
Encouragement to show ways to give all in moments of action, to break
up rhythm, pause, he streams by each frame of events with an attitude
of awe, on an edge, from a viewpoint of fun.
One frame gone awry - how will this conclude? speech cannot help in
sorting out the tangent avenues his mind leads him on; this moment of
experiencing is the experience; playing deeply with impressions,
imagination, and sensation, he opens again to hear how it works. He
move his eyes as if tracking a sparrow’s flight pattern; he is lost in
finding an effective resolution to the constant humdrum and beat of his
heart; his body provides a danceable everyday tune; his mind races
from open space to playing safe.
We are bozos on the bus claimed, the wavy gravy man. We are clowns
jostling down a highway of hurt and honor with actions used as laugh
lines. He practices ways to be front and center for another. If only he
would step to the right as she moves left, then they could meet the floor
gliding easily and smoothly from topic to topic.
He realizes there is in chaos a choreography happening, and it is here
moving a form and stepping through grace in a pattern heard through
action. He closed his eyes and was led backwards as if in high heels
and wonders what would it be like to move through the day in this
manner? Going with it he discovers sound accompaniment. For the
moment, he is fearless and unafraid. On the back of his left shoulder
the braying of a tender horse leaves him wandering aimlessly in a
seamless space signature while a bald poet shows up again and again to
write verses in blood.
He was up against himself and the many faces he has worn throughout
this three-act comedic musical called life. The director kept shouting
out cues, which he overlooked, while other players continued to stall
and fidget before speaking in the hopes he might create a lucid
message. No such luck! An impossible accomplishment, the scene and
setting worked against logic as he struggled to utter a single line that
spoke from the moment.
In the end, this was a pivotal time. This was a time of inner challenge
and outer chaos, love lost and re-discovered, of fanciful highs and fatal
lows. In the end he grew more loving and accepting of death’s
omnipresence, moment to moment. In the end he felt in his body
elongated periods of a hollow center. In the end a smoky spaciousness
wafted in his nostrils. In he end he pictured a life without form, a
presence without presenting. He decided he was approaching a final
dress rehearsal and he was taking care not to study his lines and plan
movements, knowing that motion and sound would place its own frame
with its own timing on him to be an Action Theater.
vinn gratitude April 3, 2010