Walking and Commuting and Thinking

The process of making new work - I think every choreographer has their own dance making ritual / routine / approach. Whether specific and calculated at times (writing, videotaping, drawing, etc) or intuitive and personal (alone studio time, early morning hour preference, etc), I think that each of us who are in the practice of the craft have a baseline way-ness in the day to day of making work.

Since moving to Columbus from Chicago and starting graduate school, my life locationally and pragmatically has obviously had to adjust. For the past 7 or so years, longer commutes on bus/train/walking with my ipod and eyes open to my surroundings has changed to quick bus rides skimming readings and writing emails on my phone. Alone studio time has been replaced by "Oh shit, I can't use my studio time because ______ is due and I'm behind also in ________ " and it's me and my mac etc etc. You get the gist - thinking / not thinking / open brain time has gone a bit by the wayside in this new life (though I could write you a paper about it in a snap, so I suppose some new skills have been gained as some sort of unfair trade off...).

So last week was the student spring concert at OSU. A longish concert overall, there were a dozen or so short pieces, and there I was sucked into the abstract mind seeing and thinking and resting into what I refer to as my back brain space that processes without effort. And whoa, whoa, what a nice zone to rest into again. And the length of the concert let me do this because I was an observer, not a feedbacker or maker or instructor.

So less time in the back mind space I had noticed, but had not put it together. In the past my personal travel time was choreographic time to let the brain float from thought to image to thought without interruption; a very essential part to my making dances. Now interruption is constant (and now inherent in PLUCK) and I must find new patterns/efforts to bring it back into my life again. Grad school year 1: I learned something about my personal ways of making in a deep and profound way. Check.