Body and Idea

Mission Statement

2006-10-10T00:55:00.000-07:00

We believe in the run-on, hopeful statement of life, love, and the pursuit of happiness, dance, and communication- even if you catch us saying so sarcastically. After years of mixing dance class and intellectual pursuits, we have found that a line between the two does not exist; movement is not purely physical, and investigation is not solely mental. At the tender ages of 21 and 22, we are jumping from the cliff of college and into the chasm of the real world. However, the only constant in life is that the next moment is the unknown, a dark mountain gorge; the certainty of uncertainty. We are all constantly coming of age. Life is an adventure into unmarked territory. For us, that adventure is inextricably linked with our discoveries in dance and dance theory.

We embrace dance in body and idea, and for this specific phrasing, we give credit to Deborah Hay. It is in our movement through our choreography and everyday interactions, and in our thoughts throughout life. We cultivate dance as a periscope into existence and as our language. Both of us are acquiring new languages; Tracy is
growing into her dialect as a functioning member of Seattle society, and Caitlin is speaking Japanese daily in Kobe. We desire to connect with the global community and to communicate to each other from different sides of the Pacific Ocean. In a year Caitlin and Tracy will both be in Seattle, where they will synthesize their discoveries into heretical paraphernalia and performance art.

The Four Steps to SUCCESS

2006-08-27T11:11:00.000-07:00

1. Give yourself permission
to venture, to fail, to go

2. Be open to the myriad of possibilities
the only moment is now

3. Make the declarative statement
say it out loud, speak it into existence

4. Believe it
believe what you just stated

2006-06-18T18:53:00.000-07:00

When people ask me what I like to do, I am going to say, "write emails". Because I enjoy it. An honest answer to an honest question. Or are those questions ever honest? I suppose it would have to depend on the sequence of events or history superseding the question.

I was going to write you an email on words. I may not be able to writea stellar email tonight, I am kind of really sleepy, but we'll proceeda little further and see what happens.

So, top ten words; an in process list.

1) pugnacious
2) puerile
3) malicious
4) pernicious
5) vindictive
6) vile
7) lackluster
8) ambiguous
9) palatial
10) salient

lackluster doesn't have a story, but it reminds me of stars. Sad stars maybe, and I feel like the image of a sad star is potent to me, but must not be that potent because I can't write down the emotions those words bring up. The word lackluster itself has emotional connotations for me, that I have to investigate further, but it is definitely in the top ten.

So, ambiguous gets to be on the list because it is a polysyllabic word that I like to say, and when you don't know how to describe a situation or want to get out of not understanding and not sounding stupid, you call the situation ambiguous and you sound a little bit like you are in the know. Plus, there is the the story associated with it involving my first roommate at cornish, a haha, clarissa. No joke, we were sitting at the table one night and she says to me, "Tracy, more people would like you at school if you didn't use such big words". Examples she gave me from that conversation alone were ambiguous and foiliage. Who says that to someone?

Rubber bouncy balls,
Tracy

2006-06-18T18:50:00.000-07:00

My identity is really fuzzy right now. I did that on purpose - i said yes, i want to not be bound by previous perceptions of myself held by me and others." but it gets weird in everyday life. Like, what music do i want to listen to? when i'm at a video store, what movie boxes do i pick up to look at? If i see a bunch of ants attacking a worm on a sidewalk, do i smash the whole scene or let nature be? what do I like any more, and what do i want?

Some days it seems crystal clear, and others, not so much.
Sometimes i am also dependent on dance. I draw all of this happiness and purpose from it. It is a bit of a weight to draw from something, like making choreography be jesus christ or something.

I wish there was a process like language acquisition that i could undergo to add versatile layers to myself, until i am a rock. A multifaceted shiny rock that can stand erosion, a resting spot that can support others, but i won't need any other support other than myself. CAUSE I'LL BE A FRIKKIN ROCK.

A ROCK.

dump trucks,
Caitlin

2006-06-15T18:46:00.000-07:00

"postcard expressions of cognative experiences"

I am going over to Joanie's to say good bye, but that should not be an all day event. We're both going to start crying because she thinks it is healthy for me to break the personal boundaries I set up, like not being a hug person and is going to make me tell her what I am thinking and feeling and when I have to admit that in person, it kind of trips me out. I do a lot better covering it up with "verbage" and de-personalizing it in my writing. It turns things into something else. Not less genuine by any means, but saying something out loud is like another kind of proclamation.

I saw a tree today that was trained to grow in a spiral. It was a salient example of dynamic stability (thanks for the phrasing, becci...) But, it looked like a spine. It was pretty amazing. And it didn't curve in one place, but spiraled through several. Like our bodies moving through, in and around space. Cool stuff.

for for real this time, peacing out, your friend,
Tracy

2006-06-11T18:41:00.000-07:00

We, as human beings, see our lives as narratives. Each one of us is the protagonist in our own novel, filling the pages with villains, lovers, and comrades as we face conflicts in the pursuit of our desires. While other people fill in the classic roles and situations provide the plot, recurrent imagery can even supply themes and metaphors.

A few weeks ago, a bird lay dead on the sidewalk outside of my house.
I was walking to work early in the morning, with the deep earthy scent of my lover still lingering in my nostrils, submerging my head in the clouds.

A dead bird. It's tiny vertebrae mangled on the cold cement. One second it was a happy little bird flittering around, and the next moment is all sidewalk. Wounds can be sudden, unexpected, and final.

Looking at the bird, i next looked at my right thumb and remembered the first night i arrived in seattle, about a week before the bird's conversion to sidewalk. While removing my suitcase from the baggage claim conveyor belt, i ripped open my thumb. i sensed a dull pressure, but had no idea about the injury until i saw the blood. I was in seattle; i was with jared. Silly and sappy as it was, my heart was sliced open pouring nonstop, and my thumb felt like a small site of bloodletting for the existence of pure bliss some benign dignity was granting to me. Jared. Jared jared jared.

Looking at my thumb that day, the cut was gone. The skin had joined itself back together without my permission. I realized that time had passed since i got here; it had been a week already. And that i only had until september. I mourned the passage of time.

Okay, to put in plainly, it was this weird juxtaposition- the killing of the unsuspecting bird and the healing of my unconscious finger. that's what happened. It reminds you of that big topic "THE TRANSITORY NATURE OF LIFE" that is the subject of every haiku ever.
The bird didn't want to die and i didn't want my thumb to heal, but
Sometimes when i abandon my fears in search of "what i want," i feel like a frail bird scrounging on the sidewalk for scraps, knowing that any one vehicle in the stampeding traffic could have my name on it, be seeking me in its tire tread. Squish squish.

Every day i walked and passed the bird, and it grew less. First it festered, overran with birds, looked worse than it did before. I was with jared one time and he saw it and said "ewww." But eventually, even though it died on the horrible surface of concrete, it returned to the earth. Through wind and scanvegers and bug's bellied, it found its home. Now there are no remains.
I thought about the bird and how things die, yet how it is all taken care of. And once something is dead, it is dead. Something new can spring forth.

Then, last night jared and i were walking to a concert near "CAFE VIT
WHERE WE CAN MEET K AND GET SOME COFF." We looked at the sidewalk and saw a small dead bird. A frail bird, scrounging on the sidewalk for scraps, knowing that any one of the members of oncoming traffic could be coming to take them to the other side. That bird. My heart? Is it too cheesy to make a correlation? How about it being all of us, all of our searching for something, a search where the smallest find would mean everything.

Love,
Caitlin
Ps - what?

2006-06-09T18:33:00.000-07:00

Dear Caitlin,

So, if I hadn't mentioned it before, there is this game that I invented (because I am creative like that) called "dear Tere O'Connor". So that is why my emails to you may occasionally start out with and "dear" and end with a "love". Just so you know.

When I am anxious about extraneous people and things, I should not be allowed to drink caffeine at 10pm in the evening. It just isn't good, because now I am awake, when I should be asleep, or at least winding down to be and I am not even close.

I came upon the realization that I really like repetition, both in text and in movement. I think it is a phase I am in, but I like it because nothing is ever really repeated, but it still reflects in life, b/c you go through those parallel periods, and things to the extent that they can be repeated are repeated. And once you have seen something or read a sentence once, it has been contextually contexted with that thing, so then layers are added, with each "repetition". I am not sure that that made sense, but I am giving myself permission to make that declarative statement, serving as a story and sticking to it (like glue). Avoid cliches like the plague.

Love,
Tracy