HOMEmade Soup

I often think of my work as a collage or a soup. There's a lot that goes into the pot (or on the paper, or into the research and rehearsal process), but the ingredients meld and blend until sometimes they're not distinguishable as their own, but as the greater part of the whole. A little salt? You might not be able to taste it as salt inside of the soup, but you might notice a huge difference in the flavor once it's added (or when it's missing...).

Refer back to my earlier post about the Metaphorical Soup.

So... what's going into HOMEbody's HOMEmade soup? In no particular order, but very specific in choice:

1. Stories and stories and stories of home. Very personal stories from my dancers, stories from published authors, storytellers, and other mediums. For all of that in one place, click here. 

2. My dancers and the very specific way I've chosen them. I'm admitting a sort of bias here, which I feel important to acknowledge as a social researcher/ dance anthropologist/ person in 2019 America. All of my dancers are professionally trained and white; I know there's a disparity of ethnicity on stage. However, in order to move forward from this current moment in my artistic journey, I needed to reflect and tell MY story. I can't speak for or from any experiences that aren't my own. So, my dancers - albeit much younger than I am - are white and are professionally trained which might assume a certain level of socioeconomic status. The assumptions aren't necessarily or always true, but those are all aspects of these stories. There is a diversity of age on stage. I wanted and tried for a greater range, but life, schedules, time and travel got in the way. My limitations have informed the process.

3. Paul Fejko's music. Paul and I have been collaborating for almost 9 years in some form - from working together in the classroom to other professionally produced performances. He sometimes describes his music as the soundtrack of a horror movie. I think it's multilayered, nuanced, and demanding - reflective of the stories we carry in our bodies.

4. White costumes. White light is the absorption of all light colors. White is the color of the Women's Suffrage Movement.

5. Nov. 21st. November 19th is the internationally declared celebration of Women's Entrepreneurship.  Because of schedule conflicts, we couldn't have the performance ON Nov 19th, so we're celebrating a few days past. The Women's Entrepreneurship Summit in NYC is the previous week. But everyday is Women's Entrepreneurship Day!

6. Alvernia University in Reading, PA. I grew up in Reading and Alvernia has a deep history in my family. I'm honored to be sharing this challenging and exciting work in this place that has been both challenging and wonderful.

7. Jake Buczewski's video. Jake is not only a video storyteller, but he's also my cousin. And he's from Reading. He lends another perspective to my own challenges of growing up as an artist in a town that didn't always feel receptive. And he knows me as a family member, not just as a professional artist.

8. The movement vocabulary. Some of the movement has been generated from improvisational prompts. Some of the movement comes directly from codified dance techniques that I've studied. Some of the movement is in homage to people and other movement that lives in my memory and in my physicality.

9. A new way of relating to audience. We're trying something out.... you'll have to come to see what it is. Get tickets here. 

10. Performance practice, feedback, and photos from the journey. Each moment that the soup is tested and tasted, we get more information on how to enhance the recipe and flavor. Thanks to everyone who shared in these experiences at Widener University's Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities symposium in Chester, PA; Sarah Carlson/ DanceLink's presentation of Rising Tide in Bethlehem, PA; and KYL/D's InHale Performance Series in Philadelphia, PA!

pic by Juliana Wall

10. And your stories... you bring your own experiences as you witness the performance. What are the ingredients that you add to the soup?

Thank you for your service. Welcome home!

To all of those who have served our country...
To all of those who continue to serve...
To all of those who have served those who have served...

For all of the ways you have fought for our freedoms...
For all of the ways you continue to fight...
For the conversations you've challenged us to have...
For the conversations you've allowed us to have...
For the work that you ask us to do...

Thank you.

Welcome home.

This pic is moment from "Shed" which will be performed with HOMEbody at Alvernia University on Nov. 21st. Photo by Mike Hurwitz. 

For more info and tickets click here.

Looking at the language - HOMEbody

I've been very specific in thinking about the wording of this work.

Homebody:

1. A person who likes to stay at home, especially one who is perceived as unadventurous (from lexico.com)

2.  A person who enjoys the warmth and simple pleasures of life (from urbandictionary.com)

3. One whose life centers on home (from merriam-webster.com)

4. A person who likes spending time at home rather than going out with friends or traveling to different places (from dictionary.cambridge.org)

and...

What does it mean to be at HOME in my BODY?

As a female and as a dancer, I've had expectations and stereotypes placed on my body for many, many years. Sometimes, these expectations are contradictory. Sometimes, they're unpleasant. Often, they're confusing and unrealistic.

As an educator, I've often heard women say things about their bodies that I've told myself. But I vehemently disagree with the negative self-talk. Would I say to someone else what I say to myself? Of course not! But why then, do I dishonor my own body with negative self-talk?

This process has also been a journey of exploring the layers of self-talk that women tell ourselves and how that impacts our ways of being in the world over time. I often still here my 18-year-old self make a judgement about my current self that I need to reframe. Through this work, I've been trying to find ways to model positive reflection and the honoring of all of the bodies of our bodies - our emotional bodies, our physical bodies, our mental bodies, our spiritual bodies - and find comfort in the learning and the growth that comes from being human.

So, I think it is radical to attempt to be at home in my body.

I think it is radical to declare that home can be adventurous and exciting.

I think it is radical to invest in our places of origin, especially if they're small and unassuming.

There is so much to unearth in the BODY that is HOME.

Moment during HOMEbody. Pic by Mike Hurwitz. 

A HOME by any other name...

HOME has so many layers and so many perspectives. 

In addition to digging through my own, and those of my communities, I've been researching how other people have published and researched HOME. 

Here's some of what I've found: 

(yes, I'm linking, but no, I don't get any profits if you click. I'm putting these out there so you, dear readers, can increase your perspectives and depth of knowledge. I've made a direct link when I could and otherwise, you're welcome to explore and/ or find other options for engagement.) 

NPR asked for poems about home

Clare Cut shared her story of finding home in her body through yoga:

Archeology reveals that our bones tell our stories

Home is waiting for you (us). (A poem by David Whyte)

Suggested reading:

Emergent Strategy by Adrienne Maree Brown

The Ranch That Was Us by Becky Crouch Patterson

Suggested listening:

The Homecomers

Notes from HOME - by Michael Lancaster

Earlier in the year when I posted some our of research questions for HOMEbody, some brave folks answered the call in their own ways.

Michael Lancaster shared this. His many roles in life I cannot try to list, but some include author, dreamer, seeker, friend, husband, father, Vietnam Veteran, warrior, musician, artist, protecter, teacher.

"It's evening. Still sunny. I can see the expanse of the Chesapeake, gentle against the evening sku. The Bay can rage because it is relatively shallow for such a large body of water. Average 40' depth. Occasional deep spots. One just NE of our lookout. Drops to over 100'. From up here you can also see how brown the grass is becoming. Sweet birds still here in numbers, though some gone altogether. Weather settling in over Cape Charles, the other side of the Bay and more properly called the Eastern Shore, referring to the eastern shore of the Bay rather than a more generic notion of the East Coast of the US. But who's a stickler for details. Down here on our part of the Bay, the DELMARVA peninsula is not very wide. 20ish miles from eastern shore of the Bay to East Coast of the US. 100 miles or so to the Gulf Stream and sport fishing magic. Learn what you can about where you live, it's geography and why it matters. Will reward your time. Learn its nature. Place is more important than a hangout, though that is part of whom you are too. Be at peace with your place."

Photo by Michael Lancaster

Notes from HOME - by Jenner Shaffer

Earlier in the year when I posted some our of research questions for HOMEbody, some brave folks answered the call in their own ways.

Jenner Shaffer, an artist, illustrator, writer, heirloom farm manager, among other titles, shared this with me (and his Facebook community) from his own sense of home in Michigan:

"Back road roam. Shed the vernal velvet for shining tines of autumn. A younger buck crops purple prairie clover. Along fence rows plump wild fruit wait for the taste of front. Shaggy bales in the pastures like along bison. The Valley of Monsters, Osage for the land of the Pomme & Sac flowing north. Land of backward, broken, upside-down things, puzzle pieces, Bootheel stomps & meteoric meltdown, storm tracks. Nothing stands long.
The lines of an Airstream a cozy bubble, arcing, flattened, belly-round, posing elements of a question mark. Where does this road go? Native, after a time, Spanish, French, American bushwhackers. Where is home? The commerce of eons, advance & retreat of seas & armies, dead hotspots of island arcs, plastic apologies for today's politic worms, roads that run into the reservoir. Aux-arcs, to the top, over the rainbow, word of a new lake winds that spiral in my ear. Here is now, & what do the persimmons say? Woolly bears are dark, cross the gravel in a hurry, someplace to be. Further on a box turtle is always at home.
Hedgeapples weigh on bowing branches, lost to every purpose but their own, the honey locust still on guard, gripping fossils in the hollows, browsers turned to stone. Asters white, asters purple, much endures in yellow as the barbed-wire winds. Milkweek pods crack open, a tuft of fluff for a wind to tease free.
The road was a loop, found my way back. Tomatoes sweet on a withered vine, volunteer. Save a few for dinner, toss the rest in the chicken run.

https://www.americanforests.org/magazine/article/trees-that-miss-the-mammoths/?fbclid=IwAR3mtdFqncDyUUwzuraf-p9MvenF8LeNHMny1MdnWFwaLtDk7UjbSuklCcU
https://www.almanac.com/content/predicting-weather-using-persimmon-seed?fbclid=IwAR0Hfcdgdxs691KzLGH4sucsW1PTTQ8vfum-TwmX1T71IRGtPArmq9hjm8s
https://www.weather.gov/arx/woollybear?fbclid=IwAR2lDP-xzWuhGYGMWZZHPQPiNVsXN2edEusSuyd20oI_0uuC19hQNEw5Qe4     "

All pics by Jenner Shaffer.

My last InHale

October 19th will be my last time serving as KYL/D's InHale Performance Series curator. Kun-Yang and I founded InHale in 2008 and over the past 11 years, have presented over 1000 performance artists to more than 1500 audience members.

The tagline for InHale has been: Diversity. Opportunity. Community.

These words are very meaningful to me and meaningful to what I've been able to bring to the Philadelphia Dance stage through InHale.

Diversity at InHale has embodied many layers. It has referred to

• racial diversity of artists, directors and performers - whether apparent or not
• age of artists
• gender 
• career trajectory of artists and where they are when they present (in college, long time professional)
• genre of the work (ballet, hip hop, modern, classical Indian, etc)
• context and subject matter
• process of development (work in progress, finished work, excerpts)
• medium (dance performance, dance on film, theatre, music, spoken word) 

Opportunity. 

• InHale artists received a safe space to present, try out new ideas, meet new audiences, interact with other artists and create collaborative potential with technical professionalism and marketin. Additionally, InHale artists often received feedback from audience members to help reflect on or continue their process, video, photos, and a published review of their work. 
• InHale audiences also received the benefit of these elements to the artists as well as the potential to see a vast amount of dance in one evening, for a very affordable price. 

Community. 

• InHale provided an intimate space and created an informal, yet professional environment for these opportunities. 
• Audience development occurred in the presentation of multiple, diverse artists in one evening and allowing the artists and audience members to communicate through written feedback and in informal gatherings after the shows. 
• InHale had applications and participating artists from all over the country - bringing their experiences of dance from MA, CT, NY, NJ, PA, MD, DC, VA, NC, GA, LA,  IL, IA, and WI.  
• I executed a Service Learning project in collaboration with Alvernia University that allowed students to experience the value of service through professional performance, technical production, and curation. 
• I mentored many additional students and young professionals through the process of arts administration, technical production, and performance. 

I'm so grateful to everyone I've met and worked with over the past 11 years. Thank you to KYL/D for this opportunity. Thank you to the artists who have applied and been a part of the InHale community. Thank you for the diverse ways you all have helped me grow - in my thoughts about dance and community, in my artistry in creating and performing my own work, in technical theatre production, in my development as as an administrator, in my understanding of presenting and event planning, and so much more. 

I'm confident that, as I pass the torch, InHale will continue to grow in new ways. 

I'm excited for new adventures on my horizon as I to continue to serve and grow in the dance community.