Yoga allowing you to see the big and the small in one moment?

I often feel like I go around with my head in a bubble. Its great in that bubble don’t get me wrong, I can look up at a tree and see how the sun dances with the dust that shines through a dense canopy, or admire the sheds of light that pours out of an overhead window, exposing the chewing gummed pavement that lies beneath my feet. It all sounds rather poeticised and romantic. But what is void, is people, other people. My head in the clouds? I perhaps focus on detail to ignore the bigger picture, a way of escaping the moment, only so that I do not have to be afraid of the hustle and bustle that is London, the city. Experience asks do we ever just do 1 thing at a time, to just be?

Recently my head has not been in a bubble that looks up, but a bubble that looks in straight lines. In the still points that are few and far between I update my ical and set a reminder to do something, to meet someone. I have to see people about work or an idea. I forget the detail and attach an agenda, a prioritised list. A Daves guide to getting through a day. But this is as little help as looking to the clouds. Where one is chaotic the other is dizzy. I have no time to be still and breathe.

Today during yoga I noticed two things, which were probably little stories or the other word…. (Not sure). One of which I had forgotten, and the other a nag.

I had forgotten how the light gets brighter after you breathe deeply. A heightened sense, I had forgotten the still excitement that it provokes. Almost as if my buddy surges with vitality, that comes from my feet through my spine and out from my eyes, or from my eyes down to my feet. A sense of alertness.

The second thing I noticed was a pain coming from my eyes when they were shut, and just as I was about to breathe to that pain I noticed that my eyes were moving back and forth in REM. A condition, for what I’m told is often induced whilst asleep and dreaming. It’s a condition that I have started clocking more frequently as I close my eyes for a moment to rest, or to think. I wonder why that is? I don’t have an answer.

In the cold outside, Nikkie was talking of her experience as a dancer, how when she dances she does not notice the audience a individuals, the space becomes infinite. She compares this to a child being watched and a child not being watched, and made connection with Satre. It goes back to the ideas of the actors paradox and bad faith. Yet for Nikkie, instead of describing the audience as a forth wall, she describes them as energy. If I understand correctly, she dances in black, a void and when in contact with that void, her energy makes a light, calving a pattern within that space. The audience too appear to give off a light, and as a performer you need to be sensitive to this, because you cannot see a torch light in the day. Perhaps I’m getting to arty farty?

For a performer that knows they are both actor and character being watched, the dynamic of this situation changes. The PhD student that asks the question about the magician on Mondays Seminar tried to approach this very topic using the idea for the magician, but with a magician, the audience chooses to buy into the fantasy. With a clown, by choosing to clock an audience, you break the fantasy of the action and make the situation real. In this moment the clown reveals what he or she is truly feeling, adding to the humour. In this moment does the clown witnesses being witnessed and is he aware of his awareness?


...Thoughts to be completed on Grotowski and presence and links to puppet and objects.....