back to (let's go from there)

Returning. Returning. Returning.

I’m thinking a lot about coming back, what it means to return, what it means to go back. Back to. Back to a person, a memory, a place, a movement.

Repetition has always been an interest of mine.

Quinn enters upstage left diagonal (today, she enters from the brush of roses crossed in the center of a field). Come, and back, and back, and back, again. She does this thing so many times, it becomes a blur. But a blur, somehow, written in permanent marker. Faithfully executed time and time again. Come, and back, and back, and back. Bound to, bound to, bound. Break. Creating a current around herself. She is stability. She is the core---emanating, presenting, thinking, mulling. Present. Going through the motions (it is never just that).

Rose- stage right, center (today, she enters directly across from Quinn. They share a rose framed runway, navigating, brushing through and between each other). Rose- a thin, consistent, meticulously drawn, satisfyingly executed, dart of calm. Her upper body is free to swim above the grounding, the trust, that her legs will take her where she needs to go. Her extremities have a cool electricity - tethering her to something outside of herself. She remains the motor. A rippling stream. A concrete streak of paint. Not a skitter but a calm, magnified, stirring presence, mover, choice maker. Quiet. But something is turning.

And back. And back. And back.

And through.

All together now.

I watch this and something inside of me wells. Today I stand outside the rose garden labyrinth and just watch. I trust. I seriously trust. Part of making is relinquishing, giving over, indulging in the magnificence of what it means to hand something over to someone, to give them 'it'. But, as I watch, with this welling of love (nostalgia, pride, warmth) in my chest, I realize it’s not really that. The magnificence lies in making something with someone and trusting that you each take care of it how you need, how it needs. Today, they took care of it. All I needed was to watch.

Quinn and Rose- layered on top of each other- tracing the space- Quinn with her center, Rose with her kinesphere. Not entangled but layered. Not disparate but related. An undercurrent of together, an undercurrent of individual (that is what makes together, anyway).

Rose and Quinn- entangled- knotting with each other, spiraling, dropping, finding linearity (spatially and otherwise) only to throw it away. With each moment, the layer (kinesphere) around them softens- breaking, shedding, away. This shedding highlights what they had spatially instigated until this point: a hollow, and yet somehow bursting, bubble, one which separately surrounds each of them. It begins to soften. It is time to come together.

As it softens- they become more ferocious. At least their movement does. A softening to find power, to cast webs, to find power, again. You can feel them moving, you can feel them dancing. Still connected to the electricity of their extremities. Electric, themselves. You can see them find their power, their length, their command. More entangled, still layered, together. Quinn and Rose.

So much walking. The walking feels defiant- not in an acted way. They choose to just do it, to take their time, to take the space. They command it sheerly, even without dancing. They’re just walking. They have the audacity to be watched, to move without moving. To do this is enough. It is more than enough. More entangled, still linear, a faded layering. Still together. Rose and Quinn.

Movement ripples up from the inside. Overflows into what comes next. A warm wading and splashing and playing with time and rhythm and risk and indulgence and each other. With the movement. Powerful, sinuous, gooey, rigorous movement. Keep going, keep going, and return. And back, and back, and back. Back to this, back to each other, back to the corner (to the roses). A trace, a sketch, of who/how/why we inhabit, who/how/why we need to inhabit more, need to be watched, need to be together, need to be seen (and above all, deserve to be).

Indulge in this electricity.

I could watch this forever. This making process was about so many things, I now realize, but above all else, I think it was (and still is) about stirring something in these young people, empowering these beautifully inquisitive and embodied young women to learn to trust: to trust themselves, each other, the movement. To take hold of who they are, as movers and as women, and trust it. Trust it (themselves) enough to risk, to play, to wield all that is theirs and all that could be theirs. Through movement. And really, through everything else. Imagine what they can become. Imagine what they will.

I am privileged to have been a part of this stirring. It is a glorious thing to be a part of, to give permission to. It is an even more glorious thing to watch unfold in front of you.

Quinn and Rose and Rose and Quinn and Quinn and Rose and Rose and Quinn. Go back, and back, and back, and back. Take your time. Please- go back. Back, and go from there.