Hablar con ella
Bilingual - if it came down to a weeks holiday, the food, the fashion, beautiful people and the musicality of the language I’d pick Italy every time.
But it’s the wit, humour, oddball, scrappy and filthy, fierce, sexy imagination of writers, filmmakers and artists like Pedro Almodavar, Mario Vargas Llosa, Pedro Juan Gutierrez, Frida Kahlo, Alfonso Cuaron and Tamara Rojo that make me want to speak Spanish fluently, not just useful phrases.
But after almost a year of self study, listening to podcasts, reading newspapers and taking to myself (nothing new about that 😂) I need someone to talk to!
Do any of my Spanish speaking friends want to talk to me?
#spanish #bilingual #necesitopracticar
Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space
My next workshop on Feb 2nd @indabayoga is a bit of a Trojan horse. Iyengar Yoga made me fall back in love with standing postures because it revealed to me how intricate, fascinating and revealing they are. They require endless refinement, strength and intelligence because they make the body work in a completely unique way you don’tfind anywhere else which is why replacing then with cross fit style lunges and squats is a misnomer.
The workshop will include strengthening and flexibility drills from other disciplines to target the muscles that control internal and external rotation for a deeper understanding of how to work as deeply in a standing sequence as you would in more advanced variations and how they are related.
Having the same boring conversation over and over won’t improve your relationships. Intelligent discourse, respecting your own and others limits and exploring them with humour, patience and compassion are lifelong skills that will.
Literature, art , music and dance help me make sense of the world and allow my imagination to fly. Yoga brings me back down to earth and keeps me grounded, rational and steady. If it’s yoga that’s floating you out in space then what’s bringing you back to yourself?
#yoga #learningtofly
Divide and Conquer
A common thread on Instagram seems to be - if you don’t like what I teach /say /offer / sell on here go away. I am under no obligation to make it palatable to you, go find someone who appeals to you more and leave me alone with the ones who ‘get’ me.
These words are from Cheap Lecture by Jonathan Burrows and Matteo Fargion, a performance piece from 2009. I’m offering them sincerely as an apology to anyone who suffered through a class or post or workshop with me that they didn’t enjoy.
This is for all the people
who ever had to clap
trapped at the end of a show
we were in that they disliked
We’re sorry
It must have been awful. we’re
sorry. It must have been awful the way time
passed so slowly
so
slowly
And every time you closed your eyes
something happened
that made you think
you’d better look again
and you looked again, and
nothing happened
The way you grew to dislike us
not least,because
some people liked it
and clapped hard
so you had to clap
just a little
to be polite, which
made you dislike, everyone
#art #performanceart #performingforlikes #anapology
How High (or Low) Can You Go?
Great article in Pointe magazine this month about the development of high legs in ballet throughout history.
It was Sylvia Guillem who introduced the 180 degree leg extension in the 1980’s,before that they were extended between 135-160 degrees and in the nineteenth century only to hip height.
Post Balanchine’s modernist focus on form and the body (as opposed to narrative) contemporary ballet choreographers from Maurice Bejart, Roland Petit, William Forsythe and Dwight Roden have pushed, contorted and extended dancer’s legs for different effects and critics and historians have been arguing and debating about it ever since.
As always there are cases for both-. Roden has said ‘I don’t apologise for using the body in extreme ways because I think the work I like to do reflects the world around us and we are living in extreme times.’ Judith Mackrell writing about Svetlana Zakharova I’m Sleeping Beauty says ‘her body seemed to become physically rounder and the more she restricted the height of her leg extensions, the more energy and lushness began to flow’
Both sides agree though that both have value and enrich the ballet landscape.
It would be nice if the yoga community could embrace some of this nuance and intelligence particularly when it comes to Instagram.
A photo is a frozen moment in time, it will never truly capture the visceral thrill of a live performance or a transcendental practice. Seeing a photo on here you can appreciate it or not but have the maturity to acknowledge it for what it is -an advertisement. A by product of existing in a Western, capitalist, consumerist society.
Do I love everything about this - No
Would I prefer to live under a communist, socialist or totalitarian dictatorship? No
I’ve yet to see anyone on here bitching and moaning about the freedom that affords us the right to voice our opinions in whatever format we choose.
When Margot Fonteyn was asked if she thought Guillem’s leg extensions were vulgar and crass do you think her answer was
A - yes she’s a selfish manipulative asshole or
B - ‘Well if I could have done it, I would have done it’
#yoga #nuance #highart #maturity
