<\/a>some way I feel transparent, vulnerable, skinless, like a weather system moving into a village..<\/p>\n\n\n\nWhere the villagers may be unprepared..<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I sit with a group of men,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
they speak Arabic into google translate and sitting next to them I read the words as they appeared translated..<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018who are you, and why are you dancing the sad\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Both questions I didn\u2019t really have an answer to-<\/p>\n\n\n\n
so I handed one man the large stone..<\/p>\n\n\n\n
he held it, looked at me and I looked at him<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I took it away then he felt the lightness return<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then he smiled.. and nodded\u2026 in the middle of our gesturing<\/p>\n\n\n\n
something was shared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Somewhere beyond the place of language..<\/p>\n\n\n\n
From a distance the faces I read walking through the door look unsure, confused.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So I say hello..in the middle of the dance..<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hello<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then it all softens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I am no longer an apparition and some people walk toward me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The children arrive again showing me the way..<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I invite them to sit alongside me with their massive sandwiches in their little hands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They told me they had just been swimming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They begin..<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I begin working with them\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
we hold the rocks,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
they draw pictures of dogs , so many dogs, the ones who had died perhaps, and the ones who were alive..And a the odd picture of a squid\u2026 appears..<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A young woman arrives with a friend.. we all hold some stones and she begins talking..<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She lost a friend to suicide . She spoke about how when she died how hard it was to make sense of anything\u2026.anymore\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So she drew a body, an outline of GOLD\u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A holding form for the absence..<\/p>\n\n\n\n
People came…<\/p>\n\n\n\n
crossed the threshold tentatively to speak with me as I was dancing\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dancing allows me to build some invisible bridges into space, towards another….<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So that language can then walk across, slowly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So we can be together<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is very ordinary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A liminal space where perhaps, the usual rules of how we are supposed to be together as strangers no longer hold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We can let go of the performance of having it all together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So that there is enough room for the real to emerge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201c I grew up up in a funeral home\u2019 you kind of got used to the idea of loss.. the inevitability\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI saw the stones on your body and I felt the weight in mine\u201d I know it..<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This last week I have been thinking a lot about the role of the artist these days..<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Often I have no idea\u2026..<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This piece called Grief encounters I\u2019m playing with here was born out of this thought<\/p>\n\n\n\n
and wonder about how you practice loss<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So that you can get really good at loving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Because they both live alongside each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The living and dying.. they always have.. and will always<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Today whatever happened<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I know I was somehow graced by an inkling<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That being held with these strangers for that little moment<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Was what I was supposed to be doing,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
its where the meaning emerged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
through this thing called art and creativity<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We were together..<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Today was the day that the stories came.. Standing in the foyer of this massive theatre with the doors opening at 10am. I began dancing. Somehow dancing into the idea of becoming visible to passers by. Somehow holding myself as a moving, breathing question that people can wonder with.. In some way I feel transparent, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1153,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","site-container-style":"default","site-container-layout":"default","site-sidebar-layout":"default","disable-article-header":"default","disable-site-header":"default","disable-site-footer":"default","disable-content-area-spacing":"default","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_vp_format_video_url":"","_vp_image_focal_point":[],"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[10,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-present","category-writing"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2Iu26-iA","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/caitomos.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_0641.jpeg?fit=1876%2C1326&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/caitomos.com\/cy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/caitomos.com\/cy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/caitomos.com\/cy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caitomos.com\/cy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caitomos.com\/cy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1152"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/caitomos.com\/cy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1152\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1155,"href":"https:\/\/caitomos.com\/cy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1152\/revisions\/1155"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caitomos.com\/cy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/caitomos.com\/cy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caitomos.com\/cy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caitomos.com\/cy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}