A core group of dancers have created a network/collective to further work in the natural landscape. It comes out of an instinctive desire to dance in community, responding to, and relating with, the earth. We are looking for a deep ecology of moving, listening and witnessing our natural environment through the body. The work is a creative sourcing that brings resonance to our separate work as independent makers.
This link….
….will take you to our website
In this Mantroi blog I include some of my own contributions. We also have a Dancers In Landscape blog
July 2015: Some personal reflection on DiL and healing in relation to my own practice as a dance artist:
DiL is for me a treasured part of my unfolding journey of embodied practice. I continue to cultivate sensory awareness and ways to open the senses to nature more and more.
Immersion in nature over prolonged time can catalyse deep healing. Time and time again I have both witnessed and experienced how this can lead to both a release of deeply held grief and a great sense of communion with the Earth/nature and with others.
Moving into the body is parallel with moving into the Earth – so much opens up. There is much healing potential in this.
(re)learning about natural patterns and cycles is healing in itself, as is taking the time to simply ‘be’ in place.
I love to learn about the constant embrace of gravity and how so much of life is in dialogue with this.
The repeated structure of walking, over all the seasons, pretty much the same walk, that leads into moving in a familiar landscape helps us get to know the place and ourselves more and more. We have a container for our exporession, our physical conversation with place and each other, our healing. It is grounding. It is of great support in a world full of pressure to disconnect from nature, disconnect from our inner landscapes.
In moving, there is a point where the bodymind becomes fluent in a creative, healing energy that is beyond words, that is other than words. DiL is so valuable to me as one of my nature-focussed practices that hold me in my explorations of this, and in my facilitation of its possibilities for others.
Sunday March 10 2012: I anchored ‘The 7Dials Elm’
We silently walked and danced between Forge Lodge and Bunces Barn
We contemplated the Elm and the absence of Elms around us
We silently walked and danced in gratitude, gathering an offering to the 7Dials Elm, and the National Collection of Elms, Brighton&Hove
DiL offering at the roots of the 7Dials Elm
Saving The 7 Dials Elm
In spring and autumn 2012 I anchored two events in which I tried out methods I am developing in my ‘Being in Place’ project
In Spring 2011 I co-anchored ‘Blossom‘ with Clare Whistler.
Blossom Schema
documentation of my improvisation, I say I danced with a wild pear tree
Clare and I made paper blossoms, with words enclosed in their ‘stamen’ – for a ritual in which we dressed a budding tree, an offering to this beautiful place, to nature in a wider context…
Blossoms fall, creative energy released…
Blossom: flower from the root. Blow into the eye of the sky…
Please go to http://dancersinlandscape.blogspot.com/ for more about the network/collective as a whole and for others’ contributions
…and…
Some Collective Ideas
A core group that network and support each other with a commitment to dancing in nature. Towards performance, experiential, workshops, rituals. It is a creative sourcing, that brings resonance to our separate work as independent makers. It is about trust and generating depth. A sense of community. Witness and attention. Nourishment and ritual. A responsibility of learning about where we are in the environment. Sharing the wonderment of nature. The visceral experience. In nature you can’t go so far In – you have to have a dialogue with In and Out. How still one wants to be in nature, a desire to distill movement to stillness.
How to record the work: Photographers, film makers, sound artists, visual artists, writers. The group also using these methods of recording, writing and harvesting what has happened in between meetings as well.
Each Meeting: Different people in the group can hold each session. The session can reflect their practice and wishes. Seasonal Visits. To visit the same site (Bunces Barn) each season. Each person to choose site for their session. Inviting experts to inform the group. Botantists, ecologists, historians etc. Inviting other Dancers who work in Landscape to offer sessions
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