registers for, and honors, your body- mindspirit in that moment. I want to end with some questions as invitations that you are welcome to engage with through writing, move- ment, or whatever medium resonates or is available. Within these questions, as scaffold, inherently lies the need for space to rest, to shore up for what comes next, as well as to grieve for what has been lost, whether that be memory, job, home, or loved one. What does “collective” mean in your worlds? How do you shore up lifelines and connections? What are your questions for the future? What bodily shapes will support the shift from here to there? How can your existing resources be amplified in community? In the Turtle Disco garden, we came up with responses for how to hold each others’ memories and also how to hold each other. Multiply this within a group. Include the Blue Flag Iris and Cardinal flower in the gar- den. White Pine that towers above us from the neighbor’s yard. Extend to a larger community. Make sure to call in the mycelium, the four-leggeds, and all the waters. The unseen, the ghosts. Keep weaving these connections that slowly and with care are a pulsing thing, a web of antennaed knowing, so many strings, vibrating in song. STEPHANIE HEIT (she/her) is a queer disabled poet, dancer, teacher, and codirector of Turtle Disco, a somatic writing space on Anishi- naabe land where she is a white settler in Ypsilanti, Michigan. She is bipolar, a shock/psych system survivor, a mad activist, and a member of the Olimpias, an international disability perfor- mance collective. Her award-winning book of hybrid memoir poems, PSYCH MURDERS (Wayne State University Press,2022), invites readers inside psychiatric wards and shock treatments toward new futures of care. Her poetry collec- tion, The Color She Gave Gravity (Operating System, 2017), explores the seams of language, movement, and mental health difference. Web- site: https://stephanie-heit.com
the blanks. This has often felt like a deficit, with shame or frustration attached, grief for the missing. On this morning, I had a gestalt-like experience of my memory becoming more luminous held by the collective. We all entered into a contract to cre- ate and embody each other’s memory place; it didn’t feel like a favor or dis- ability service, but rather an oppor- tunity to rub against someone else’s experience and feel it as vibration, word, gesture, with forgotten or unre- alized parts just part of the fabric. I want to highlight some of the ele- ments in this performance that may be useful for being into the future. I say “being” into the future because the present moment and inhabiting that present moment, in whatever way that looks like for you, for us, feels critical for the future. So does the collective. How do we collec- tively hold and create this moment? The next? And onward, until the next becomes future? In the instance of our small exchanges in the garden, consent and explicit contracts were important. We verbally exchanged:
MAD CONDUCTORS I want to return to Mad Conductors , the project whose seeds were acti- vated in that workshop by the Bay in Oakland. Alexis and I have con- tinued to develop this work through collaboration between the two of us and through performances in univer- sity settings, conferences, and com- munity workshops. Our core ques- tions have been: What happens when energy is transferred? Who or what conducts the ensemble? How can we hold memory as a community? How can we hold the gaps? What resources do mad ancestors and archives offer? I think these queries may offer potential infrastructures into the future. Please join me at a performance that happened on a spring Satur- day morning in the Turtle Disco gar- den. Lounge in one of the red camp- ing chairs or a zero gravity chair. Choose to stretch out on a towel on the grass. There are multiple options to accommodate comfort needs. Today we are going to experiment with holding memory and memory gaps as a community. We each call up a memory of a place associated with pleasure and positive feelings. In a meditation, we focus on and experience the qualities and senso- rial details of that place, then distill them into a few words that we write (or draw, always multiple access options) on strips of paper. As a group, we experiment enacting mem- ories for each other using gestures, voices, words, and any of the instru- ments – tambourine, wind chime, shakers, to name a few – spread out on the ground. We act as conductors for our own memories, tweaking the score as we see fit: more bells, qui- eter at the end, everyone reach arms to the sky. My interest in this query was how we might collectively hold mem- ory. As a shock survivor with pro- found memory loss, I’ve had to rely on loved ones to fill in and recall
Talleres dictados por
Mujeres Poderosas
Nos reuniremos dos veces al mes, presencial cuarto sabado y virtural segundo Lunes de cada mes. Horario presencial Sabados 10am -1 pm Lugar: Estudio NAKA 900 E.11th Oakland, CA 94606 Horario Virtual Lunes 6pm - 7:30 pm para mas informacion comunicate con Luciana en Instagram @luciana.rodriguez.orense Compartiremos saberes y los transformaremos en expresiones artisticas. Ven a conversar, crear poesia, bailar, bordar, practica el autocuidado y a reafirmar nuestra lucha diaria por los derechos de la mujer. Bienvenides!
Will you hold my memory? Yes, I will hold your memory.
Words can act as invocation and sharpen the focus of action. When I say action, this also can mean yielding, receiving. The backbody sinking into soft spring earth. When I was asked to hold someone’s memory I felt myself become more attentive, aware of the vulnerabil- ity and tenderness with which I was being entrusted. This softening into the moment and into exchange is improvisational practice. We are at play inside this small memory score while simultaneously being inside the larger score of the world with its stressors, constraints, openings, and delights. Sometimes the unex- pected shows up. Sometimes we are lucky enough to be aware and tuned in to receive it fully. And when I say fully, I mean in whatever way
46
in dance SPRING 2025 46
SPRING 2025 in dance 47
In Dance | May 2014 | dancersgroup.org
unify strengthen amplify unify strengthen amplify
44 Gough Street, Suite 201 San Francisco, CA 94103 www.dancersgroup.org
Made with FlippingBook - Online Brochure Maker