Game of Life
I was recently playing chess, and was reminded of just how much a perspective can shift when the angle of orientation changes. In other words, the perspective available to us is limited by our location and when we change our orientation, the same “thing” can become something different. This shifting of perspective feels essential if we are going to be able to perceive anything close to the complexity of what is.
As the truth of a thing changes, with our changing perspective, truth itself becomes harder to proclaim. Please understand, I do think that the Earth is curved and that we are living in a time of growing fascism and global climate change, yet I am aware that for someone else, standing somewhere else, their perspective is different from mine. And it is not more or less correct, but just rather different. Our orientation is not only influenced by our location in space, but our ancestry, education, and experiences in life. I do not wish to make others see and think as I do, yet I do wish to share perspectives with those who see something differently than I do, and to learn from the complexity of difference. With only a partial view from wherever I am standing, I find myself wanting to combine my perspective with other different perspectives, so that I might see more of the whole, and become, somehow, more complex.
I am curious: In life and in dance, how can we practice being with different perspectives; listening, perceiving and even trying on differences?
One of the reasons I love dancing Contact Improvisation (CI) is that there is no singular angle of orientation. CI asks us to orient omnidirectionally, with a shifting visual field, and angles of support. Practicing these physical skills of shifting orientations in movement reminds us that there are so many different ways to locomote–so many more options available than those we already know. With a willingness to listen, and enter into disorientation with trust, one's perspective of what is possible expands, and we are able to perceive a new. Become anew.
At the end of this month, I will be in the Bay Area for Berimba Orin: A Capoeira Music event being co-produced by the BCC and CBSFP at the Casa de Cultura.
While in Berkeley, I am offering Rolfing and Movement Sessions February 23rd-March 2nd. You can schedule at the link here!
Nuria Bowart
See my upcoming calendar of teaching & events here!
Nuria Bowart