Two days already passed. We are back in the beautiful loft studio in Charleroi/Danses La Raffinerie, arriving early yesterday to hang some rings and sort out yoga mats, cut some spare rope and other things, then to yoga. Barely a break was taken before 18h came around, and so off to the Monday market at the Saint-Gilles commune. Sadly, no raw milk. Happily, Gala had already bought some.
Today arriving a little later, finding Lewis on the tram in the morning, some fruit to be bought along the way. Fig season again, but too early for them to be properly ripe. Still, now I plan for the lamb and fig tajine again.
Yoga. Tomorrow I shall be teaching, and wondering about what kind of series to make that excludes pressure on the hands. Perhaps a lot of standing poses and balances. Dasniya is making some nice series of standing poses and sun salutes, and I find my upper thigh muscles noticing the effort today.
I’ve been particularly thinking about the position of the pelvis in various lunges, for example the warrior – Virabhadrasana – wondering whether to ignore it or try and retain some kind of neutral pelvis alignment. It becomes a mobile, sliding and shifting thing; complex enough I could probably spend a couple of years just shuffling it ever so slightly this way and that.
We have been doing rope work that feels like something from the past. The last time we really worked with traditional figures like takatekote was during Parsifal, and especially since then the improvised stuff – single rope, messiness, floor-based stuff has come to be what we do almost exclusively. To return to chest harnesses and suspensions feels curious. It’s certainly fun, and for some people the entire point of shibari. It’s also limiting though, as it tends to be a race through the ropes to get the figure done and get to hanging – almost like chasing a fix.
We are also giving a lot in a very short time. How to summarise a year of ideas in five days? What to pay attention to? what are people interested in? Tomorrow we will work more with the new stuff, see what this brings.
It is also very nice to see people who have been around our workshops before; some from La Monnaie, some from last year at La Raffinerie. The group varies between 14 and 17 so in itself is a lot of people to work with. For the weekend some will leave and some others will arrive. And then we shall make some more photos also.
It feels slightly vague writing this, as though I haven’t said anything significant about the days so far, just writing to fill up words. It is very satisfying and demanding to be teaching a big workshop again, also doing what I enjoy – working with bodies and people, experimenting with things, in a way dancing.
