From where I stay, it is a walk downhill across the south of the centre of Madrid, westwards to the river – I think. This morning I taught yoga. It’s been some time since I last did any, yet almost every night I’ve berated myself for not doing at least a few sun salutes or something.
So we made our sweaty way through something like my standard routine. I like it for the physicality; it requires after a time some muscle pushing to get through, and the rhythm from one pose to another lends an endurance quality. After, I found some free weights, and so decided to even out the imbalance between left and right arms (surely not a single-day task).
Dasniya started, working on a something ballet / something not duo / pas de deux of Gala and Michael. They fit very well together, height, strength, attitude – it makes for dancing that can be eerily in unison. It’s nice for me also to see Dasniya in a studio working with dancers, choreographing. Quite a new thing for me to see with her.
Lunch in the park. Coffee from the machine in the hall.
Michael started after lunch, working first with some things for us to do, whispered to each, causing amusement for him and us, and then me finding myself inserted into the duo he’d been working on with Gala and Dasniya last week. So, I dance.
Gala and I found we partner together quite well somehow, during process/unprocess, and this is carrying over into the days here. Partnering Dasniya – or even dancing with her in any way other than in ballet class – is new, but it also finds a similarity. Perhaps because we are all tall, and have known each other for years.
Which I was thinking, while watching Gala rehearse the other two with a chair, in this vast studio in Madrid – that working with your friends, making art or theatre or dance or whatever you want to call it, is pretty much the best thing one can do.
We ate soup and drank some wine for dinner in a small café delicatessen on the top of the hill at Anton Martin. Tomorrow, I teach again, and work on some more of my things. Friday we plan for shibari and photos in the Casa de Campo.
