I didn’t rehearse last week. Conjoined laziness and taking a short pause after getting Dasniya into car for her journey to Thailand which grew to a three-day bender of doing not very much at all. I hadn’t been able to get many days at Theaterhaus Mitte either, with all the danceable studios booked out for three weeks in advance. Lucky a fortuitous arrangement arrived, which means the distance to rehearsal studio is substantially shorter.

So, rehearsing in the vastness of Alte Kantine Wedding in Uferhallen. This was my first proper rehearsal, and I seem to have a work process that has become consistent. Besides my daily hour on the wobble board (yes, I have a high threshold for repetitiveness), I’m starting with some floor yoga, bits of pilates, sort of Klein stuff, some of Benoît’s exercises, and finally getting to standing after about an hour. I’m not really warm in the sense of sweating buckets, but reasonably loose and have paid a lot of attention to the smoothness of movement in my legs and hips.

Then I do pliés. Nice loose ones which don’t go beyond demi, but I’ve taken to making sure my heels come off, to encourage not perpetuating the poor technique of trying to get the deepest demi plié possible. It’s like being washed in waves coming in and going out. More foot stuff. I think my general approach is singular movement patterns done over and over, far beyond the standard eight counts. A lot like walking. So I do leg swings barely off the floor until there is a synchronised rhythm of swinging and weight shifting in arms, torso, hips, legs, a couple of minutes on one leg, then the other, back to the first a bit higher, until I find a way to do full leg swings with the same inevitable rhythm of movement as walking.

And the same with arm swings. Which have become deliriously complicated. Yes, I can swing my arms from fingertips, the standard way, which is nice, or I can initiate it from my hips twisting one side forward, the other back, or that plus sinking into one hip, or throwing my leading arm (or throwing my trailing arm which is dead weird), or using shoulders, which has a side-effect of inducing breathing. So, arm swings and other arm-ish movement. And then more physical, a couple each of Emio and Forsythe, either building up tension and releasing it, or loosely improvising through all limbs and joints, until after another hour or so it just feels like it’s time to put on Sunn O))) or Gorgoroth or Mayhem and channel the goat.

Which I did a little of, not really pushing or trying to find anything new, just looking to repeat the familiar. Tomorrow, again.