Drag me

There was a moment in one of the workshop sessions that we were told to dance freely, after a hard intensive warming-up. Commands of a sleepy body were told and as well as dancing ‘not disturbing the fog’. I was very introspective and of course due to the latest happenings, very sensitive. It was when in the middle of my dance Tadashi asked us to let our dead to drag us. For me it was firstly difficult to imagine ‘my dead’ lead my movement since I don’t believe they can do a thing to me... I emptied my mind and started moving, sleeping body and dancing in the fog, enjoying each moment, each centimeter seemed one hundred meters. Then I accepted the fact that my mother (recently passed away) could drag me somehow, she was the first one I pictured. Part of me is part of her; it’s in my skin, organs, cells, DNA. It was absolutely out of control not to renounce my own command and let her lead me. It was a special time, a time for images, memories and remembrances – all led me to my dance. All body committed to the moment, muscles and bones thinking and building up knowledge. It wasn’t important to know where my mother would bring me; I wasn’t even afraid or happy to where I could possibly end up. Feet all connected to the ground being dragged, it was difficult to walk, it was the end but also the beginning – how a baby starts to place his right leg after his left one, having his all body working together, even face, for one project: walking.
Dancing with memories is being something really emotional to me. Last picture that I have of my mother was before she had been cremated, and I dared to touch her head, and it was cold. My dance was as cold as her head, but dancing that wasn’t a weird thing, maybe it is now when I’m writing but it wasn’t in that moment. Inside its coldness was the warm and chaos of my blood and fluids. Drag me, n’importe pas where you lead me, I want to go, I want to move (even still). Dancing the darkness and my dead ended up being pleasant – darkness is there, and we can touch it. Life needs death and death needs life. I remember one sentence Tadashi said: ‘you can’t change life but you can change the direction of your life’.
These themes: death, dancing our darkness and with our dead, deserve a less superficial approach than this one I’m doing. It’s a pity I have few minutes a day for internet access during this week, but I hope these ghosts will remain in my mind for the next days and weeks, so I can explore them in a better way here.