I was listening to the Interview below on FORA.TV of Anna Halprin up until about 12am last night & taking notes.
Sexual healing for me began with integrating my body- and that was about movement
and safe touch.
I've always had some kind of connection to Dance at various parts of my life. In high school my friends were mostly the Arts Crowd students. I remember the name that we had for our selves was the " Zoo-Crew" in other words we were adolescent misfits of various sorts. A good friend of that time, Was spotted as having a gift for dance and was accepted at North Carolina School for the Arts in Dance. After graduating from
N.C.S.A he had gone up to NewYork and luckily landed had a job with the Alwin Nikolais Dance Theatre and that he had gone to Europe and had joined " Daniel Ezralow &. . ." Company.
Any way here is his website:http://www.timothyharling.com/.. its incredible to look at the artist and remember when I knew him as a 15 yr old gifted boy . His love of Dance and intense view of the world thru movement had an indelible effect upon me perhaps it was the passion of creation. I don't know what it was, but I was very lucky to have known him.
Interview with Dance Innovator: Anna Halprin ( Very Good)
I decided to post notes from the interview as some of it did relate to the writing topic
Body Wisdome & Sexuality, but also with finding/discovering ones Personal and Artistic Language.
She briefly mentioned the " shedding of all of her old patterns and starting anew. That ability to create this break was how began her new approach to movement"
&
To her " Movement" was a language" and finding the forces of nature within her own body and translating that information into an artistic experssion.
Dance as medium to speak to the spirit world , bring forth change, enhance life and not always be a a decorative spectacle.
Okay. so what does this have to do with my writings on the topic. Aha...
Sexuality must be a language. Isn't it? Expression is Communication.. Right? Well in terms of Body Data, I would say that from the get-go, I never had an opportunity to learn, discover safe and healthy sexuality. Like some Sexual abuse survivors and specically those who were ritualistically abused my cognative connections to sexuality were paired with extreme physical pain and I was living without a necessary language and was missing out on important developmental experiences . It is as if some had asked me to speak, but instead I could only Bark because my tounge had been ripped out.
How was i able to re-build my connection / build my language(bridge) across to sexuality? Where does the instinct to survive come from? It's all part of the great mystery. Those moments beyond desciption are not because I can't find the words but that words simply steal away the holiness of it.
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Healing Hearts thru the Arts.
I began with Movement and Touch , Education, Moving thru Non-feeling of sensation & Personal denial of Sensuality thru The Sexual Ice Ages to Rage and a painful/ depressive Acceptance of the splits created by Damage. of the damage.
After 2 Hosptalizations in teh Nashville , Tn area in Mental Health In-patient programs that were not set up to work specifically with survivors I left with only a a Band aid on festering wounds so it was not until I left the state of Tennessee and attended a specialist Holistic in-patient program for R.A survivors in Alburqerque, New Mexico that I recieved the help that I needed.
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The Great Mystery--
Connectedness is relationship. Connectedness is respect. Connectedness is understanding. Connectedness is giving.
Connectedness is knowing you are a vital part of something bigger than yourself. Connectedness is listening. Connectedness is realizing that Creation is so beautiful that the Creator must also be beautiful.
Connectedness is having the courage to face one’s greatest enemy — one’s own self. Connectedness is acknowledging and accepting that each life form, each spirit, has value. Connectedness is the ability to seek the good in every situation.
Connectedness is knowing that you are a part of something greater than yourself and that what you do really does make a difference.
Connectedness is the courage to stand up for what’s right and speak out against oppression. Connectedness is fighting injustice, even when you yourself are the one doing the injustice. Connectedness is combating the prejudice in your own heart.
Connectedness is being at peace with yourself, with others, with the world around you, and with the Great Mystery.
Connectedness gives the power to rise above the mundane and to soar with the stars, thus to see the world from a new perspective which few people ever glimpse.
Connectedness gave our shamans the power to make the tents tremble or to know when the earthquake would come or to stand tall when the oppressors bullets struck down without mercy everything they loved.
Connectedness is learned over time and over a difficult trail, but it is worth the learning. We all can be connected once again. Connectedness is available to anyone willing to pay the price of being connected.
published in The Red Heart Warrior, Fall 2003
