Kinetic Stillness
The idea, the image-sense we will explore, starts out playing with the dynamic tension between parts of ourselves, the way two pieces of wood might balance on or hang off each other.
It is the exploration, primarily through kinetic sculpture and dance, of that imaginal centre of our being that informs, endures, entertains and embraces all the movements we make.
It is an essence no more substantial than a single beam of light that breaks through the leaves for just a second and permits the witnessing of a butterfly in flight, us held together as a fragment in time, in the illumination of space, and which reveals us as a momentary presence.
As we swirl through the here-now of time and space, we usually identify ourselves with the seeming reality of our events. To be present with the invisible forces that sustain our conviction offers an experience of depth of those same moments, seen through. Now we can overhear the whisper between a flower and breeze and witness the empty pages that allow the words of love to be formed and spoken. These moving images are the living faces of the gods.
We must now strive for something further. The experience needs to be polymorphic, a coming together of many parts and diverse pieces. Bodies hanging out, falling in, resting on, floating off, breaking out, showing new shapes and separating, a knowing together. A temporary, fragile, dynamic, robust moving, living piece. Like a person, the polytheistic experience of who we are, behaving the gods.
And not necessarily related pieces. Or at least not where relatedness is determined by habituated identity. Even the ragged parts that are disjointed and unattended, even the uncomfortable and rude, even the surprising and unknown visitors, once they arrive and we greet them like the visiting angels they are, just because they’ve arrived, they’re all there and suddenly there is a place for all of it. And for you.
And more, every part is necessary. Any part is expendable, arbitrary, temporary, and yet each piece is significant, essential and mythical. Without the parts, the holy cannot dance. No demon, no daemon. Each object in isolation is introverted, but in this fragile alliance, everything becomes dynamic and alive. A single wind-bird flying nearby, or a moving breath, a sadness sigh or a gasp of love, could inspire this moment to soar heavenwards or, just as effortlessly and ecstatically, to fall apart and be folded into Lethe.
It is the making of a shrine. A place of passion, a prayerful offering of our desires and our suffering. This ‘who we are’ as a place where the life force breaks through and shows itself glistening through the fragments.
Where God is revealed and I can still remember who I am.
Creativity 2 : Kinetic Stillness
5 days. Knysna. Homework. Entry level A4+CR1.