an artist's naked truth.

in which I interview myself on such pertinent questions as "why do this", "what's the point", and "what really matters"?

I’m co-teaching a workshop in a couple of weeks called Dancing the Landscape.  It’s been slow to fill, won’t pay me more than gas money, and a ton of work to hoist off the ground and into the ethers of social media (especially since I am not on it).  But! If the currency is in life force, I feel like I’m getting paid like a politician. So I decided to inquire into this situation and ask: “why are you doing this?”  Here’s what I answered, in interview format. As you read this, I will be dancing.

So, Frieda. Why dance?  What does it matter?

I’ve been asking this question for a very long time.  I spent my childhood in dance studios and on stage, becoming fluent in movement phrases before I could read and write.  But it wasn’t the outfits or the sense of accomplishment that kept me circling back – in SO many ways the culture of dance studio “girls” didn’t fit – it was the wild sense of being alive, agile, and engaged that kept me dancing. It was my lifeline.

Movement is the simplest definition I can think of that explains what we are all doing, what it means to be alive.  Planets spin, waters flow, cells expand and contract. 

So why choose to move?  What happens when you put you attention on this ordinary, given fact of life? 

When I am in a practice of using my body creatively, my perspective shifts.  My mind gets sharper, my digestion becomes like clockwork.  I sleep deeper, I smile more.  But it’s not pedestrian movement that does this for me.  Monotonous moving has its place – I love a good long hike - but it is by design ‘useful’, ‘practical’, and ‘ordinary’.  My thoughts and ideas tend to follow this recipe and move in practical, ordinary ways.  When I’m practicing other ways of moving, what might be categorized as dance, something else happens entirely.  Its like watching a toddler or baby explore a new place, their body alive with wiggles and new pathways, and then suddenly, they have a new mouthful of words to string together. 

I’ve been trained to think of my thoughts as not myself, my mind not my body, my movement not important.  While I get that perhaps some delineation can be useful, my work is in re-braiding my thoughts with my lived experience from a bodies’ eye view.   Dancing is the closest word I can find to describe what this looks like. These practices of moving with intelligence, clarity, and complexity feel like a direct pathway to experiencing myself as intelligent, clear, and complex in a sea of information and facts that are more and more disembodied by the minute.  I can’t think of a better way to support my brain, my heart, my sense of self worth and self-knowing, and honor this fleeting life by moving, dancing.

So what do you practice Frieda?

I am not a purest.  I was the kid who cycled through every dance studio, studied every form I could find. Just like there are a hundred plants one could use to treat a stomachache, there are a billion ways to practice moving.  My deepest movement wells these days are qigong and daoyin practice, body weather, contact improvisation, authentic movement, and animal tracking.  I also practice being witnessed by my place; that sounds so bizarre, but it really is tricky, and feels amazing when it happens.  Also, importantly, all movement practice is better outside.

Why outside?

Why did we ever go inside to dance? Add the landscape and the surrounding environment back into the sensory experience and everything comes rushing together with one big, sacred, “yes”.  And not just a ‘yes’ to what is comfortable, easy, desired - it’s a ‘yes’ to what simply is.  To be witnessed by a landscape is the surest path to belonging, right where I am, right how I am.   For us animals, landscape is our connecting point, our clearest identity, our deepest reservoir of wisdom.  Moving in relation to that place is so wildly organizing, so completely validating that we humans do belong here, and have something vital and beautiful to offer.

Sounds like medicine to you.

Yes, it is actually.

dancing a shoreline.

Want to join a small but mighty group of people for a long Labor Day weekend of delving in these practices?  Essentially, it feels like the most important thing I can do to support our collective human experience.

For more ways to move with me, find me through my website. www.friedakiparbay.net

“One of the central tenants in the cosmology of the Tongshu is that we reside in a living world shaped by reciprocity. Every single thing we do composes Nature’s response to us.” - Seanán Zook