What is Choreography today ?
The image is by Pavlos Vrionides from my piece ‘ Humping’
What is Choreography today?
What isn’t choreography today?
Isn’t choreography always anyway?
So what is it really?
Choreography is cooking and serving dances to be swallowed and digested.
It’s a sport, as you are trying to win a challenge you have set on your own, trying to compete with a better version of yourself each time.
It’s activism as nothing is more revolutionary than bodies embodying the change they want to experience in the world.
It’s art, but many times, it is art camouflaged as poetry, theatre, dance, movement, sculpture, film, music, song, performance live or online, camouflaged as an application, a video game, a dream, an awakening, a conversation, an illusion, a masturbation.
When I was teaching the choreography course at university, during the first class, I usually began with three words: concept, intention, form. And I would say that one can begin making work from any of these words and in no specific order. I always gave the example of a building. How a building used to be a concept in someone’s head, and it was meant to house people and that determined its form. Choreography can begin from anywhere, like having the desire to share an idea, an ambition, a dream, it can begin as a need to please or as a hidden wish to be admired, a curiosity about a certain way of moving, it can begin as an escape from reality, or as a strong need to explore the body as a treasure box of tools and toys to play with for endless hours.
Choreography today can be conceptual, movement based, object based, silent, soundy, vocal, recorded, written, painted, narrated, performed, designed, imagined.
Choreography is nothing more than what moves people today.
Hug huge
Lia
Art for
The image is from my piece ‘ Plan B’ at Theatro Polis 2016, invited by curator Yiannis Τoumazis, to react to the painting of Glyn Hughes
Art for art’s sake
Art for love ache
Art for getting laid
Art for mom’s gaze
Art for soft brains
Art for taking a break
Art for making me look great
Art for breath intake
Art for making change
Art that never stayed
Art honestly faked
Art artificially claimed
Art as an income trade
Art ruthlessly betrayed
Art as nothing displayed
Art boringly safe
Art mindblowingly insane
Art for all we prayed
Art however made
Art for fuck’s sake
Hug huge
Lia
A material and an immaterial tool I find useful
A material and an immaterial tool I find useful for life and creation
which I strongly recommend.
The recorder on my phone which Ι use to store information throughout the day.
Very often, ideas, thoughts and emotions may appear at random times throughout the day, like in the car as I’m driving, or when walking somewhere or at any time or place. I then catch myself in need of not wanting to lose that momentum, and I use my recorder to ‘catch’ it. So I document that emotional moment or random thought by recording my voice in speaking about it. The recorder can act as a personal diary, as storage of a tune that gets stuck in my head that I might want to work on later, or as a notebook of recording lists of things or tasks I need to do throughout the day. I find it super useful for life and the creative process.
The second tool I use is humor.
I call this a tool because I consciously use it to avoid a projection of drama on several challenges or situations that are happening during the day. It’s like an internal dialogue, where instead of giving energy to thoughts of anxiety, fear, or guilt, I have a sense of not taking myself or the situation too seriously and even taking the piss out of it.
So when I catch myself being triggered or upset in any way, I do this process where I observe the trigger, embrace it like a little child that needs attention through breathing, and then I begin teasing it. For example, yesterday I got the electricity bill, which was huge, and I could feel a sense of panic taking over my body. I sat down and breathed with that emotion/state, accepted it, got used to it after a while, and then I kind of made a funny song out of it like:
Money you’ re a bad ass
But im badder
Life bring it on
Cause im smarter
etc……..
The moment passed….and I dealt with the problem, from a lighter place.
Hug huge
Lia
Ignorance hides a lot of violence
Ignorance hides a lot of violence
Ignorance is opposite to science
Ignorance is within us all
As there is no way to know it all
And yet it is in the not knowing
That problems are underlying, ignored and growing
Αt the same time is there one truth?
Or infinite amounts as various consciousnesses prove
A key thing to keep in mind
Is one’s choices are their gold mine
For those things that mean the most
Are those one should know and host
So that one can grow, flourish and be
Within their own true reality
Which hopefully harms none, respects many
While some other realities are violent, vicious, and deadly
So by not knowing that, and remaining silent
Ignorance hides a lot of violence
Hug huge
Lia
Vocalizing to become lighter
I use vocalization to clean my energy if I feel that something burdens my chest or if anxiety creeps in.
So this is a little exercise I want to share about how I use vocalizing to let go of energetic burden:
Be ready to make some alone time and space.
Put yourself on the ground horizontally, whether it's a bed or a soft floor of some sort.
Make sure you're comfortable and your temperature is warm enough, you might need a blanket.
Close your eyes and allow yourself to ground by breathing comfortably.
See if there are any adjustments you want to make to your body or little shifts.
Breathe comfortably
As you exhale, feel free to allow whatever vocal sound wants to be freed.
Take as much time as you need for every exhale, and free with it any kind of sound that is stored in your body until everything gets out.
Once all these sounds are freed and you don't have any more sounds, go back to breathing.
Bear in mind that there's a turning point usually where the mind starts to think worrying thoughts from the past or thoughts related to the future.
There's a beautiful way out of that and into the presence of your body again by listening to external sounds. Put your attention in whatever sounds are happening around you, and you will instantaneously become present again since your mind will focus on that and not swing to other thoughts.
Do this mechanism as many times as you need.
As you come back into the body, start doing a little hmmmm with your voice, It's an internal humming. Feel how it warms up your inner organs as the voice creates a natural vibration (not forced).
Remember not to involve any kind of tension in the neck or in the belly.
Everything happening is effortless and soft to the level that if somebody was there, they wouldn't even be able to hear you.
Do this as long as your body enjoys it.
Come back to breathing.
Feel gratitude for all you are being.
You are now light and in a new state.
What are the rituals, practices or habits that are nourishing your creative process?
When we are working on a project or generally during the process of creation, our energy depends on our state of being and on our mind set. How do we bring ourselves to the state that serves our practice best?
Here is a set of questions that might inspire you to include habits in your daily life, to support you during your creative process and perhaps during your life in general too:
· What practices do you use to take care of your physical body to keep it vibrant and energized? (Nutrition? Sleep? Exercise? Other?)
· What practices do you use to take care of your mental health so that anxiety and worrying thoughts do not take over, and you think mostly creatively rather than destructively? (Thought self-guidance? Meditation? Other ways?)
· What practices do you use to deal with stored emotions in your body? (Do you vocalize them? express them? embrace them till they are gone? Other ways?)
· What practices do you use for rest?
· What practices do you use for pleasure?
· What practices do you use for inspiration, information and research?
With the new moon tonight, I strongly encourage you to create or plan or list a routine that includes the practices, habits and rituals that will support the version of yourself that you choose to be from now on, as a new beginning!
Enjoy !
Inspiration gets you out of bed, but what if she doesn’t come?
I imagine inspiration as an inner spirit that awakes in my body, and almost kicks me out of bed, usually the early morning times. She appears like a spark inside the body around the chest area, which makes the breathing process deeper. It is like an instant moment of happiness, a huge appetite to create, an inner push, a drive, an effortless momentum, an awakening of an idea, a strong will, a specific intention, a precious moment when you know that an opportunity has appeared, and the moment is just right. Like there is a wave of creativity coming your way, and you are certain that if you ride it, its flow and force will take you on a mission you cannot resist. Right now, it is exactly one of those times. It is 5.30 am and I felt a momentum of almost being pushed out of bed because my intention to work on a project was stronger than my desire to stay in bed.
But what if she doesn’t come?
I deal with her absence in three ways:
1. I discipline myself to work on projects anyway. The beginning is hard but then if you begin the body gets used to it and after around five minutes of work you are into it and doing it. The hard thing is to make yourself begin. This action doesn’t need a lot of thinking, it needs an almost robotic action to make yourself begin even if you tell yourself: I will just do it for five minutes. During those five minutes your energy will have already shifted and you will most probably continue doing it.
2. I let her (inspiration) not come and instead of expecting her, I just go to the places and do the things that bring me joy and pleasure. Usually it looks like taking myself on a walk to nature, watching a movie, meeting a friend. In a sense I make a decision to spend my time and energy with another wonderful fairy called JOY.
3. To bring inspiration back I will take myself to experience things that are new. A new art work or performance or movie, a new place, a new circumstance. This way myself will experience its own self experiencing something new and this contact with unknown information will create inside me a sweet clash. It is a a situation where I will be witnessing in me new reactions and this means that my palette of emotions or of information is growing. The growth in me triggers me to want to explore this unexplored side of me further and usually that comes in the form of new ideas which make me get out of bed.
She is back !
Have a lovely inspiring day
Hug huge
Collaborators or friends?
One of the issues that one needs to clarify primarily within themselves, is the type of relationship they have with people around them.
Is it a friendship?
Is it professional?
Is it both?
This will help you have clear and honest intentions about them, let go of any guilt-related feelings, and feel free to be as you intended in the relationship.
In the case of friendship, there are degrees in proximity. How comfortable you feel in the presence of the other and also what type of friendship it is. Ideally, a healthy friendship would make you feel comfortable being yourself and not performing what you think the other expects from you.
In the case of professional relationships, I would say make sure you know what you can offer and what you would like to receive. Before you begin working, I cannot stress enough to have written agreements. Maybe it’s an email or a recording on your phone after a mutual agreement to record or any other type of proof.
Entering collaborations with friends can be tricky if you do not protect it. Many times, this is because friends working together think that they do not have to have agreements written down, and this may often result in misunderstandings.
Hug huge
Lia
There are Artists - poem
A poem i wrote, written in the style of a poem found in a children’s book with animated images.
There are artists that heart and then make art
there are artists that art and hardly heart
some artists share, and deeply care
and some do not give a fuck beyond their hair
There are artists who do it out of ambition
or even for global recognition
and there are those who do it for justice and truth
and others to buy crocodile shoes
There artists who drink and drug and drown
or get depressed and hide in the ground
and there are those who fun and laugh and love
and spread good vibes like angels in love
There are artists who mother while they work
and often struggle and never tell
and then there are those who don’t know their value and worth
and give up and give in, even surrender to death
There artists that create for a better world, for love
and some artists who detest those who buy their art
and then there are those artists who are like me
that think they are open and true but fail terribly
If you resonate with any of the above
know it’s ok cause all is part of making art