revisiting this piece from 2000-2001 is a very good reminder.
I had just turned 28, finally gotten to EDDC which had been a bridge too far for me back in 1992, made financially possible because I could benefit from a temporary assistance for artists living in the Netherlands. that kind of support meant the world for me, helped in the struggles with family who did what they could to be supportive but were still very much struggling to accept it all.
being on edge, moving on edge, out of the safe but rather immobile comfort zone, into the present and danger, was very tantalizing for someone with the generational trauma of parents and grandparents (Hungarian refugees during and after both world wars) but it was also a Hic Rhodos Hic Salta , in the here and now, as imperfect and as unrehearsed and un-worked-out as it were.
the struggle I had with personal expression as very real, the blockage in my rib-cage ( "don't speak, don't feel yourself in the presence of others" ) was still very, very much active.
Meg Chang was right in her observation of me when she attended a rehearsal of "In Circles" back in New York in 1997, the wide open loft space was still too small for my immense energy and drive, uncontainable.
I recognize this drive in everything, and it could also wear out, destroy in the longer term, cut down. ( Ursula K. LeGuin, about "the creator spirit", in The Dispossessed)
Here, the piece was epic, the ambitions could have filled an entire evening's performance, but had to be fit into a student performance evening at an institution, with very helpful and supportive colleagues who nonetheless were much younger than me and partly at different stages in their own art production. That said, I remember marvelling at how accomplished they all were and how relatively late to the party I felt myself to be.
I can feel sympathy and solidarity for my younger self, a great deal. the drive has been given space to realize itself ever better, what I had been striving for for decades in part has finally been accomplished. a bit more relaxation, and finding some much needed further realization by being able to finally relax a bit, allow for time to happen, finding trust in the self, which has become more able to exist and express itself and communicate with others more effectively.
and I still keep going towards the edge of what is alive in the moment, as much as I can, as far as possible, but no longer at the cost of ecology. in that sense I am finally catching up with some of my colleagues from back then. quoting an artist-friend, live and learn.
as a result, the helplessness, shortcomings, are just as much a part of this performance, the inability as much as the ability and the powerhouse that got much needed affirmation in the right kind of environment, comparable to what I understood Elaine Summers felt when she met and worked with the people who, together with her, later would be referred to as Judson Dance Theater.
i keep wondering these days if I should re-stage this work again, but so much has changed internally. this change would create a distance to the raw need at the time. the shape would be more as I wanted back then. how would I "re-visit" and restage the internal drive from back then?
PS: this was part B that was not realized during the evening, it took a few years and it was recorded in 2005.
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