mooring happenings: a movement dialogue for shaping worlds, shaping freedom
i am beyond excited to be relaunching this next iteration of common healing with a deep exploration held by bodypoet and choreographer, paris cian.
i first met paris at aja monet’s poetry reading this past november at the grapevine in london. i intuitively knew to drag myself out of the comfort of my cave that night despite my conscious inclination to burrow. i ventured into the cold darkness, hopped on the overground, and rode into shoreditch.
i was deep in the underworld as i often am when the winter sets in. this existential space mirrors the darkness of my environment as the hemisphere in which i reside sits facing away from the Sun. it is at this time it feels most natural for me to delve into the aspects i keep hidden from myself for fear i can’t face what’s down there. it is grueling work. to wrestle fear and tend to wounding. a stinging, burning process and yet — it is always when i uncover and reveal these truths that.i find my truest, most comfortable Self.
i arrived early and sat at the bar. i got whatever house red was available within my grad-student-abroad-budget. through the glass, i watched as the double decker busses whizzed by, the city lights blurring into bokeh through my tears.
as the time got near for the performance to start, i made my way down the stairs and chose a wooden chair close to the front. i noticed the energy of the woman next to me. a blend of strong and soft, a frequency that resonates, a dance i know very well myself.
that night, i drank surrealist blues, and basked in the light of familiar accents from a land i had no idea i missed. to be in the presence of black, american women was the warm salve i needed in that moment after living nearly a year and a half in the uk. the unmistakable boldness, a permeating freedom of the soul, a permission to take up space as divine duty that my being had been longing for… this nourished me.
at the end of the reading, i turned to the woman next to me who’s strong/ soft energy resonated. she too had been crying. a portal of vulnerability and trust immediately opened. we spoke of healing and expression, what brought us to london, and the secret spliffs we stash in our bras and our wallets.
paris came over for dinner a few days later and i made risotto. she came over again to celebrate my birthday a week after we met. she was critical support in my relocation back to the states which followed a few months later.
i am so excited to now be collaborating on this offering with her — mooring happenings: a movement dialogue for shaping worlds, shaping freedom. this exploration of the dark and what can come of it when we land here runs over four consecutive thursdays, beginning july 16th. tickets to join us are here.
below are words from Paris to describe the course and her inspiration:
Mooring Happenings is a 4-class series exploring the possibilities of shaping spaces of freedom. I frame mooring as a movement dialogue, a conversation of availability to the body in the dark; To attach to the body’s shore, to anchor. This course experiments with questions of foundation, beginnings, endings, landing and holding space, in our bodies, in our lives. I will guide each class through a movement exploration followed by a discussion + offerings for continuing to imagine new futures. This course encourages and welcomes the intersection of all artistic mediums, however is centered as a movement practice. The premise of this offering is rooted in conversation with Black feminist artists, such as, Octavia Butler, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Amara T. Smith, Sylvia Wynters, Audre Lorde, and many more. Mooring Happenings is an experiment, it is ritual, it is play. This is a healing space for the shadow, for breathing, learning, listening, being; a practice of making space for freedom. In this space we center and hold the voices and lives of Queer, Trans, and Black/Indigenous People.
My practice with/in darkness is explored through poetry, photos, scores, and sound. I dream about sexuality, spirituality, magic realism, patterns and ritual — I dream about my relationship to time. My understanding of darkness is a way of knowing, imagining new ways of seeing, moving and being in the world that I choose and wish to live. Reading Octavia Butler’s Parable series inspired the basis and foundation of this research. I am interested in making space that can be shaped and made that centers black girlhood, black feminism. What are the possibilities of shaping and making organizing spaces in the dark, generating space of healing, empowerment, and release and ritual for blackness, in the name of futurism and decolonization?
Darkness is an erotic inhibition unseen, phenomena of reflection, a conversation with the underworld, with the Divine; a birthing.
