Gathering

an account from Omer with notes from Israel  

  I invite the group to sit in a circle and introduce myself as the host. I explain the structure of today’s gathering: We’ll start with a practice sharing from Israel, take a short break, after which I’ll guide us to experiment with Israel’s practice. I then passed the torch to Israel, who briefly presented themselves and their interest through this practice.  

A Practice / Israel

Over the course of about 50 minutes, Israel guided the practitioners to notice the multiple dimensions of their experience of body, and to play with the ways shifts in perception reorganize a body in the relational flux of bodies, time, and space. The experience was continuous, with the practitioners moving rather freely throughout the space and Israel transversally providing verbal prompts. Prompts such as:

Notice the space and time between steps; where we are no longer where we’ve been and not yet where we are going to be.

Give yourself a body; notice what information is made available to you through the senses.

Consent to movement; notice the movement of the movement, how movement is moving.

Notice what you are noticing; notice the obvious dimensions of the movement, notice the less obvious – almost like the secret of the movement.

Notice what kinds of relations occur between what you perceive as your body and what you perceive as not your body.

Notice movement inside what you perceive as the body; notice the movement on the body; movement around the body; movement of the body.

Notice the relations between your body and other bodies as they jointly compose space and jointly compose time.

Process all these layers and dimensions together.

Unfoldings / Omer Keinan

After the break, I again invite the group into a circle and introduce the experimentation process: This practice we’ve all just practiced did, and is probably still doing, something. One way of thinking about that is that it generated a shared material, a body/world we’ve tuned to together, participated in, experienced. I invite us to experiment in and on this practice, articulating this shared material. To do so, I’d like us to take some time to think through writing about the question “What did this practice do?” I’ve brough some loose pieces of paper and writing utensils, let’s write for three minutes.

Now, I’d like us to share with the group 1-2 of the things we wrote down. As we go around the circle, I invite you to note down, to collect things you hear and resonate with.

We’ll have three sessions, about 7 minutes each.

For the first two sessions, half the group will be movers and the other half witnesses; one of the witnesses will take the role of videographer. I suggest we each choose something-this-practice-did from our notes and commit to it. (This can apply to both movers and witnesses, but I got the sense that the witnesses didn’t take to this suggestion. Maybe because it is less intuitive to do in the framework of this practice, maybe because it needs a different framing.) For the first session, each practitioner chose a material silently. For the second session (after I witnessed the first and wanted to fine-tune my proposition), each mover declared their commitment out loud.

For the third and final session, we will all practice the practice together.

Session #1

Movers: Ellinor Berglund Lindholm, Jennifer Wallen, Mikko Duvaldt, Sandy Ceesay, Victor Persson

Witnesses: Hannah Johnson, Israel Aloni, Jooyoung Park, Noam Segal, Omer Keinan

Videographer: Zhana Pancheva

Session #2

Movers: Hannah Johnson, Israel Aloni, Jooyoung Park, Noam Segal, Omer Keinan, Zhana Pancheva

Witnesses: Ellinor Berglund Lindholm, Jennifer Wallen, Mikko Duvaldt, Sandy Ceesay

Videographer: Victor Persson

Commitments: Hannah to spaces between bodies + reflection as another world. Israel to other bodies are not my body but they create spaces for my body + temporality. Jooyoung to on my body + in my body + out of my body. Noam to noticing the noticing + non-composition. Omer to extending to others and keeping a distance. Zhana to extending the body + your body is my body.

Session #3

Movers: Ellinor Berglund Lindholm, Hannah Johnson, Israel Aloni, Jennifer Wallen, Jooyoung Park, Mikko Duvaldt, Noam Segal, Omer Keinan, Sandy Ceesay, Victor Persson, Zhana Pancheva

We finished by sitting and reflecting on those experiences, first all together and then (when I called the “end” of the gathering) in smaller groups.