The Water is Clear and Still

This is the title of a dance piece I just saw last Thursday at Z Space.  It was the first night of a "world premiere" for this particular piece from Liss Fain Dance, whom I've never heard of but is apparently a small SF-based company that has nevertheless toured internationally.  45 works since their inception in 1988.  "The Water is Clear and Still" had six dancers, an actor who was really a narrator, speaking text from the short stories of Jamaica Kincaid (late 70's, early 80's) an original score as well as some other pre-recorded bits.  So, that's the basic framework of the piece I saw, but I'm going to talk about the experience as it was for me (which is, you know, one can really ever do when it comes to performance art).

If you have read any of my accounts of running late to the opera, you know that I have a terrible habit of being late to fine arts performances.  I don't often GO to the symphony, theater, etc - but when I do, I run late to those too; my chronic tardiness doesn't discriminate.  I had to take public transpo to work today, so I rushed home to get the car and drive to the space, near Potrero Hill.  I was at Balboa Park, waiting for the 29, at 7:38pm; the performance started at 8pm - BUT incredibly, I got home, hopped in the car at 7:49, made it to Z Space 7 minutes later (the 101 and 280 are pretty efficient when not crowded) and found parking instantly. I totally made it.

When I walked in, a helpful "usher" (really, just a girl standing near the entrance looking for newcomers) explained that this was a "performance installation," a term which was new to me, but turned out to mean there were no seats but rather you were encouraged to walk around and view the performance from various angles.  As the program said, it "encompasses the entire depth of the theater" (just a big black open space, no seats). "We want you to see the piece from inside the set - please move around and through the set, close to the performers, and become an integral part of the piece."  Oh boy.  I love stuff like that.  Except, the usher said crucially, stay off the gray areas (clearly marked).  Those were for the dancers. 

And, furthermore, the program suggested, as you move about, "Feel free to bring your glass of wine or water with you."  Cool - that's the ultimate in progressive.  I was driving so no wine for me but I liked the idea, and I appreciated seeing others wandering with their bottles of beer.  It made me feel like I was in Europe, that merry land of permissiveness and culture, and the fact that many people there were speaking foreign languages or had cinematically thick accents only enhanced this illusion.  I was pleased, pleased to be in my home city that was so much like Barcelona or Berlin, women with sexy funky shoes and guys with curly hair and hats.  Everyone was alert, laid back, and seemed generally sophisticated.  Ah, I felt as we all waited for the performance to begin, here are my people; why have I been missing out on things like this?

As it turns out, I think everyone feels that way.  I overheard someone say, "I should go to things like this more," and the other person responded, "Me too." In fact, every time I am at something like this, I overhear people say this.  It's just like everything else - part of your perspective comes from what you actually do, part of it is what YOU think you do, and part of it is what other people think you do.  And all of it is paying attention to what you are ACTUALLY doing, in the moment.  (In, as the universal Ascension mantra that I have been listening to lately, this now: "in this now" is a very popular phrase in the universal Ascension mantra.)

So I decided, rather than walk around and check out the set that I as going to be allowed to walk around and check out and, while doing that, think, gosh, I wish I did things like this more often - I decided I would try and just ACTUALLY do it, without thinking about it too much and certainly without measuring against all of the times in the future that I would potentially do it.

However, as it turned out, this particular "thing I wished I was doing more often but am at least doing right now" was, as I've mentioned, a performance installation, and they were really adamant that we move around.  I mean, I didn't think anyone would come by and MAKE me move, but besides the usher and instructions in the program, a woman took up a mic right beforehand and said something to the effect of "sit if you must, but do try and move around."

The gentle insistence had a curious effect - for me, anyway - of making me extremely restless.  Instead of just resigning myself to my view - as I do at any seated performance - I kept thinking, is there a *different* view I SHOULD be seeing this from?  Is my current seat the best, or should I move? The piece was six dancers (4 women, 2 men, in various combinations but often as couples) and from certain angles - the side, essentially - you could not see it all.  Dancers would be to your right or your left, so no matter what, you were guaranteed to miss something. 

Another choice was to sit (ot stand) at the end of the stage (that's the angle the photo was taken from).  Like a ship, you'd could stand in the bow, looking down to the stern.  Longwise, you could see almost everything, although you would also be close, very close - sometimes uncomfortably close - to the dancing action, and also, very far away.  The close pair was too close and the far pair too far, but at least you weren't missing anything.  Still, it was harder to see, somehow.  Dance is better with some distance, I discovered; too close and you can't see it.

I compromised by moving everywhere.  It was uncomfortable, actually - I had to get up from the floor multiple times, which I do rather...you know...ungracefully, and doing it in the presence of these six incredible dancers threw my inelegance into conspicuous relief.  I normally wouldn't mind being practically onstage, except for that added display of public awkwardness.  I joined couples sitting on nearby benches, and stood behind and next to the sculptures.  I sat in front of them.  I honored the artist's vision by trying all the angles and perspectives.

And finally, I settled down.  I was already at the event in an effort to hold the chronic big city FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) at bay, and this seat business was just a way to make it more immediate.  However, eventually it went so far that I saw the trap; I recognized that the myth of the Better Location to Watch the Dance From was just that, a myth.  Finally, the option to move produced within me a need to simply be where I was.  The endless second-guessing: that way lies madness. 

I was entranced, especially, by the actual dancing - modern dance with classical training - which had its random, odd, unexpected moves, much of it done to a combination of narration with ambient music or silence, which looked hard to do.  I mean, HOW did they memorize an hour of these moves, none of them really alike, many of them needing to be synchronized with each other - but without a beat, without any steady pulse?  How did they so often perform a sudden and dramatic movement perfectly in unison?  It was baffling.  I've performed, as a dancer, on stage, and it's hard enough with music that has a beat.  I was very impressed.

At one point, I found myself settled on the floor, sitting in the stage-side crook of a sculpture piece, very close to the actions and not in the shadows, and then the piece changed.  It had a basic three-act structure, and at the beginning of the second act, the music changed.  The actress/narrator stops speaking, and the focus was on the dancers.  The music was unbelievably beautiful, suddenly - sparse, aching, delicate yet powerful.  Oh my God, what WAS that music?  (I found out afterwards it was a Schubert String Quintet, #956, to be exact).

Now, the odd thing was is right as this was happening, my perspective had begun to change.  I was watching the dancers and thinking about what it would be like to be wholly absorbed in the piece.  I was thinking what it would be like to not be thinking about what it would be like if I moved to a different (better) seat.  I was thinking what it would be like if I HAD had a glass of wine, or if I could concentrate a little better; I might be moved, I might be very, very moved.

And then as I was starting to consciously pay close attention because I had thought I would try and be absorbed, right then the music changed, and I WAS absorbed.  The dance became heartbreakingly lovely, expressive, exquisite.  The music and the dance melded flawlessly and I found that I had entered into the very place and time I'd been hoping for.  I felt myself headed that way, almost as if my idea of becoming moved was what brought me there - because I became absorbed, I was moved.  Tears of emotion welled up in me, and I sat still - very still, so as not to draw attention since I was, you know, very close to the action.  I did not move, and the tears welled up, and when my eyes filled up, the tears, as they do, spilled out, and trickled down my cheeks, but I knew that reaching up to wipe them would be a distraction - to me, to others, to the moment itself, so I just watched and listened and cried, in silent stillness.

I did realize that sure, people could see me crying, and I guess the dancers could have if they'd looked my way because, really, they were very close - but what else was there to do?  It's not a bad thing, to cry, at performing arts; it's OK to do.  Most people don't, but if you see someone crying at the opera, you just think, oh, okay, that person cries at the opera.  That's in the realm of acceptable.  Me, I think it's wonderful - if anyone ever cried over any of my art, I'd be thrilled, because it would mean they have been moved.  (I don't mean, of course, tears of misery - I mean tears of emotional release).  I don't think anyone else was crying at The Water is Clear and Still, but the Schubert alone was enough to make me not a fool for crying.

It also made me think, *no one* is ever a fool for crying.  I don't believe that, and haven't for a long time.  I know in certain cultures, public displays of emotion are anathema, but I feel that there should be MORE public tears - and laughter.  I do both, and I don't mind where I am. Sure, I take care not to offend others, and most people who know me would agree I am not freakishly crying and laughing inappropriately.  But I do let myself be who I am, in public. 

I feel sometimes like a champion - because no one wants to be first, no one wants to be the only one out there.  So I'm the one who gets up first and starts dancing.  I'm the one who first speaks of love in a relationship.  I'm the first one to pop up and start a standing ovation.  Why not?  This fear of emotion, fear of showing who you are - even when it won't hurt anyone, even when it's to show how much you care about a person, a performance, a whatever.  This fear we have, it's just sad, is all.  It's human, to have emotions, to show emotions. 

So that was my experience at the performance.  I came home and ordered the Schubert CD (because it was too obscure for a download).  I left feeling a little more human - that's my review of the Liss Fain Dance world premiere: it brought out my humanity.  Everyone else afterward just milled around and started chit chatting with their friends, but because I was alone, I was afforded a period of grace, in which I went outside, looked up at the almost full moon, and drove human. 

(Note: I was going to write "drove home human," as my final words but I experienced a slip of the type, and I think I should honor the gods or muse and leave it.  Maybe I did drive human.)