Adventures in the City

I signed up for a workshop that a friend of mine was teaching. I don’t get to talk to her very often and I saw it advertised on Instagram. It was something about mandalas and I thought that sounded just perfect. I’d love to make a mandala. She is a Bohemian artist of all variaties. She dances, she sings, she does puppets and has amazing solctice parties. She is grace and beauty and freedom and individuality personified. I jumped at the chance to get to see her, and to learn anything she felt like teaching.

But apparently I didn’t read it closely enough. The word mandala was being used to represent the idea of patterns and circles and things working together. We were NOT making mandalas. Instead, the workshop was all about movement. And not JUST movement, but COLLECTIVE movement — moving together. As in, with other people. Many of the other attendees were contact improv dancers. This is hard to explain — you should Google a video if you’ve never heard of it.

When I walked into the room, the first thing I noticed was that it was clearly an exercise studio. My friend was barefoot and had on tiny little yoga pants and a tank top. I was dressed for making a mandala. I had on baggy pants, boots, an oversized turtleneck sweater and my long long hair was just hanging. I quickly sussed out the situation and rolled up my pants, rolled up my sleeves, folded over my giant sweater’s giant turtle neck, tucked the rest of the sweater into my pants, and braided my hair. I didn’t have a rubber band, but it was the best I could do.

We started with some stretching and slow movements. So maybe this was going to be ok. Then she said, “ok now we’re going to get on all fours.” So that’s a problem. I don’t really do that. I did a work around. Then she had us touch the floor and stand up, very, very slowly. No problem. Then she said we’d speed the same movement up until we were moving up and down extremely quickly. So that’s a problem. I don’t really do that. I tried one time and my head completely spun out. So that was the end of that.

Next she had everyone stand and she said “ok, we’re going to start moving, together, in a circle.” No problem. “And this will build into a run and then the tempo and direction and cadence will just start to naturally shift, as a group.” Run? So that’s a problem. I don’t really run. I’ve been told under no uncertain terms not to, and I’m not particularly inclined anyway! And certainly not barefoot, or in a circle, or in coordination with others. You’re joking right? But she wasn’t joking.

Then the class took a vote on whether we wanted to learn a movement that involved overlaying multiple text components and combining them with movement (I voted for this) or a dance that comes from old African miners and morphed into a common African protest march/dance/movement. I was out voted.

As I feared, the song involved lots of sudden swoops, down and up, stomping, clapping, quickly changing directions. So that’s a problem. These are ALL things I don’t really do. On purpose. But I tried. The stomping and the clapping were the worst. Doing hard core contact movements with my body, any party of it, is just not really something that works very well. And we were supposed to sing, in African, at the same time. That’s way too much coordination, especially with words I can barely pronounce, much less remember. It was a travesty.

But I stuck it out. Mostly because I just liked being in the same room as my friend. And the vibe was good — I liked all the people who were participating (even though they voted against me). At the end, as we all were leaving, we walked out to the street to say good bye. I pointed towards the subway and told my friend I was heading home on the G. She pointed towards the bike rack and said she was riding home. The only thing on the rack was a small girl’s bike with high handlebars and a flower printed banana seat. For just a moment, I thought “well that can’t be it,” but then I thought about and decided “actually, that completely tracks.” She unlocked the bike and rode away as I walked toward the subway and home. As for me, the night was a complete failure. And the night was a complete success.