During the lockdown SpiralArts has gathered for monthly Zoom sessions and they are always highly creative, generous and inspiring sessions. The participants age from the 70s to the 20s and their talents include dance, music, singing, poetry and fine art. The underlying foundation and common denominator of it all is movement/dance and embodiment, which everyone accepts and enjoys.
Each person has created a short piece in their own discipline, in response to a painting, a poem and improvised music from members of the group, and naturally the present lockdown situation comes in to play.
It is fascinating to see how limitation, in this case of space, often seems to produce such strong and interesting creativity and quality of movement. Also to observe how working on line seems to some extent to give people more creative freedom, perhaps as they are in their own familiar territory and not immediately up against each other. The more mature dancers work with a certain clarity, simplicity and quiet depth, while the younger ones are more exploratory and verbose with their movement. The mix of disciplines helps a vibrant conversation and lively sharing of thoughts, experiences and ideas which are inspiring and invigorating for everyone.
So far in accordance with the lockdown, everyone has produced individual work, now the task is to work together in smaller groups and finally weave a rich tapestry from the alchemy of work that is being created and produce an online performance.
Our monthly sessions continue to be a source of creative joy felt between like-minded people coming together to share their talents and experience with open-hearted enthusiasm. In the last session we used the Zoom break out groups to come together and work together in random groups and pairs, e.g. A fine artist, three musicians and a writer/artist, A poet, a dancer and a singer, A Tai Chi teacher and a Biospiral dancer/gymnast, Two dancer/choreographers. All have movement in common but the combination produces interesting, original and multi dimensional work. Our next challenge is to create a group piece on line and then find an alchemic way to integrate and record the work we have done into a video/film. We then hope to be able to meet ‘in person’ outside in a natural environment and go back to nature for our inspiration.
It seems to me there is a deep need for sensitive and creative artists to have an outlet to express themselves, explore their ideas and share them in a safe and supportive space, and this is what SpiralArts aims to provide.
In support of this work, we are now running a Wednesday morning open class on Zoom, 10.30-11.30, see details on this site.
Sessions in August will be exploring dance/movement and poetry
We have been exploring how we can embody and find creative expression through the Elements, and have discovered for instance:
Earth is our reality and a good place to begin and come back to
That all the elements are balanced by each other and therefore need each other: Water is shaped and contained by Earth Fire is controlled by Water Air is anchored in Earth Earth is activated by Fire
We also realised all the elements are multi dynamic, for instance: A still pond, a flowing river, a tempest A hearth fire, a bonfire, an inferno A breeze, a gusty wind, a tornado Security, instability, an earthquake
