having fun exploring fresh new sounds in composition land inspired by susanne and company knocking my brains about but  meanwhile:
 HAPPY INTERNATIONAL DANCE DAY ! time to bust a move !

 From Wednesday...

on Wednesday April 18th  we had our 2nd ensemble rehearsal...Susanne's  choreography and improv strategies gave a renewed focus to the parts and  big energy to the band's improvising ,just a wee taste of what is shaping up to be a joyous and exhilarating joining of forces . looking forward to our next ensemble dates and rehearsing the new material.
Susanne's nuanced approach to the music, learning all the "counts" and her amazing ability to compliment and contrast with cutting edge phrases in the dance lifts our playing of the music to new levels !
triple quadruple wowed ! yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeha !

Week 3 (in hindsight)

The energy and excitement of beginning (and it's accompanying sleepless nights) that I experienced in the first 2 weeks has evolved into a quieter, introspection  (and early morning risings) as we entered the world of Threnody 2 this past week. This piece does feel like a world, an aftermath, in contrast to the high energy, density and speed of Threnody 1. Threnody 2 is one of my favourite songs of Geordie's, it's the one that inspired me to want to create dance to Geordie's music, so I hold it with a different kind of attention and attachment than the other 2 pieces. Funny enough I spent the first two weeks creating material for Threnody 2 but at the last minute, in the rehearsal with the musicians, I switched it all to Threnody 1. Thank goodness most of the material also worked with Threnody 1. (I think at this point I better start abbreviating to T1 & T2). So this past week we pushed forward to T2 which, as I said,  has a very different feel than T1. T1 has an intensity, a falling through space, fight or flight feeling. With T2 the sense of unravelling that I was exploring in the earlier weeks has surfaced, along with the animals....deer, elephants, lions, squirrels and birds. (While teaching my young students this week I asked if anyone has a 'sprit animal'  - and they all looked at me as if I had two  heads. Little do they know, I have more than 2 heads!). Where T1 seems to be about holding on, T2 is more about letting go... or at least loosening. Choreography has become improvisation. Direction has become collaboration. Ideas have become instinct. Trust is our new best friend. Another fun (and scary) place to be.

What's better than dance & music?

I agree with Geo - I wish we could do this more often.
A snippet from our first date with the musicians:

In this video: Dancers: Jacinte Armstrong, Rhonda Baker & Sara Coffin. Musicians: Doug Cameron, Tim Crofts, Jamie Gatti & Geordie Haley (and me watching from the chairs!).

Thanks to all our collaborators for their amazing work so far. 

Monday at 10 am April 9th , the band loads in for our first rehearsal with the dancers and all i can think of is why can't this be an everyday event ?  the "groupo" or artist compound is a method of survival for many of my fave "world music " artists .....
Susanne's choreography is hard to describe in words ,which i guess is what modern dance is to me, the language that informs us, narrates for us , exposes  paths  to and from any point on any map be it internal or external.... could you say i am excited ! YEAHHHHH! the rehearsal went really well and we were all getting used to the idea of collaborating : in tempo ! in and out of synch !
cannot wait for the next rehearsal !
Thanks to Tim Crofts ,keys,Doug Cameron, drums and Jamie Gatti bass !

choose something shapeless....find ways..... to give it form
choose something fragile.....strengthen it
choose something hard.....soften it

the forming of bone, the forming of experience

(source: widening field, pg . 198)