The Survival Pages

New Blog-site for "The Culture Pages"-- check it out!

2008-12-24T22:05:00.004-06:00

Hey, Everyone-- I'm moving!

I decided to create a different blog for "The Culture Pages", and start the new year on a blank slate. This year will be a prolific and transformational one, I can already tell.

I received my big check in the mail from the Minnesota State Arts Board-- all of it at once! I can't tell you how affirming it is, to know that the state ... you, my fellow Minnesotans, support me in my art. (Yes, your tax dollars hard at work!) I will do my very best to, well, aspire to the lofty ideals I wrote into my grant.

So won't you please join me, in moving over to my new blogging abode at: http://culturepagesproject.blogspot.com/

(Press Release-style Summary:)
The Culture Pages is an ongoing collaborative investigation of the evolution of culture, digging up the roots of our generation's sense of disconnection to the natural world. The creators and cast of this production will use video, puppetry, butoh dance & more, when we present our findings onstage in November 2009.

Branches on the Evolutionary Tree

2008-10-30T12:11:00.011-05:00

Thoughts on Race, Culture, and Evolutionary Change....

1. "Race"-- the physical similarities we share with other humans based on our place of origin, is just that: adaptions our bodies have made to survive in a particular place.

2. "Culture" is a collection of norms and behaviors we've evolved over time, recognize as useful to our own survival (ie. rules on how to best cooperate as a tribe) & are transmitted through "traditions" and training to our young. Deeply instilled values grow over generations.

3. Feelings of competitiveness and mistrust between members of different cultures and races have deep roots. Conflicts between different tribes enable one cultural/racial group to win greater access to resources and territory.

4. Because of the travels made by our ancestors, "America" is a mishmash of cultures and races and overlapping/conflicting cultures and values. Over generations, transmissions of traditions and values between grandparents to grandchildren change drastically, as the "main culture" of America makes different demands, and the children see the teachings of their culture to be less and less relevant to what they feel is really needed for them to survive.

5. Children begin to mistrust or disregard their parents' teachings. (And some with very good reason-- as the parents have gotten pretty messed up by their own upbringing!) Culture begins to shift and sway more dramatically and less predictably than ever before. Alongside this phenomenon is the increasing saturation of mass media, and mass marketing. Television and "popular culture" replaces parental messages about traditions and values... the essential problem being that the shaping forces behind the mass media are likely to care less about the child's well-being than the parents do. The child is left on their own to sort out which messages to adopt, and which to reject-- with varying degrees of success.

6. America seems to be a nation of individual, self-created pockets of culture. The population of some areas still has strong cultural ties-- especially in rural areas. In other populations, especially urban, individuals seem to have a very fluid and changing concept of "culture"-- and form much smaller, much more specialized "tribes" within the larger population. They live side by side, but do not intermingle much. It is here that the teaching of "tolerance" between cultures and races has required the effort of these different groups to maintain "peace."

7. The "peace" that exists now in urban America is not really peace. "Tolerance" is different than "Equality", and true Peace is impossible without Justice. Justice = a reckoning, through honest conversation, resulting in greater understanding, acceptance, and compassion on the part of all-- leading to a natural and self-motivated desire for fairness and equality in all aspects of our relationships.

8. We have so far to go. Our inability to truly see other humans as our brothers and sisters is only the first step. It is equally vital for us to see and honor the links and relations between ourselves and our fellow creatures and plants. We are all part of the same tree: this is the tree of life-- literally!

9. We have the intelligence and the ability to think forward, and to re-form, consciously, our cultures to include certain values that are not only for our "tribe"'s benefit, but for the benefit of all. It is within our capacity to know what is "right," for the benefit of the whole. It is possible, through understanding and compassion, to cultivate a natural and self-motivated desire for balance in our relationships to all who live in the branches of this great tree.

Another Beautiful Fall Day

2008-10-02T14:46:00.005-05:00

On Monday, having heard that the stock market had plummeted, I thought to myself, "Oh, boy-- this is it!" and was immediately filled with an contradictory blend of regret and acceptance.

Having heard from my grandparents, and read multiple accounts of what the Great Depression was like, that's where my imagination lept. No more teaching art to kids (what kind of trivial, luxurious occupation is that?) = no more income. No more savings (if the banks had folded under), and, in short, nothing but my health & some friends I could turn to. I wouldn't be able to pay rent on my apartment anymore... I only have a few weeks' worth of food stored up in my pantry. What would I do? How would I feel safe in the city, as the cost of basic foodstuff skyrockets, as a black-market emerges to squeeze out the last bits of advantage we might have saved up, in order to elbow our way through this mess, and survive?

My most immediate regret was, "Oh, I really should have pursued my dream while I still had resources available to me-- (to acquire 'ownership' of a piece of land, and begin an eco-art-farm on it)-- If only I'd at least gotten a start on it!" and, "I knew this was coming-- I created an entire performance about my knowing this was coming--(The Survival Pages) and still I wasted my time & procrastinated because my present situation, however much I knew it couldn't last, was too appealing to give up."

Today, as I look through the sunny windows of my apartment, I realize that I really do have a perfect life -- "Perfect", as recently defined in a note by Kim Thompson, as "being able to look your friends in their eyes and to tell them that you tried with your whole heart" (having lifted that quote from a sappy movie she'd watched recently).

I eat good food, full of fresh veggies from my CSA-share (tho sadly, received my last box for the season on Saturday)...
I make enough money to live on, from doing something I actually LOVE and am so well-suited for-- teaching art to kids, community arts projects.
I have so many wonderful and dear friends, who actively practice community-- we help each other out. We have intentional gatherings. We spread the word about what's going on. We're creative, and plucky-- in short, not a bad network to be part of when a crisis actually does go on. (The MayDay Parade really being, in essence, a joyful practice in crisis management-- ;-) )

I feel like this Wall Street crisis is like a kick in the pants, for me personally, to make a decision already & start acting on it:

How does one simultaneously plan for hope & prepare for disaster? This life I have is so good, but leaves me so precarious when this unsustainable Titanic of a market eventually sinks.

This time we are living in is so much like teetering on the brink of all those graphs, showing us scenarios for our choices: Either a sudden crash, or a gradual decline. The longer we continue unrealistically denying the gravity of our situation, the worse the crash is going to be. The sooner we accept this inevitability -- that our fate is inextricably linked not only to global markets (as it now stands) but more importantly, and more honestly, linked to the GLOBE-- this planet & its fragile, fragile systems that we've already taxed to the max.

Obama or McCain? Work for Change or Prepare for the Worst? Keep living in the city, or move to the country & start building my "eco-bunker"-- with the thought in mind that this could then become a place to go, for all my resourceful, plucky friends, once they found it necessary to escape the city, as well.

I heard this quote by Milton Friedman in an interview of Naomi Klein, on Democracy Now last week, as the call to protest the bailout plan was mounting-- explaining how, in times of crisis, these crazy & unjust policies make their way through: Patriot Act, Pre-Approval for the Iraq War, this bailout...

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"Only a crisis - actual or perceived - produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable." -- Milton Friedman, US Prof.Emeritus-Economics, University of Chicago
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What I'm wondering is, perhaps it's time that this time of crisis produces real change, on my own part-- and spur me to take action based on the ideas & dreams I've had lying around for awhile, now-- To say, Now is the time to take them seriously. Now before time has REALLY run out...

I also wonder if it's possible, to push our legislators into picking up some of the OTHER ideas that are lying around, waiting to be actualized, and be proactive for once, in promoting them-- rather than waiting for the other side to propose their horrid solutions & being limited to protesting THAT. It doesn't take too much brains to figure out:

a) The entire premise of the market, as it's now configured, is based on non-sustainable and unjust practices. It's been getting further & further out of control, as far as destruction to the planet goes, destruction to our local economies, human rights, and our own ability to have a truly democratic society.

b) The whole thing needs massive reconfiguration in order to survive ITSELF-- to propose sweeping changes that turn the priorities of "the market" into a force that serves THE PEOPLE and THE PLANET-- recognizing that certain things, like fresh water or fresh air, clean oceans or climate-stabilizing forests, are too precious to ever be worth a dollar value. To recognize that by allowing companies to exploit workers in other countries, we are ultimately undermining any progress we made in our own country, hard-fought in the Labor Movement generations ago, to keep our own jobs & preserve a locally-functional & self-sustaining economy. For the political system to somehow gain the guts to admit that the market has long played a heavier role in their decision-making than the "good of the people", and take the necessary regulatory steps to prevent that from being possible any longer (election reform).

c) Yeah, RIGHT. Like people are ever going to have the initiative to find out even these 2 basic, basic truths on their own, as long as the media news (for those who even watch news) has them bought & sold into believing their story & looking past everything that's left out of the story. Yeah, RIGHT... like people aren't eventually going to get tired of hearing "Green this" and "Green that" and eventually slip into the same old lazy, consumptive, & shortsightedly destructive patterns. Yeah RIGHT, like anything short of an all-pervasive, unprecedented BUY NOTHING effort from the American people is going to send the message to Wall Street OR Capitol Hill, that business as usual is no longer an option.

d) If not now, WHEN? (When it's already too late, and all the things we might have done to make a difference weren't done, and you're left with the nagging thought-- Oh, shit... I guess I really should have...)
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That's it for now. I'd love to know your thoughts about all this. I'm calling up the Obama campaign to find out how I can help register voters, as part of my own personal d)....

Top Blog Picks (If you've only a moment to browse)

2008-08-06T11:04:00.004-05:00

A quick note--

If you are here to browse this blog & would like guidance, most of the blogs on "development" & the ideas behind the piece are in June/July 2007... (One of the most revealing being the one from July 21, 2007, "Labor Pains".)

Postings after October 2007 are about my November performances, as well as a few about ideas for future work, updates about the Fringe Festival, and a little about how I had to change the piece for this run.

Hope that helps!
Malia

On Chaos, Rules, and Sacred Trees

2008-07-31T11:01:00.004-05:00

I went to visit a friend of mine recently, who lives in a different city.

He brought me to a park, where there was an old, sacred tree in the center of the park... offerings placed within its scarred cracks. Old, but alive, and filled with energy from all those who knew of its presence and drew inspiration from it.

When we approached the place where the tree stood, there was an empty patch of bare dirt. Planted next to it was a tiny sapling.

The tree was cut down by the park, presumably because they feared-- because of its age-- that someone would try to climb it, crack a limb, get hurt, and then sue the park for damages...

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If you are curious about the ending of my performance, and why it is different than the original "Survival Pages" presented in November, here's the story:

There's a tech director for the Fringe, whose job it is to oversee the technical aspects of people's performances, and work with artists to set guidelines to ensure that performances work within different venue's capacities... presumably, to ensure that artists do not attempt things onstage that would damage the space, the venue's equipment, the performers, or the audience.

A month ago, I spoke with him about the different aspects of my show-- I'm going to have a big pile of dirt (make sure you lay something down on the floor for easy clean up... check) -- I'm going to suspend a wall of newspaper (bring along a self-supporting frame, because you can't hang anything from the ceiling... check) -- and last, I'm planning to bring a second projector, with my own operator who can set up and break down in the 10 minutes I am allowed before and after shows, for the final scene.

(To explain, the final scene ends with the projected image of a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis, which becomes part of my body as I walk toward the audience... as in the image above)

To this request, to have a second projector, the answer was a firm and decisive "No" by the Fringe tech director. His justification for the rule, is that he is convinced that it will not work (based on his experience) and that he cannot allow me to "ruin" my show by allowing me to try it. (His letter is below)

Hi Malia,

I can't wink and unofficially let you do this one. I'd agree with you that there's no harm in trying if neither of us had any idea whether it would work, but that's not the case here. This year is my 10th Fringe Festival, which means I've seen what works, and what doesn't, in over 1300 different Fringe shows. I'm 99% sure that setting up a second video projector is not possible to do well during the Fringe, and 100% sure that it's not advisable. With that experience and knowledge, the ethical choice for me, unfortunately, is to disappoint you now, when you have the time to come up with a different plan, rather than in your all-too-short tech rehearsal.

You argue very persuasively that this effect is important to your theme, and understandable to the audience, and is very dramatic. What you haven't convinced me of is that there is no comprehensible, dramatic, and effective way to convey your message without using 2 video projectors. You created this piece under very unusual circumstances, with a lot of funding, tech support, and time. That situation rarely, if ever, comes up outside of universities and fellowships. Professional theater at every level involves compromise. There's never enough time or money to do everything you want, and being able to come up with multiple ideas to work around your constraints is an important part of the process. If you spend the next month working to build a creative and beautiful ending for your show that doesn't jeopardize the whole thing by relying on too much technology in not enough time, you will come up with something that not only works, but may even be better than the first version. Even in the worst case scenario the audience, having never seen the extra video projector, will not know they've missed anything.

I know this isn't the answer you wanted, and I'm sorry, but it is the one that will give you the best chance of a great experience in the Fringe.

-j

So why do I find this so outrageous?

Basically, his reasoning is based on the premise that he knows better than I what is possible during a Fringe Show, and that it's his job to "take care of me" --

Never mind that I have experience of my own (having done this show last November with similar time restraints for the set-up of a second projector), and have proven to myself and to my crew that we can set up a projector in plenty of time to meet the 10-minute deadline for setup and break down. (in rehearsal it took her 5 to 6 minutes, a deadline we practiced several times, with success every time)

If the second projector would have failed, it would have hurt no one, would have no effect on Intermedia Arts' space or equipment. The sole risk faced would be mine, alone, as the creator of a piece that I spent nine months developing, and finding just the right ending for.

To me, the main issue is that this one person has the right, because a projector falls under the realm of something technical, to exercise veto power over this very central and key element of my production... for no reason other than that he wishes to "protect me from my own inexperience" -- believing that this would make my show better. (Never mind that Fringe shows have a reputation of being all over the map, in terms of artistic quality-- being decided by lottery, it is the very spirit of the Fringe that you can present a show, whether it's absolutely terrible, or highly inspirational.)

What gives him the right?

In his letter, he speaks about compromise.

I have no problem compromising with rules that make sense to me.

However, this is my piece, I am the one who knows what is best for my show, and if I were about to "mess up" my show by trying to have this ending the way I intended, why should it matter to him?

To me, I feel like he has cut down my sacred tree, and told me, "Here's a sapling. It's a tree, isn't it? Surely it should be able to replace whatever else you intended to do."

I am filled with anger, grief, and indignation -- not just for my situation, but for all the sacred beauty that is cut down around us everyday, for reasons that just don't hold up, when you consider what is lost in the process. This scenario, to me, is a tiny piece of a drama that's played out every day-- the destruction caused through the actions of those whose cultural world-view requires control, clear hierarchy, order, and obedience... and who view any uprise or challenge to their authority as unreasonable and deserving of being utterly squashed.

He wishes for a scenario that is clean-cut, with no potential for chaos, for accident, for the messes that can happen when plants are allowed to grow the way they are meant to grow, or when artists are allowed to make their own mistakes.

I know I could have done it--
to make this ending fit within the guidelines of "10 minutes in, 10 minutes out"... required by the Fringe to ensure fairness to all performers. I also know, that in a worst-case-scenario, (the projector bulb burned out, the butterfly-image glitched, or things otherwise didn't happen according to plan) -- that I, personally, as the artist and creator of this piece, would have been okay with that.

Yes, I am stubborn.

But the plain fact of it is, is that there is no other ending with the power and meaning of my final scene, as originally done. Believe me, I racked my brain for other solutions, I asked friends, I tried out multiple scenarios, but, in reality, the entire performance rested on the culmination of this final image-- the energy I cast toward the audience with my movements, with the visual power of metaphor-- the simplicity of seeing the butterfly, cast on my chest, embracing its beauty and holding it sacred.

To me, this moment was more than a theatrical end... it was a prayer.

Unfortunately, the debate over having this second projector or not became a battle of egos... He is utterly convinced that I have an obstinate disregard for rules of any sort. I am convinced that he has overstepped his rightful bounds as a tech director.

In the end, I had 2 choices: To drop out of the Fringe, and not do the show at all (at considerable expense, having paid over $700 to make it this far).... or to stay, and let him have his way, and do my best to imbue this new ending with as much integrity as I can...

Coming Soon to a Theater Near You...

2008-07-17T09:15:00.010-05:00

Photo by Usry Alleyne
Welcome to the blog-site for The Survival Pages !
You'll find all the entries here for the conceptualization and development of this performance, originally created in 2007 for the Naked Stages Program.

The Fringe Festival.

Ah, I question a bit, why I felt so compelled to get this show into the Fringe. The Minnesota Fringe is a scene unto itself-- with over 400 shows across the Twin Cities area over the course of 2 weeks, all vying to get audiences to choose their show over someone else's...

Still, I received so much positive feedback about this performance from audience members who came to the November 2007 debut of this solo show... it seemed a shame to let the nine months of labor boil down to a single weekend, with no returns. So, I've thrown myself into this chaotic Fringe-soup to see what will become of it.

How you can help! (Yes, I need help! -- I've figured out that I need at least 150-200 people to come see this show, just to earn back what I've put into it cost-wise!)

Come! And bring friends!
Spread the word (especially if you've seen this show or other work of mine & believe in it enough to vouch for it!)
Write an audience review on the Fringe website (www.fringefestival.org)... there's this "star-rating" system, which most Fringe-goers rely upon to see whether a show is worth going to, in other audience members' opinions.

This performance is a direct and poetic response to all the ecological doomsday countdown we have entered into. It is not so much an effort to inform as it is to feel my own way through the blaring sirens of environmental emergency. It's not your typical Fringe show (if there is such a thing as a "typical Fringe show"...) in that there's not slick sarcasm, non-stop laughs, or charged sexual content... (all the things I've been told "sell" well in a Fringe context). Basically, this show is an attempt to create the kind of show that I wish to see, when I go out for an evening of performance-- a piece that is honest, from the heart, with elements I can recognize from my own life, and that is visually/thematically ripe and juicy.

Beyond getting "Star" ratings, I'm burning with curiosity to know your response & connection to the piece-- so please do consider adding your 2 cents to the Fringe-website's audience review, once the show is up and running!

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I've created a short 5-minute preview of the show (check out the link on this page, titled "Survival Pages Preview"). If you're curious about other aspects of my work, I'm about to get my own web-page at www.artsbymalia.com (It should be done by the time the show opens...)

Thanks for visiting this blog, and do browse the other postings on this blog to read more about my thoughts and process in the creation of this piece.

PS. Al Gore recently gave an inspirational speech on restructuring US energy policy, now on YouTube-- I highly recommend checking it out! (click on the link, on the right of this page)

To the Southwest and Back Again...

2008-06-05T20:55:00.003-05:00

This is a photo from a short Butoh Dance on the Great Sand Dunes of Colorado.

(If you want to wreak a video camera, bringing it to a place like this is a good way to do it!)

In April, I went on a 3-week road trip with a friend to the Southwest.

If you have never been there before, go... I can't believe it has taken me so long to witness, in person, the gorgeous wildness that exists there.

Some prominent discoveries:
Earthships, a self-reliant, earth-based structure made of old tires, glass bottles, and aluminum cans-- in Taos, New Mexico. I want to live in one someday!

The Hopi Prophecy. As told by Grandfather Martin, the prophecy-keeper. Information which will rattle you to your core. They speak of the coming environmental disasters as "The Great Purification." Even more eye-opening to discover that the prophecies had foretold the coming of the Spanish conquistadors, both World Wars, and the landing of the "Eagle on the Moon"--

Wise Fool New Mexico. A (mostly) female troupe of stilters, aerialists, puppeteers and community artists. Hooray for new connections! They just came to Minneapolis, to perform their piece, "Flexion", which is touring the US. (info not necessarily as pertinent to the The Survival Pages as it is to my other artistic side with Chicks on Sticks and festival arts!)

White Sands National Monument. Where else can you see people sledding in New Mexico, over fields which bombers practice raids by night? Where else can you see a sunset perfectly reflected over miles of powdered crystals? A magic, magic place.

Hot Springs! Need I say more?

Other than a sharing a bit about this trip, I mainly wanted to post the fact that I now have dates for the Minnesota Fringe Festival performances of The Survival Pages at Intermedia Arts, 2822 Lyndale Ave S.... so mark your calendars now! They are:

July 31, 8:30pm
Saturday, Aug 2, 4pm
Sunday, Aug 3, 1pm
Tues, Aug 5, 8:30pm
and Friday, Aug 8, 7pm

And tell your friends!
(The Fringe Show relies on buzz to get any kind of attendance! I've heard it takes people hearing about a show from at least 3 different sources before they will consider going. Word of mouth goes a long way!)

Thanks! And I'll be writing more soon.

The Culture Pages-- a new performance?

2008-02-29T16:27:00.007-06:00

What if culture followed the same patterns as nature?
What if "Roots" were more than a metaphor-- and actually describe the process by which culture holds fast to certain things, uproots itself from others, experiments and adopts change?

A few weeks ago, I went to the same cabin where "The Survival Pages" was first born...
Early February, midpoint between winter solstice and spring equinox, is a natural time to begin incubating new ideas... germinating seeds that I'll transplant later into my garden of current projects. And so, I found the first stirrings of a sequel performance: "The Culture Pages."

In my original proposal for the Naked Stages Program, my piece was to be titled "Bridges" (this was nearly a year before the 35W bridge collapse). What I intended to explore was twofold: connections between humans and nature, and connections between cultures & generations. I soon realized that the original idea was too broad-- so I narrowed it down to focus on my own, personal connection to nature. This is what became "The Survival Pages."

With "The Culture Pages" (if that's the name I'll actually use), I'd like to take up the second half of what "Bridges" had meant to explore: A look at culture, in a broad sense-- what we once knew about how to survive, and how that information has shifted so dramatically in recent generations. If the culture I now belong to is a tree, just what is it that I'm rooted to? Am I some pampered breed of hydroponic tomato, grown without real dirt, too delicate to survive a harsh Minnesota winter? How many of my great-grandparents' skills -- making a living from the land-- have been lost, and why?

So, more on this soon...
I have to go get ready for the next circus show at Heart of the Beast... (see "Dirt & Water", below, for more info on that)

I'm definitely looking for a new venue/grant money to develop and produce "The Culture Pages"-- so if you have any leads for me, do send me a comment!

PS. I'm in the Minnesota Fringe Festival! So "The Survival Pages" will be coming again this summer, dates and venue To Be Announced! (Late July/Early August).

Dirt & Water...

2008-01-17T23:31:00.001-06:00

If there's any readers still out there, I thought I would share my favorite photo from the Survival Pages. And just to keep you informed, I am throwing my hat into the ring for the Fringe Festival this August-- to perform The Survival Pages again. Wish me luck!

(Photo by Usry Alleyne)

In the meantime, I'll be appearing again soon -- with a persona not too different from my "Dirt-Nature-Host" side, but this time advocating the wonders of water as a circus clown in a new show, "Beneath the Surface" at In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theater. (check out www.hobt.org for info...) Opens Feb 22 & runs through March 16. (Pay as able shows on Thurs. evenings)

This show is also known as "The Water Show/ Episode II" to those working at the puppet theater -- since this is the second in a series of work about water.
photo by Bruce Silcox
If you know any school groups (or other friends) who might be interested in a Puppety-Circus Show about the Minneapolis Water Works vs Bottled Water, or the importance of the Mississippi Watershed, or learning about what we can do do reduce pollution in our waterways, please help us spread the word!
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In other news...

I'm currently reading The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan... It was recommended to me on at least 15 different occasions, and though I'm only halfway through the book I'd have to say that I also wholeheartly advocate all eaters to check it out. Not only does it tease apart the mysteries of the Industrial Food Complex & why the heck Iowa grows so much corn, the chapter I just finished also goes after the "Industrial Organic" model-- mentioning many of the same brands I eat from my local food co-op, and pointing out the VERY lax standards behind the "organic" label and something he terms as "Supermarket Pastoral"-- as a genre of literature. Selling us a story about our food that is a pretty far stretch from the truth. (those sealed plastic bags full of ready-to-go baby greens? Muir Glen canned tomatoes?) I've yet to finish the book, but already I can tell that I'm going to think differently about the amount of processed food I pick up at the co-op. And -- for real this time-- I'm going sign up for a CSA box this summer!

Ugh.

I have to say, I'm disappointed. I feel somewhat betrayed by the food co-ops, for succumbing to the industrial, non-sustainable forces behind this takeover of the term "organic". I feel disappointed in myself, for being so gullible. For believing the story on the package... me, who usually shuns advertisements and their mind-numbing effects. Knowing that I prioritized bargain-shopping specials at the "Big Co-op" (Wedge and Seward) and didn't make a point of supporting North Country Co-op... the first co-op in Minneapolis, and probably one of the last to make a valiant effort to counter the industrial model. (North Country closed in November '07)

It's not that all products in the co-op are "Industrial Organic"-- but reading these chapters in The Omnivore's Dilemma has opened my eyes to the fact that I can't blindly trust the co-op to choose the most sustainable options, and I can't continue to justify that buying anything at the co-op automatically makes it "good/better". I suddenly feel somewhat disgusted at my own self-congratulations (and slight sense of superiority) for not shopping at Cub or Rainbow.

The Co-op Movement has been co-opted, and the Organic Ideal has been capitalized upon.

I resolve to get more of my food locally-- now, not only for the sake of shaving off my contributions to Global Warming when I buy those bananas from Ecuador-- but for the issue of trust. I want to SEE how what I put in my body is raised. I don't want to eat eggs from chickens that are purported to be "free range" but in reality live only marginally better than their caged cousins. I want to go to the farm myself and know the farmer. I want to support the people who actually believe in pioneering ways we can raise our food sustainably.

Sustainably. Michael Pollan writes:

"So is an industrial organic food chain finally a contradiction in terms? It's hard to escape the conclusion that it is. Of course it's possible to live with contradictions, at least for a time, and sometimes it is necessary or worthwhile. But we ought at least face up to the cost of our compromises. The inspiration for organic was to find a way to feed ourselves more in keeping with the logic of nature, to build a food system that looked more like an ecosystem that would draw its fertility and energy from the sun. To feed ourselves otherwise was "unsustainable," a word that's been so abused we're apt to forget what it very specifically means: Sooner or later it must collapse."

Some thoughts stick with me, since finishing "The Survival Pages"--
Yoko Ono stating that "In the course of survival, we don't have the luxury to be negative. Being negative, that is a luxury that we can't afford."
and,
Sweet Honey in the Rock's song, "Battered Earth" -- "If the earth could crawl away... she'd be fighting for her life, fighting for her blessed life."

I think "The Survival Pages", in the end, was less about "inspire others to protect the environment" as it was an exploration into my own contradictions. And the conflict within myself-- what I read in the news and my own actions or lack of action. The desire to transform. But I wonder at myself. Why am I not fighting, as though I were fighting for my life, for the earth's life? I think back on all the people's movements I've read about in "A People's History of the United States" by Howard Zinn: in it, he said something to the effect of : Never, throughout history, have the privileged willingly relinquished their power-- in each case, it's been fought for, and any victories have been hard-won.

When I think about it in one way, I am the oppressor. And nature -- all its creatures, all its systems -- is the downtrodden one. You know that famous Lorax, "We speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues." If nature were able to hire a lawyer, we'd be hard-pressed to dispute the evidence. My fingerprints are all over this case.

But when I think of it another way, I look at the immense grinding wheel that seems so unstoppable. I realize that there is ultimately little difference in grinding over the trees and what they represent-- and grinding over me. It may take a few generations, but I-- the universal human&non-human "I" -- have been chewed up and spit into bits over the carpet of those driving this thing. (Who is me, and you, and all us who really ought to mobilize our tongues, our bodies, and all of our will toward throwing a wrench in this thing before it mows over us all).

I am the privileged, reluctant to relinquish my power.
I LIKE hot baths, dammit. I also love papaya with lime, and travel.

I'm looking over the edge of my armchair. Survival Is Uncomfortable.
No tropical fruit.
Scratching my subsistence from the sun and dirt like every other being here.
Hunger.
Cold.

What big-brained monkey in their right mind would take that leap?

(One with enough imagination, and enough heart, to know that we are already falling, and to jump toward it is only to lighten our landing.)

The Survival Pages, Continued...

2007-11-11T15:37:00.000-06:00

Thank You!
To all who came to see & support this new work's emergence!

I'm looking forward to hearing any comments, thoughts, impressions, suggestions, or other feedback you have for me about what you saw!

You can post here by clicking "Post a Comment" or, if you prefer to tell just me directly, you can email me at writetomemaliab@yahoo.com

So,
is it over?
Should you keep coming to this site?
Is there more to come?

No,
and yes,
and yes...

I feel like this journey is only just beginning, in many ways. This whole Naked Stages experience feels like a big liftoff in a new direction in my artistic career... and this blog has been a wonderful place for me to share my process and thoughts with others.

I plan to keep creating, and exploring still further my human relationship with nature, the seasons, and my environment. So yes, keep coming back-- for more poetry, thoughts, work-in-progress, videos, photos, drawings, and more!

And do, do please let me know you're listening! The notes and messages I've received from readers so far have encouraged and inspired me to keep sharing...

Welcome to the journey...

2007-10-25T23:41:00.000-05:00

This November 8 - 10, 8pm at Intermedia Arts! call (612) 871-4444 for tickets or more information--

and,

Welcome to the accumulation of 9 months of research, meditation, play, obsession, compulsion, dreaming up, whittling down, focusing in, and putting out this 45 minutes of performance I call The Survival Pages...

Wow. What a journey it's been.

Research: Ishmael, and My Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. Numerous survival manuals. Collapse by Jared Diamond. The Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Books and books! (I'll have to update this bibliography later)... Conversations, Interviews, and most importantly, regular dates with the seasons and wilder places, to listen for the messages and dig deeper into my relationship with nature.

Meditation: Pages upon pages of journaling, sketches, scripts and descriptions.

Play: This journey wouldn't have been the same without my excellent travel companions-- Theresa, Monica, Tara, Crystalline, Katie, and Eleanor -- the artists, and the program director who were also part of the Naked Stages '07 crew. (that's the program through which this production was created). A fabulous group of women I'm going to miss once this performance is done...
"Play" includes workshops taken as part of Naked Stages, classes in playwriting, found object puppetry, contact improvisation, butoh, road-trips and hours of footage doing all kinds of strange things in remote locations, and right outside my front door. Hours working with mentors Otto Ramstad and Masanari Kawahara, trying out material and getting direction/suggestions. Writing music and recording it-- playing with layers of sound and text, and weaving portions of the piece around piano improvisation. Hours alone in a black theater-box, (which was at times more like torture than play!) brainstorming and working out ideas of how the heck to convey what's been pressing so heavy on my heart. Trying out this way and that to find the one that felt "right"...

Obsession/Compulsion: I can't stop thinking about how messed up and dire our situation is-- with wars (still!) raging, such widespread and overt exploitation of people and places, ever-dwindling resources, marriage of the media to presidential and corporate propaganda, ice-caps melting, oil and water supplies running out, ... I could go on and on. Creating this piece became, in a way, a healthy obsession. It gave me a place to put my emotions and reactions to this news and information... something I could tangibly DO and not feel so stuck.

Dreaming up: This performance also contains pieces of my dream, or my hope, or my survival strategy ("strategy" or "hope" depending on the my state of optimism or dread) As the development for this show wore on, I found myself growing more and more convinced that my soul and spirit would be much happier in a place with more wildness in it. My resolve has deepened, to build a lifestyle that will allow me to bust a move to the country. I don't talk much about this in the show, but it's a layer running through it.

Whittling Down: I swear I have enough material to do 4 or 5 more shows, without overlap! One thing that's helped me let go of favorite elements which weren't fitting is realizing that there's no reason there can't be 4 or 5 more shows... Why not be like "Rocky" or "Friday the 13th"-- Survival Pages VIII, 2015? Still, it's been very difficult to pick and choose and shape the story, and harder yet to squeeze it into the alloted 45 minutes. Maybe I can put some of the out-takes on the DVD version ;-)

Focusing in: These last 2 weeks of rehearsal, especially, has me immersed up to my eyebrows in this world I've created-- and am now living inside. There have been wisely-spaced crunches throughout this process, which have worked out well for me, the procrastinator. I have to say that Masa, my mentor and co-director, has been a tremendous help in this process. Asking questions, pushing me to define meanings and clarify my message. Helping me see that what I think he'll see is not what comes across, or showing me things that I didn't know were there.

Putting out: You'll have to come to my show, and let me know the outcome -- for you -- from joining me on this part of the Survival Pages journey... I'll be waiting to hear from you.

Bones and Moments

2007-10-14T16:00:00.000-05:00

(image: Fall Equinox Butoh Exploration, 2007)

It's been awhile since I last posted to this blog... much has happened, most of all that I finally found an overall structure and "arc" to this performance. It's been an intense process... the timing of the Naked Stages program has worked out well, as far as pushing me to work and re-work elements of the show, and to stage 2 complete run-throughs of the piece for an audience. Thanks to those who attended the September 17 pre-show and offered feedback.

The Survival Pages, in this rendition, is very video-oriented. In some ways I think I'm still hesitant about my own abilities as a live performer, and so I've leaned heavier on elements that have been pre-worked and don't depend on my "on"-ness in the moment of presentation. And yet this is a live performance, so....

One of the more challenging elements has been building my confidence as a moving performer, & a dancer. I presented a short 10 -minute dance at the 9x22 Dance Cabaret at Bryant Lake Bowl on Sept. 26... a wonderful venue for showing works-in-progress, and getting valuable feedback from the audience in a structured conversation following the presentation. I'd love to integrate more of my Butoh training into the show, and work up the bravery to attempt this kind of movement onstage.

Digging through my notes from my first Butoh trainings in Yamanashi, Japan, at Min Tanaka's BodyWeather Farm, I rediscovered this succinct definition of Butoh from an interview we had with Nario Goda, a dance reviewer in Japan with particular interest in this form:

Q: What is the main different between Butoh and other forms of dance?
A: "Butoh strives to find the body first, then allow the dance to arise.
Other dance has a form, and tries to make the body fit into it.
Butoh strives to know the body in its own way. You learn to know the details-- when you are sick you know all the small changes in your body. Butoh uses all the details of the body, catching every information as material for dance, for inspiration."

Reaching this level of body-awareness-- let alone "allowing the dance to arise" from it, makes Butoh very difficult to perform. Butoh can certainly be spectacular, and is often imitated by performers who paint themselves white, move slowly, and make strange facial expressions. Yet I often find a quality of concentration that's missing. Other performances I've seen, there's a certain magic that can happen-- I can sense the energy in the room shift-- in witnessing Butoh. There's almost something otherworldly or shamanic about it... The dancer, through their complete focus and absorbed captivation in whatever their body is experiencing, draws me in. As a performer, this level of concentration is what I strive for-- and what is the toughest: any glimpse of self-consciousness, a shift of the eyes, a glimmer of thought about "should" passing through my mind, becomes evident in my body, breaking the energy and throwing off the spell.

A reason many Butoh performers paint their faces and bodies white is similar to having a white canvas-- a blank surface which can become anything. In Butoh, the concept of "self" is secondary. Once I'm not "me", I am free to become a leaf, a bone, a breath. Most important is to believe in what you have become-- I am not showing you, like a mime. I am not self-conscious of the ways that my body is interpreting itself as a leaf or bone or breath. This part is also tough. It's hard to let go so completely, to accept whatever my body does, and present myself with such detachment and acceptance. I find that it helps me detach when I'm painted white, or am somehow less "me" when I dance.

A reason Butoh is often slow is to allow intense concentration it takes... to arrive in that state of mind-body fluidity, and keep it connected. If you lose concentration, just keep still until you find it again. Butoh is a strange merging of the senses with unconscious impulse, channeled through muscle and a body loose enough to really respond to the environment or imagination.

The series of outdoor Butoh explorations I've done throughout the seasons has been grounding and informative. I've been doing these explorations every Solstice/Equinox and in-between seasonal markers, since February. Some of the footage from these will be in the show-- most has been kept as research or inspiration for the piece. I find it much easier to enter into "Butoh-mind" when I'm alone, and when I am in an environment which speaks to me. Often, magic happens.

Most recently, for the Fall Equinox, I brought a deer skull to the edge of the Minnesota River, at the Bloomington Ferry Wildlife Preserve. I usually decide what I'm going to bring, or where I'm going to go, on the day that I set aside to go out and "do Butoh"... That particular day, the skull seemed to be looking at me, so I brought it with. A set of paper-mache antlers I'd made for a MayDay Parade years ago, and a dress with fall colors also came along. When I arrive in a place, I walk through the area until I find a spot that seems to call to me. I'll set up my camera, and depending on what I see, place myself in the frame, and dance/move/react according to what I find and feel.

It was twillight when I set up the video camera in the marshy bottoms of the fall forest. A suburban couple had crossed me on the path on my way to this place, and the man noticed the skull and antlered headdress I was carrying and joked, "Are you going to call the deer?" I suppose I looked like some kind of scary witch-person on my way to conduct a ceremony. (Perhaps I was...)

Alone, I had barely started my dance when across the marsh I heard a strange sneeze. I looked up to see the white flag of a tail bound forward, then lower down as she held still. A doe was watching me through the trees. I was wearing the antlers, moving strangely for a human, and I think she was (rightly) very confused about what she was seeing. I had painted my face to echo the contours of a deer's face. In my hands were two long sticks, which I used as forelegs. I continued to move, and, watching her, absorbed the careful watchfulness, the curiousity, the grace and quietness with which she moved through the trees. For a moment, I was in an interesting place between human and not-human. I felt that we were simply two beings encountering one another, observing each other, sharing this place & time.

It's the kind of feeling that I would love to bring into performance onstage, and perhaps a more advanced Butoh performer would be able to absorb this feeling to re-create it, even removed from this place, this moment. To do this in performance, in front of an audience, feels a little like throwing myself off a cliff and hoping I'll sprout wings. Will I really be able to concentrate? To be in the moment? Am I really in the moment if I'm attempting to invoke a feeling my body had in the past?

Moments like these
I feel more human, more alive
more spirit, and less "self"

It feels good, to enter
into a place
and encounter it simply
as it is, and as I am

Here, I find
the magic in a place
will show its face...
Here, I find
the magic in me
will rise up to meet it.

Muffy and Barb

2007-08-20T12:36:00.001-05:00

PETS

How to approach a pet:
It is a living being.
They are good practice for us
To remember how to be in relation
To the non-human world.

Down the street where I live
is a lady with white poofy hair and a tiny Yorkie dog
that never leaves her side... it is an extension of her, or she is an extension of the dog.
People and their pets-- why do we feel such a draw
toward caring for something non-human, having such an intimate relationship
that we pick up poop, pay for vets, feed and house and sweep after them
just to have their love?
This is a photo of me and my dog, when I was 11 or 12... around 1988. I am sitting on the basement stairs, big pink plastic eyeglasses, oversize T-shirt, and a banana. I was a nerd. I blamed it on the glasses. Manic mood swings, from super-hyper to quiet and depressed. Muffy, my dog, was my best friend. I was nuts about her. We adopted her the Christmas after my 7th birthday, and from then until 9th grade, when she was put to sleep, we were inseparable. My earliest attempts at drawing were portraits of her. My dream was to become a naturalist, and draw pictures of animals all the time. During this time I was equally nuts about nature. I thought I had a special connection to wild things, and could communicate to creatures differently than adults did.

I was born and raised in Bloomington, Minnesota, a second-ring suburb of Minneapolis. My parents lived in the same house for 33 years... a 1950's "starter home" in a neighborhood with other young families and kids my age.

I was born in 1976. My parents used to take us out camping, with an occasional canoe trip. At home, we mowed the lawn and raked the leaves, and sometimes a neighbor stopped in for a cup of coffee. I felt safe, and loved.

This was "Barb"-- I was Barbara Burkhart until 9th grade, when my dog died, I started high school, got contact lenses, braces, a perm, and changed my name to Malia-- my middle name. In a way, I buried her -- Barb -- as I've buried so many things I didn't like about my past. I wanted to be from someplace else. "Malia" felt more exotic, suggested that I was more interesting than I actually was. It made me feel less "white", less ordinary, less bumbly and certainly less nerdy. "B" is a silly letter. It makes your lips bump out. It belongs to floppy awkward things like bananas, boobs, ballerinas. (Ballerinas, in that they make me feel floppy and awkward)

In so many ways I had the "American Dream" childhood. And yet, like so many other now-grown kids who were raised in the 'burbs, I had it all but felt something important was missing. Something "real", that I pictured kids who were raised tough in the inner city, or the freedom and wildness I imagined country kids had. My parents were lower-to-middle middle class. Plenty of classmates had the latest toy or Guess jeans that my family couldn't afford. My mom was constantly bargain-hunting, and we saved money whenever we could, for our college education. And so much of what I was taught, how I was raised, was how I could go out and get a suburban house of my own someday-- to gain the education that would provide a job, which would earn enough to pay a mortgage on, raise 2 kids, and save for their college. To invest in a retirement fund, for some security in my old age. To me, the suburbs have never felt like a "place" unto themselves... and the soul-sacrifice involved with attaining it has never seemed worth the cost. Maybe I'll regret it, when I'm 65 and retired, or barely scraping by in my middle age-- but somehow I've always known this was not the life I wanted.

I've been skipping around the question ever since graduating from college-- where to settle? I lived in a small town, Northfield, for 4 years... I lived in the inner city of Chicago for 6 months, then in Osaka, Japan-- one of the biggest cities in the world-- for a year. I kept Minneapolis as a home-base, and took off on world travels for months at a time. Now I'm honing in on strategies to make a move out to the country, and begin a rural arts center. To live in a community where I can raise a kid to run free and wild. My retirement plan is to live where I know my food comes from my neighbors, my water is from that well, and I can finally slow down enough to listen. Instead of dating on short camping trips, we could move in together, nature and I, and grow old --

Is it a crazy dream?
I don't know, but I feel I have to at least try,
to find out what dream may be on the other side...

(And yes, I know
all these dreams
education, confidence,
so much of who I've been and
who I've become
is a gift
of privilege...
having grandparents
who worked hard
to send my parents
to school
so they could work hard, too,
and I could have this choice.

I appreciate the gift,
and,
I am also working hard
to pass it along)

This is the place we once were,

2007-08-04T16:47:00.000-05:00

Life is a run-on sentence.

There are no absolute stops, no silence that is perfect.
The snow, done being snow,
scratches and rubs against itself, internally,
makes a sound as it melts
and the dirt makes the way
for that cool sip of water

Even death is not complete,
For from the moment
my last breath enters the air
I have already begun
the gradual descent
returning

Who will take on my pieces?
That last breath was inhaled
by the flowers at my side who didn't know
they, too, were dying
Cut off from the root

(On Gutting a Fish)
A strange transformation went over me, as I grasped the fish firmly in my capable hands. Out of its element, I am the master, the decider. Before it bit the hook, we were an equal match, it and I... It swims too fast for me to snatch. A fish any slower would've been eaten extinct by now. A fish might have once kept its population healthy and strong, had I been an ancient human stabbing at it with my stick. I would practice throwing and angle, and the fish would practice narrow evasions and quickness.

But the fish has had less of a chance to adapt to our new invention, the hook.
Then the net.
Then the sonar-sonic depth sensors and high-speed fishing boats.
The ocean's life will never die, but it is poorer...
Lines of the myths
from the ocean's ancestors
forgotten,
without an heir to pass it onto,
which is what extinction is, really.

There seem to be plenty of sunnies in this lake.
I went along with killing the fish.
They were planning on eating it, and just like that,
this scaly, gasping creature in my hands was now a food-source, a task.
After its last breaths, I would work
(Like the worms will later do on me)
on converting this body into food.

We're never that many steps above dirt, really
In the cycles of what we do every day.
With every poop, every pee

and everything we eat.
How much more time we'd have
if we could just lay face down and eat dirt directly.

Chlorophyll really is the best trick ever.
All us Zoological Beings are still playing catch-up
to that incredible feat.
The only way we survive, really,
is by capitalizing on their labor.
A bunch of Chlorophyll slaves
whose bodies I eat for dinner.

mmm.
Eat your Vegetables~!

Labor Pains

2007-07-21T22:37:00.000-05:00

I have little to add.
All I can do is pay witness
to the effort of this small life
in its pains to birth itself

and we?
having eaten all we can handle
as greedy and obese
and as bent on attending
to our own inner workings

I can't help but see
the way he folds his hands
curled around his face
quivers and shakes
with what seems like
prayer.

What if every obese person in the world right now
Each one of us carrying too much weight, excess baggage
were to suddenly hang ourselves upside down
engage in meditation
and solemnly strain
to split our skins

Can you imagine
the trust involved in this whole process?
To willingly sleep, knowing you'll be visited by a dream
that will change you forever,
No promises,
No guarantees,
No recourse to sue should anything go wrong.

Nothing to go on but an instinct.

Instinct.
Yes, I'm back on that track again.
I still find it mind-boggling that every other creature on the planet, right down to its smallest insects and even single-celled organisms, has been given instructions on how to live. They carry out their lives faithfully and following a healthy code of genetic variance to expand diversity and that species' chances.

And I feel somewhat cheated, that my species, or my culture at any rate, lost its code. Is this what being booted out of the garden is all about? That we know longer seem to be able to fit into any natural system without destroying a fragile balance-- eventually rendering it unsuitable even for ourselves.

We are able to peer into nature piece by piece, whether by electrode microscopes or Hubble telescopes. Great and small, there are distinctive patterns that infuse everything. All seems based on certain unalienable codes, that are far more comprehensive than our bill of unalienable rights. Un Alien Able. Alien. Outsider. From another planet? Another star? Even those stars seem to be dancing the same dance-- swirls and sworls seem as our own breath exhales on a frosty night. Even Aliens, I suspect, aren't immune to the same rules.

A Stab at Naming (or inventing) a Few of These Codes: (If I were a science major these might be more accurate, but it's 12:26am and I'm in the mood to brainstorm:)

1) Diversity is a result of stability. A song has a chance to play itself out with exponentially greater variations, with increasingly more time given to compose.

2) Big changes that happen fast interrupt the song; many don't make it. Due to diversity, some do. That song is remembered and passed on. As the change becomes old news, the songs left over have a chance to rework and begin the process again. (ie. Mammoths and Giant Sloths went extinct in the ice age, but other species sprang up since then)

3) The easier the conditions of survival (and if successful adaptations were made) the more songs get started. More freedom is taken. There is a tendency to get artistic, more creative, more daring in shapes and forms and absurd specializations. (ie. red i'iwi birds in Hawaii that can only sip nectar from one certain tubular flower. Or the zillions of dragonfly bodies, each one shimmering in its own unique armor.)

4) Creativity is vital to survival. Monocultures may be more efficient, but in the end, are tremendously more fragile. Without creativity, potentially species-saving innovations are impossible.

5) The essential difference between humans and animals seems to be our efforts at cultivation: of food, yes, but more significantly, we cultivate our own cultures. In the absence of memory of our instinctual codes, we write our own codes -- Or, in most cases, a cultural code is handed over to us, and we follow it.

6) Certain individuals in any culture will tend to challenge and rebel against the established "codes". Most often these individuals are young, who are still able to sense what the weaknesses are-- and haven't yet gotten "used to it." They are the most sensitive, more apt to believe that things can still be improved. Youth are more wild. They are less domesticated, and are more in tune with their instincts. Even if they can't articulate or fully understand WHY things seem wrong, a general sense of dissatisfaction, anger, and rebelliousness pervades our youth culture.

7) Oldness seems to = resignation. After a certain age, it seems people more or less wish things could have stayed the same. Adaption becomes increasingly more difficult. It takes too much energy to learn the world anew. Oldness, however, can be more a matter of perspective than of physical years on the planet. If their adaption muscles have been adequately exercised, many elders retain their mental flexibility.

8) Children, and certain artists seem to intuitively understand that reality is what we make it. They view themselves as self-appointed masters of their own universes. Children and artists spend a considerable amount of time playing, discovering, inventing and testing.

9) Play, creativity, and paying attention to our youth are essential components to keeping culture healthy and attuned to itself.

Within my parents' lifetimes, a man was sent up to the moon for the first time. And now, most people seem to think it's impossible that we can create a way to live, sustainably, right here on earth.

Do we have so little faith in our own ingenuity?

Right now, (by my observations and in generalization), we have a culture which:

Monocrops our food
Monocrops our cultures (stomping our diversity and pressing for assimilation-- sameness of thought--, I think largely through tools of religion and pop culture)
Marginalizes youth, artists, and free thinkers in general

Who do we let be the authors of our culture?
Who do you choose as your "culture authority"?
When was the last time you really played?
When did you begin to be less curious about testing the world out for yourself, and begin accepting things the way they are?
Do you think of yourself as a cultural leader, follower, or just someone doing their own thing?

...Oh, yes, two last observations:
10) the cultures that have survived the longest seem to retain the memory, passed down from generation to generation, to respect the land and take care of it. Perhaps in their millenia of evolution, they are the survivors of a near wipe-out, and what remains of the lesson learned is a hard-wired value.

and,
11) It seems likely that the only way out of this is not marketplace driven or even legislation, but the birth of a new cultural code-- to re-wire the value of land stewardship into our most essential values. If the heart is in place, will the neccessary inventiveness follow?
To make these changes stick is going to take a whole lot of creativity, and the power of our youth.

About the videos "Briefcase Sweetheart" and "Wild America"

2007-07-01T23:48:00.000-05:00

Check out the latest 2 video installments!

(Click on the images in the right-hand column)

"Briefcase Sweetheart" and "Wild America"

"Briefcase Sweetheart" is a much different approach to dancing in space. Whereas the other explorations have been improvised (Butoh is, for the most part, an improvised art)-- this one I worked over a few times to polish it up. I got some very strange looks from people hiking past, along the north shore of Lake Superior's Temperance River State Park. Why a business suit? I wanted the surreal juxtaposition, like Rene Magritte's suited figures raining down from the sky.

Sometimes I feel like an alien when I go out to a wild place. I can't seem to leave my city life truly behind me, and so I take it along. It tags along like an uninvited sweetheart... I'm so wrapped up in my relationship to this metaphorical briefcase that I never seem to fully arrive in "nature" before it's time to go back to the city again.

Inside the briefcase is a sheet of white paper. For summer work right now, I am teaching landscape painting to kids. Something interesting happens when I draw or paint things: I enter more deeply into it, looking close-- admiring subtle details that might have escaped my notice. Shadows and light, color and form. And yet, as I paint, I begin to feel more and more distant from what I'm painting. I am so focused on capturing this image for later, that I become totally unaware of my body, of my physical comfort, and block out awareness of anything else happening around me. So I simultaneously become hyper-sensitive and deadened to perception. Strange.

And afterwards, the place I was in, the multi-dimensional place and moment becomes, suddenly, an object.... The painting still exists to record this meeting, of artist and place... but it is framed. It is reduced. It has been made so much less real than it was. And what makes this place so special, that I should spend so much effort in remembering it? Is my living room at home any less special?

(music for "Briefcase Sweetheart" is from Pieces of Africa by Kronos Quartet)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Wild America" video ... Science & Spirit

Ever since I was a kid, I would battle with my sister over the remote control for the TV-- She'd want to watch the Monkees. Me, Marty Stouffer's "Wild America." I used to dream about becoming a naturalist, getting to interact with all kinds of creatures and witnessing all that cool stuff I'd see on TV. Well, now I get the chance to be my own Nature Show host.

I'm interested in exploring and making apparent some of the general ways I interact with nature-- as an introduction to this performance as a whole. In my "Wild America Show" I approach nature as a know-it-all guide... and as a deeply Spiritual Nature Guru.

How do science and spirit intersect?

In the scientific view, nature is broken down into understandable parts. Patterns we don't understand are labeled as "random." Wendell Berry in his book of essays Home Economics writes about the discoveries of fractals, and how science is continuing to discover patterns where the category "random" was once applied. Berry states that the dismissal of patterns we don't yet understand as "random" denies the existence of mystery. The possibility that we are a part of a pattern much more vast than we'll ever be able to break down or comprehend.

Berry's essay pretty well summarizes my concept of God, or Mystery. In my view, "Intelligent Design" as a concept doesn't necessarily have to be at odds with the concept of evolution. Why have such a limited view of what "God" is?
What if God is a verb, and not a noun? If God exists in the patterns through which all things cycle? In any case, it's clear that our tampering with natural systems is having severe repercussions on a scale more grand and more minute than we could ever know. Havoc is being wreaked on entire watershed systems, and inside the flow of blood within our own bodies. Is it time, yet, for humans to acknowledge that there are aeons of accumulated wisdom stored in the DNA of every being-- when allowed the freedom to express itself and live its life as it was meant?

What are the negative effects on ourselves, our own psyches, to the extent that we've "tamed" our own instincts? Ever observe how creatures in a zoo, while perhaps in fine physical health, exhibit some form of mental neurosis? What is the essential difference between creatures that are inherently wild and untameable, versus those which are considered "domesticable"? Why would any creature submit itself to another being, against the better judgment of its own instinct?

In nature, most systems are self-righting -- that is, they heal themselves over time. If I cut my skin, the sore scabs over, new skin grows beneath it, and a few weeks later the spot is totally healed. Likewise, cities are only kept nature-free through intensive maintenance. If we stopped repairing the cracks in the roads, how long would it take the grass to reclaim the pavement? It seems like the natural inclination of the universe is to heal itself. To reclaim the wisdom of its systems.

Why not assume that we humans, too, are capable of regaining balance by simply re-orienting ourselves to our "God-Given" directions? How different a human would I be, were I to stop reinforcing this facade of "separateness", and allow for the natural wisdom of my body? For example, my natural inclination is not to kill anyone in Iraq. Even if I had the means, I simply wouldn't do it. Is it possible that the systems we're currently enmeshed in are only capable of such extreme imbalance through unnatural enforcement? And if the people decided to stop feeding energy into the maintenance of this?

How many soldiers return from war with psychological damage?

Is it because, deep inside, they violated their own nature?

In any case, my version of "Wild America" is a tongue-in-cheek portrayal of myself approaching nature (as I often do) in an idealized, romantic way. And yet, the ending sequence, of dancing on the rocks, takes place at a location I've felt a connection to "the Divine" in the past. I realize that I am in constant search of those moments-- felt so rarely. The fading in and out of the video-- my dancing body billowing in and out of time with the music, "Hide and Seek" (by imogen heap), captures what it feels like to return there, to those rocks. I've had a long history of returning again and again to this place. Ghosts of past me's brush shoulders with the present. Like the clouds, I drift in and out of being.

The first time I came to this place was 8 years ago.
If the cells in my body completely recycle themselves every 7 years,
then all the bits that were once me, who came here, have now moved on into being something else.

So then why do I remember it?

(additional music in this video by sigur ros -- the "meditation & bugs" sequence)
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How's your lodge?

2007-06-19T01:34:00.000-05:00

From The Long Winter
by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Inside those thick, still walls, Pa said, the muskrats were sleeping now, each family curled in its own little room lined with grass. Each room had a small round doorway that opened into a sloping hall. The hallway curved down through the house from top to bottom and ended in dark water. That was the muskrats’ front door.
…Pa was shaking his head. “We’re going to have a hard winter,” he said, not liking the prospect.
“Why, how do you know?” Laura asked in surprise.
“The colder the winter will be, the thicker the muskrats build the walls of their houses.” Pa told her. “I never saw a heavier-built muskrats’ house than that one.”
Laura looked at it again. It was very solid and big…
“Pa, how can the muskrats know?” she asked.
“I don’t know how they know,” Pa said. “But they do. God tells them, somehow, I suppose.”
“Then why doesn’t God tell us?” Laura wanted to know.
“Because,” said Pa, “we’re not animals. We’re humans, and, like it says in the Declaration of Independence, God created us free. That means we got to take care of ourselves.”
Laura said faintly, “I thought God takes care of us.”
“He does,” Pa said, “so far as we do what’s right. And He gives us a conscience and brains to know what’s right. But He leaves it to us to do as we please. That’s the difference between us and everything else in creation.”
“Can’t muskrats do what they please?” Laura asked, amazed.
“No,” said Pa. “I don’t know why they can’t but you can see they can’t. Look at this muskrat house. Muskrats have to build that kind of house. They always have and they always will. It’s plain they can’t build any other kind. But folks build all kinds of houses. A man can build any kind of house he can think of. So if his house don’t keep out the weather, that’s his lookout; he’s free and independent.”
Pa stood thinking for a minute, then he jerked his head. “Come along, little Half-Pint. We better make hay while the sun shines.”

I recently borrowed every book in the "Little House on the Prairie" series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. I am an obsessive reader, the type that can't put a good book down until I've read it cover to cover. It took me a week to read them all.

So, this last week I've been in Laura Ingalls Wilder world... Telling my roommate the latest news, as though it were really happening: "Oh, this is terrible!-- Jack, their dog, drowned in the creek!" And then rejoicing with Laura in the next chapter, that Jack came back (the very next day ;-)

I was immediately struck by this passage about the muskrat lodge. Laura's Pa was a keen observer and lover of nature and its ways. A true pioneer heart, longing to live on the unsettled edges of the wilderness. As I read Laura's writing I nearly cried, several times, at how much has changed. Her cozy family life, Pa's fiddle singing with the prairie stars, swinging low on the horizon.

So much in those books I'll never know, never experience in my lifetime. The absolute quiet, the wild expanses. The howl of a wolf-pack, outside my log-cabin door. The assurance of a child, that with Pa and his gun, and our brave dog Jack, the wolves would never get me.

In The Long Winter, the Ingalls family barely survives a 7-month winter of non-stop blizzards. This scene, with the muskrat lodge, happens in the late summer before it.

How do the muskrats know?
"Ah," their little muskrat minds would computate, "the barometric pressure is extremely low, and a cold weather front is mixing with warm air from the gulf, which may result in increased precipitation this winter." Deep in their lodges in February, the muskrats would be sure to tune in for the evening news weather report, to hear the National Weather Service's latest predictions on the arrival of spring.

I think something happens to our own innate inner wisdom, every time we rely on an outside source, an "expert", to tell us what's going on. We trust it less. We get a little more distant from what we already sense is true, but can't back up with credentials.
I recently heard an interview on KFAI's "Inner Journey" program, with the founder of a new program for weight-loss called "Thintuition." The speaker's basic premise was that the more we buy into the latest fads, or follow the diet trends, the further we become from knowing our own body's natural balance-- and that the best way to lose weight is to tune into the signal which tells you, "You're full now," and end the meal. Blindly following a method that worked for someone else doesn't help you and your body get back in tune with each other.

Do Humans Have Instincts, or Not?
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"Any repeated behavior can be called "instinctual." As can any behavior for which there is a strong innate component. However, to distinguish behavior beyond the control of the organism from behavior that has a repetitive component we can turn to the book "Instinct" (1961) stemming from the 1960 conference. A number of criteria were established which distinguishes instinctual from other kinds of behavior. To be considered instinctual a behavior must
be automatic,
be irresistible,
occur at some point in development,
be triggered by some event in the environment,
occur in every member of the species,
be unmodifiable, and
govern behavior for which the organism needs no training (although the organism may profit from experience and to that degree the behavior is modifiable)
The absence of one or more of these criteria indicates that the behavior is not fully instinctual.

If these criteria are used in a rigorous scientific manner, application of the term "instinct" cannot be used in reference to human behavior. When terms, such as mothering, territoriality, eating, mating, and so on, are used to denote human behavior they are seen to not meet the criteria listed above. In comparison to animal behavior such as hibernation, migration, nest building, mating and so on that are clearly instinctual, no human behavior meets the necessary criteria. In other words, under this definition, there are no human instincts." ~Wikipedia entry on instinct.

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Many say that adult humans have no instincts. That's what defines us as humans, I suppose. Like Pa Ingalls was saying, "We're free." I don't necessarily agree that we lack instinct. I have a suspicion that becoming a new parent awakens certain instincts within us... to nuture and care. And also to guard our young from harm. Apparently, Freud writes that “the true prototypes of the relation of hate are derived not from sexual life, but from the ego’s struggle to maintain itself” and that “hate, as relation to objects, is older than love”.

If we think about hate as a survival instinct, it makes a certain amount of sense. We tend to hate those who are most unlike ourselves, and be kindest to those who are most like us. In the end, those who are different are more likely to be competitors to my own type of genetic material. By contrast, those who are most similar to me are most likely to aid me and my kin in finding food and shelter. Is racism genetically ingrained? Hmm, I wonder...

If I did create for myself a cozy, post-peak-oil abode, and stocked it well with items necessary to survive a world with much less cheap energy. If I lived off the grid, and build myself thick muskrat-lodge-walls around me, so to speak, whom would I be willing to shelter? (Have you ever heard Sweet Honey in the Rock's song, "Would You Shelter Me?"-- it's so beautiful!)

"A man can build any kind of house he can think of. So if his house don’t keep out the weather, that’s his lookout; he’s free and independent." (Pa Ingalls)

I would shelter those who were most like me. With similar values, similar beliefs. Who I think I'd be able to get along with best, in the long run. My family? My friends? There is a limit, to what I could create alone, to be the hardworking ant saving grains below ground for the winter. Is the ant beholden to help the grasshopper, who thought nothing of the end of summer?
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My house, if I can build it, will have its north side buried into a hill. A south-facing greenhouse will be built against it, to provide passive solar heating. A wood-burning stove and solar water heater would complete the matter of sustainable warm shelter.
Ability for a good cross-breeze in summer would be essential, and each summer move the cook-stove to a built-on screen room to keep the heat out of the main house. A sweet-water well, and a windmill to pump it. Seeds and garden and hoop-house to extend the growing season. A root cellar and plenty of canning supplies. Musical instruments and a library of good books.

Some people, now, would say that's a crazy way to live. Not too far into the future, though, it'll seem like a castle. But if I'm the only ant to save its grain, the only muskrat to build thick its walls, it's likely I won't be able to keep it. Some stronger person than me with a bigger gun or a bigger gang (or a US militia run amok) would claim it for their own. Or if everyone I've ever known, family and friends and friends of friends, shows up in the fall and wants to spend the winter-- what then?

But if I build it? Would it inspire more people to do the same?
What's the critical mass of people it would take to do this, to turn the"mainstream"?
Community makes it possible for humans, throughout our reign as top species, to thrive and succeed has been our ability to band together, and to share in work and gain access to a greater diversity of skills.

Brazil has a very strong movement for "landless farmers"-- displaced former workers of the land, whose descendants lived in the city slums. They are taught by the movement leaders essential skills in survival, communication, and are really creating their own new culture (for example, without the "machismo" factor rampant in most of Latin America). They recruit the poorest poor, who are willing to work so hard for the prospect of hope for their children. To have land! They want simply this: a way of life that can provide their needs, indefinitely. The more self-control over their destiny, the better. I was fortunate enough to see firsthand the work this movement (MST) is doing in Brazil-- to take the long overdue issue of land reform into their own hands.

If Brazil can undertake such an organized movement, why can't we?

Instinct.
Hmm.
I think I've got it, sometimes, when my brain doesn't get in the way.

My instinct says get ready, now.
Relearn what you can about survival, now, before the information is lost.
My environment says "Learn me."

If I learned how to read it, remember the signs of seasons, of cycles.
If I came "home",
--made myself comfortable again with the place I live in, prepared to exist self-sufficiently--
If I could learn to listen, really notice the earth,
If I could heed my gut,
reconnect my wires to the places within me that know without thinking

Perhaps God would start speaking to me again, too...
(along with the muskrats)

This week's question: (respond if inspired by hitting "comments", below.)
What's a time you felt like you acted out of instinct?

Surviving in a Minnesota February

2007-06-04T23:11:00.000-05:00

"Personal Clothing" ~ A work in progress (The "Grandmother Steps" video, with a twist)

Taking up the advice of a blog-visitor, I began experimenting with some sound to lay over the top of the previously titled video. The "You Tube" tag in the corner was also distracting, so I put the direct link in instead. (lower right hand column)

The text is from the book, "The Encyclopedia of Survival Techniques" by Alexander Stilwell... one of a series of books on survival handbooks I checked out from the library the other day. (I also put Island of the Blue Dolphins, and the Little House on the Prairie series on hold). It's from the chapter titled "Surviving in the Polar Regions."

I like the juxtaposition of this serious "Butoh" dance with the text. One revelation from a recent "Naked Stages" artist meeting is that it's ok to be funny. I must admit, the process of videotaping this segment was kind of crazy. My friend said, (not an exact quote) "I don't get this whole Butoh thing, really-- to me, it looks like you're just walking across the snow, real slow." I wore a silvery sheer dress without sleeves, with big mukaluks on my feet, and a green wool shawl. It was 10 degrees F outside, with wind. Luckily, the place we were staying had a sauna, so I could film for 30 minutes at a time, and bring my chattering self inside to heat up. I remember praying at one point, the pain of thawing my fingers was so intense, that I didn't give myself frostbite. (I didn't, thankfully!)

But isn't that something? That session was what really kicked off titling my performance "The Survival Pages"-- thinking about how very ill-equipped I would be, to attempt survival without gas heat in a Minnesota February. Still, the silence I encountered on the lake entered deep inside me. I remember hearing a distant resonant BOOM sporatically out there on the ice. The city-girl in me thought, "Oh, someone's got their bass speakers cranked up"-- but after awhile, I realized: that's no music. That's the ice, cracking beneath my feet.

So after an hour and a half total out there in the elements, I crawled inside the sauna, (electrically heated) thawed out, and made dinner out of all the ingredients we'd brought with us from the city. Things largely brought to Minneapolis by truck or plane, grown thousands of miles away. What would it be like, to truly eat seasonally? Cabbage and root veggies, every day-- mmm. That's the thing: The contradiction I (and we) live with every day. I know that someday soon all this will be unimaginable luxury: to eat greens in February, have plenty to eat and no problem keeping warm. I know it has to come to an end, but I have too many other interests to devote serious time to really learning how to live on this land. The north in winter is not a kind place, without the proper preparations. And yet, I would feel far more secure by teaching myself these skills, than by trusting Social Security will still exist by the time I'm 70.

More about the sound: I improvised playing Mbira with my right hand, piano with my left. The voice is mine, but I put it through a vocal processor to sound deeper, more authoritative. Not a quality recording, but it gets the idea down.

Welcome to the Survival Pages Blog-site!

2007-06-01T01:53:00.000-05:00

What is this blog about?
I am a performing artist in Minneapolis, working on developing a show about survival. This blog is a space to post my latest thoughts about what this piece is about, titled
"The Survival Pages; From the Brink of Extinction"

"You make art about what you can't stop thinking about. Whatever it is that you keep turning over and over in your mind, that's your material." (~instructor at a Performance Art workshop I recently attended)

Well, I can't stop thinking about this planet and the predicament we're in. Somehow, the separation of human culture from nature is about to sway the pendulum further than it's ever rocked. Global Warming is suddenly on the tips of everyone's tongues, but that barely scrapes the surface of the major ecological catastrophes imminent.

And despite our touted intelligence as a species, we humans seem unable to muster the imagination and action required to turn this Titanic around. Why is that? Is it the system? Are we really that powerless? Or is it more a matter of collective will?

When the oil ends, when the water runs out, when the 6 billion people on this planet are suddenly faced with an environment that can really only support 2 billion, what's it going to take to survive?

But before I get into all this, first:
Who am I? (& more about my art...)

My name is Malia. (That's my real name)
I was born in Minnesota, USA, but my ancestors are from Japan and Germany, with a smattering from England, Ireland, and Norway in there, too.
I'm 31 years old. (That's my real age)
I make my living by teaching art to kids, and performing around the Twin Cities.
The main art-forms I work with are puppetry, (giant spectacle puppets ala Bread and Puppet Farm in Vermont), pageantry, parades, and Butoh Dance. I am also a musician-- I play a variety of instruments, but my home will always be with the piano. I love to sing, and also play a bit of guitar and accordian. I write my own music. (and hope soon to have a link here so you can check it out!)

When is the show, and where?
"The Survival Pages; From the Brink of Extinction" will premiere at Intermedia Arts in Minnepolis, MN, on the weekend of Nov 8-10, 2007. Check out www.intermediaarts.org for more info. The show is part of the "Naked Stages" Program... which supports emerging performance artists in their development over the course of 9 months.

Why should you read this blog?
Well, I'm hoping you'll tell me why you're reading, but some reasons I'm putting this out where you can read it are:
* You can't stop thinking about the planet's problems, either. You might have some interesting thoughts or responses to what I write.
or, * You're a friend of mine and would like to know more about what I'm up to.

Subscribe to this post to get regular updates! (link below... where it says "Subscribe to: Posts--Atom".)

Lastly, a note to the reader:
I intend to write this blog as though in my journal. It's just more fun for me to write as though no one else is reading this... However, I will post a question, or a series of questions, to invite you to respond to. If you share responses with me, I may end up using what you say in the show.

I am not going to try convincing anyone who isn't already at a similar understanding that the planet's in trouble. So I'm not going to include facts or figures, or otherwise debate whether Global Warming really exists. What you are about to read is one artist's process-- not a manifesto, not an academic document. Still with me? Let's go...