Jane Syder's Blog

Happy New Year to MAPPers! Wishing you well with studies and a Happy and Healthy 2019 xxxxx

Ever climbed over a wall and got to the other side wishing you could climb back over it and do it all again!!! Even if it means grazing your knees on the way back?! That’s where I am now. What an amazing experience the MA course has been and how it in itself has been embodied! On reflection looking back is not always a good thing particularly when it can’t be changed. I wish all Module 3’s the very best for the new year ahead and a rest! The togg slippers are on, wine 🍷 open and shopping still to do! Good luck Mod 1’s and 2’s.  It’s a steep deep filled learning journey with brandy on top! Happy Christmas 🎄 Jolly well done 👍 Jane xx

Lacking creativity today. Just want to sleep. I haven’t managed to get much sleep lately as life is living in the hurricane. How are you all getting on? Are you taking rest bites? Dancers struggle with rest don’t they? We seem to need to make each movement count, timed to detail and with no let up. Just now contemplating rest. Are you hard on yourself?  Do you keep pushing and striving for more? And yet it’s funny really. I have found the most productive moments have come when testing, half asleep, or when exhausted. Why do you think that is? Would love some feedback. Hope you are all doing well.

Dream State Imagine your life as a dream. Walking through a scene and not feeling there. DejaVu. Not understanding each and every moment But allowing it to just drift through your body. Imagine all around you is your own creation Not influenced at all by others. Impossible, even in dreams. Metaphors symbolize insecurities, the real world enters Those dreams we remember anyhow. But what is real? Then there is the dreams we forget. Is this a choice? Are these dreams stored, put on hold, filed. Then opened when we are ready? Do our dreams enter into our conscious? Do they change us? Or are they there to just heal? Expiate, readdress and continue again. Is embodiment a dream? Do we embody what we chose to? Taking on and soaking up our own desires? Is this dependent on the stories of others? When do we stop dreaming? Is it when our dreams stop being our own? Is it when our dreams become the dreams of another? Is it when we are ordered, controlled? Is it...

Personage It plays on my mind This body, this vessel that I drag around. Adorned with another self’s glory It listens without any sound. Our parents, our country our gods Connect us, to who we are Styled by those forces around us Our body is trapped inside forms. It’s shaped and controlled by the others Attempts to fit in to the ‘norms’. It’s easier you see to be similar Just with the flow, please conform. Don’t question or demand answers But accept what you’re given, you know. Too busy to make time, you are difficult Enough as it is, we all know. "Provide me with clues to the answers, Lay out all the facts one by one" If I present a case for my body Then certain, most certain I’ve won. Encasement is safe, it’s protected No risk of hurt, compromised The label, the bottle detected, the self Scrutinized analysed. It plays on my mind This body, this vessel that I drag around. Adorned with another self’s glo...

Merging of theories and finding connections to embodiment and our own idea of what it is, how to transfer this into writing was the topic of the discussion this evening. Providing context to what we feel embodiment is by looking at theories and articulating these in our essays. I think this depends on how we all see ourselves.  From the outside, as in producing a form following the directive of another or inside, sharing and internalizing movement drawn from emotion and how we connect emotion to movement based on our own lives or that of others.  What we chose to share, how we connect to those watching.  Will the person watching change what we chose to show?  Will it draw something within us further out, or drive an external form and hide what is deeply within?  Power yields many voices. I am keen for other MAPP community to share their idea of Power and the affects it has on the growing dancer, please if you can. Looking at Adesola's Graham class where th...

Memes and genes?   A meme is an idea, behavior, or style that spreads from person to person within a culture. Personality traits. My son tells me this word has been engulfed and takes on a new meaning. A gene ' is a sequence of  DNA  or  RNA  that  codes  for a molecule that has a function.  Inheriting prenotypic traits to our offspring. My son tells me science can manipulate genes, giving them new meaning. Our identity is in continual flux, as is science and the creative arts equally. Is there really one truth?