if . . .

The imagination is not only holy, it is precise it is not only fierce, it is practical men die everyday for the lack of it, it is vast & elegant - Diane di Prima, Selected Poetry (from "Rant") (via the incomparable wood s lot)

Actors Training Body stationary rotation/isolation/stretch space leaping (springing) through spine axis lying & contacting breath + visualization/relaxation rolling floor work "touch the sky" mediatation cat (slow & impulsive) towards imaginative associations Voice breath to vibration leg tremours vibrational body exploration Text exploration: (Ash Wednesday - T.S.Eliot) Song: (Korean) Character high voice & whispering (calling) being pulled up (obstacle) revealed as blind & deformed with ancient voice Attack Sight of tenderness with awe of the sky

... "to people I meet: 1. Their willingness to listen to new ideas, 2. Their willingness to engage in dialogue. I hope educators catch this concept soon... I'm afraid it's not yet making a significant impact in most traditional institutions." (gsiemens/elearnspace blog: What is Important to Me Now)

buried just beneath the surface voicing past darkened songs the ancient dust and ashes sister broken waits whatever comes approaching brother listening the skyward way brought to his knees by earthly whispers like an archeologist brushes aside depths of anger and despair seeking what hasn't happened to happen tenderness reveals mercy fragmented utterances parsed into blind and deformed invisible hand witness the warrior shock breath stillborn turns

. . . "thanks, but I've always understood singing as an act of self-abnegation involving the creation of beauty through the annhilation of one's own ego. I have no desire to sing alone." . . . (Alex/ GolubLog . The Singer is a Mirror's Best Friend) . . . "I think I like mode best. Of course, it helps that it contains the word ode, which comes from the Greek verb 'to sing'. . . . But what does a mode connote? An arrangement of notes. A way of doing things. A center of resonance. The most frequent value in a sequence. . . . Rather than thinking of blogging as a form, which would assign a sort of ethical value to it, or as a medium, which implies that it is a transparent channel, I would like to think of it as a mode. A mode is not a window into a new public. It is a tunnel through which certain things resonate - and are amplified or dampened." ( Jeff /this Public Address 3.0. M(0de)) . . . "For the Navajo, the magical power inherent in...

. . . The phrase "entertaining ideas" suggests that ideas have a life and desire of their own. The word "entertain" originally meant "to hold in the house." . . . ideas can be entertained by being given a place, listened to, and nurtured as our guests. Entertain also means "to hold in between." Ideas themselves are between existence and meaning. The abstract idea or "spirit" finds its place or home - its "matter" - in the concrete world through ideas, while at the same time the concrete world realizes its dynamic source or meaning - its spirit - through ideas. Existence and meaning, the material and the spiritual come thogether or coconstitute each other in the idea (Davidson 1985, 64-65) . . . The word "idea" has its root in the Greek eidos, which refers to "that which can be seen," from which comes the Latin video, "to see." So ideas are like videos that can be imaginatively seen as they infulen...

". . . The initial words of Sappho: May I write words more naked than flesh, stronger than bone, more resilient than sinew, sensitive than nerve not only invoke the presence of an ancient, Western, female literary tradition, but also establish the resounding undercurrent of the text as a whole: that of the intricate connection between human body and textual body, spoken voice and written voice, visual expression and verbal expression, and the eroticism of a language possessed. . . " ( Theresa Hak Kyung Cha ) Theresa Cha: In Death, Lost and Found By AMEI WALLACH (despite eventual linkrot see nytimes: Arts )

This year's Lincoln Center Festival, opening July 8, has booked Israel's Batsheva Dance Company and Daedong Gut, a Korean shaman ritual, which includes a performer born in North Korea. "Kim Keum-hwa. She's 72. We've got a fair number coming from Korea and I don't know which ones were born where," says festival director Nigel Redden. He's not sure if he'll have to travel to the State Department, as he did last summer "to plead the case" for the Iranian artists in Ta'ziyeh, a Persian theatrical epic. "The law is, the individual consular officer has the absolute right to turn down an application. The president of the United States cannot reverse the determination of the consular officer. The superior of the consular officer can say, 'Why don't you look at this again?' but it was very painful when nine of the Iranians couldn't come. The performances would have been better. It's essential that we know something abo...

. . . "76% of North Americans consider themselves environmentalists" ( more . . .)

"When I think about my memories of teachers, what I remember most about most of them was their passion, not the specifics of the curriculum they taught. They cared. They did their best to make me care. They did their best to communicate a sense of wonder at the scale of it all. It wasn't just those in the humanities that pursued that strategy - during my brief foray into the Geology department, the same thing was true there. That sense of wonder can live in the sciences too. For me, that's what a real education is about - not creating malleability, but impressing the sense that we live in a world filled with wonder, with mystery - not predigested facts." - (Jeff Ward. this PublicAddress ) :: comment :: . . . Yes !!! . . . a student speaking candidly stated that seldom were answers learned during that fist year class but an awesome array of questions which have continued for four years presented themselves . . . that sustained and nurtured the drive to pursue knowl...

Kaethe Kollwitz lived in Berlin in the first half of the 20th century, but her prints and drawings remain as relevant, and disturbing, today. Her stark, black and white images of the victims of war, poverty and oppression are testament to Kollwitz's pacifist philosphy, born of her own witnessing of human suffering. Now, "Kaethe Kollwitz: The Art of Compassion" is on at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto. It includes 75 prints, drawings and sculptures that explore Kollwitz's 50-year career as an artist. It's at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto until May 25.

IVAN ILLICH IN MEMORIAM Ivan Illich died at the age of 76 in Bremen, Germany on Dec. 2, 2002. A priest, and a penetrating social critic, he was one of the most brilliant and interesting men of his time. (cbc radio one: ideas ) :: comment :: . . . a fabulous memoriam by David Cayley . . . listening to the voice of a radical explorer . . . once again contemporay institutions prove themselves tyrants of manipulation and compulsory dependance . . . the voice of redemptive and powerless love, of a teacher prophet friend . . . who is our neighbour . . . the unique other . . . "as the world grows darker his flame will grow larger."

The purpose of rhythm, it has always seemed to me, is to prolong the moment of contemplation, the moment when we are both asleep and awake, which is the one moment of creation, by hushing us with an alluring monotony, while it holds us waking by variety, to keep us in that state of perhaps real trance, in which the mind liberated from the pressure of the will is unfolded in symbols. If certain sensitive persons listen persistently to the ticking of a watch, or gaze persistently on the monotonous flashing of a light, they fall into the hypnotic trance; and rhythm is but the ticking of a watch made softer, that one must needs listen, and various, that one may not be swept beyond memory or grow weary of listening; while the patterns of the artist are but the monotonous flash woven to take the eyes in a subtler enchantment. - Yeats's, "The Symbolism of Poetry." ( Pensate Omnia ) :: comment :: . . . three rehearsals with the consciousness, word and drum . . . the sacred and ...

"The class itself, the one that exists on paper and in school itineraries has a birth, life and death. The class is in the death stage but what we have learned (the non-tangible, the experiences) and what we take with us from the class and hopefully apply to other schools of thought is in the birth stage. That is how I see it. But I must say that I think that I would have gotten more from the class if I could only remember what happened in every class. I am paying attention but I can never remember anything that is said or done for the most part." - from a student journal

. . .The key concept here for Bachelard is that of rupture, which has four epistemological aspects or categories. These he terms breaks, obstacles, profiles and acts (Gutting, 1989). . . The implications for education from Bachelard's work include at least: the account of rationality; the importance of teaching the history of science and not merely science as it is now; the implications for those research methodologies which appeal to 'a' philosophy of science; the importance of the imagination (in his sense) for rational thought; and the notion of conceptual discontinuity in scientific thought. - (Jim Marshall. Encyclopaedia of Philosophy of Education : Bachelard)

home is less and less what's around lose yourself to find yourself enter the battle the words of students surprise if you let them human frailty demands a human wall(wail) we met for a reason the scars are (in) visiible sweat it out how do you know no when caught they take you home i gotta go now the sun is coming up . . . it's part of what makes someone a true Artist. There must be a willingness to risk all with a work that eminates from that quiet place where only you can go. . . My guess is that your students lack(ed) the willingness\ability to do the hard self-introspection required to do anything beyond the surface. Most people lack that trait. (fivecats in the comments of jill/txt: dare)

beneath darkness cannot hide the pain she told me: "What matters is what is out there in the large dark and in the long light, Breathing." I always forgot to forget the darkness of sleep is no respite from the elemental blood ghost haunting the territory of the heart. Never ask why.

ah . . . asking the questions . . . 'What kinds of things and people might learners want to be in contact with in order to learn?' (Illich. Deschooling Society)

Session 1: Sunday, April 6, 2003 Focus - moving towards character Beginning with voice & element: (Rod the stick)(AeRan the silver jug) Each works alone establishing body/voice connetion towards character. Text: The Epic of Kotan Utannai from (Songs of Gods, sons of Humans - Donald L. Philippi) Session 2: Tuesday April 8, 2003 Focus - meeting in voice Each rolls towards object establishing vibration & entering voice Full sustained voice & many meetings Session 3: Friday April 11,2003 Focus - finding the meeting Physical energy exchange & contact exercises. Character meets non-character(shape shifter) Session 4: Wednesday April 23,2003 Focus - establishing contact Full physical contact/ no voice Session 5: Thursday April 24,2003 Focus - Text Work Full open vibration to working with obstacle and moving into text with meeting. Poetic Narrative emerges: buried just beneath the surface voicing past darkened songs the ancient dust and ashes sister broken w...

; 2:02:46 AM: I was raised by an elder sister, and we lived on and on. This is how she raised me in a little grass hunt, and we lived on. During this time sounds of some gods fighting could be heard rumbling throughout the land. Many gods dying, countless gods dying continued to rumble uninterruptedly. Now finally I grew somewhat older, and these sounds began to make themselves heard: atop our grass hut spirits of the yankur from time to time would come rumbling. Going out to meet them, my own companion spirits would send forth their rumblings atop the grass hut. Gods of the same family, they would prolong their rumblings together. What could be the reason for this, I wondered. So I spoke these words: "My elder sister, you who have raised me will, tell me, I pray, the story!" thus did I speak. She appeared to be awe-stricken to an extreme. Her forehead quaked with fear. Many sparkling teardrops did she shed. After a while this is what she said: ...

Sheik also is nearing the completion of a four-year project to adapt Frank Wedekind's "Spring Awakening" for New York's Roundabout Theatre. The production, Sheik says, is "essentially about the sexual awakening of adolescence in an oppressive German society of the late 19th century." Sater wrote the script; Sheik wrote the lyrics. The play retains the setting of Wedekind's original, but actors "dressed in period costume will grab a mike and sing rock songs," Sheik says. The message is that "these themes are universal." (The Providence Journal: Duncan Sheik brings a bit of 'Daylight' to audiences) :: comment :: . . . sometimes just need to document some note . . .

In contemporary culture, the idea that the practice of art making is inherently beneficial to the human psyche is a surprisingly controversial one. It is only slightly less verboten in the mental-health professions, where it is grudgingly accorded a support role to more serious verbal or pharmaceutical therapies, with the caveat that if things get too touchy-feely, it's back to kindergarten with the finger paints and the modeling clay. Nevertheless, due to its repeatedly demonstrated effectiveness, art therapy has managed to adapt itself to every corner of the mental-health profession. ( LA Weekly: Art: Art Therapy )

Endow the Living -- with the Tears -- You squander on the Dead, And They were Men and Women -- now, Around Your Fireside -- Instead of Passive Creatures, Denied the Cherishing Till They -- the Cherishing deny -- With Death's Ethereal Scorn -- - Emily Dickinson We live in a world where there is more and more information, and less and less meaning. -- Baudrillard.Simulacra and Simulation (found in the Educational Technology Journal )

The mob within the heart Police cannot suppress The riot given at the first Is authorized as peace Uncertified of scene Or signified of sound But growing like a hurricane In a congenial ground - Emily Dickinson (1745) from The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson edited by Thomas H. Johnson 1960

. . . shock and awe . . . art and outrage . . . provocation and controversey . . . . . . The artists' desire to startle and outrage audiences - especially those belonging to the ruling bourgeois class - was often politically motivated by a desire to contribute to social change by either reform or revolution . . . 'In the historical avante-garde movements, shocking the recipient becomes the dominant principle of artistic intent . . . refusal to provide meaning is experienced as shock . . . And this is the intention of the avant-garde artist, who hopes that such withdrawal of meaning will direct the reader's attention to the fact that the conduct of one's life is questionable and that it is necessary to change it. Shock is aimed for as a stimulus . . . to break through aesthetic immanence and to usher in [initiate] a change in the recipient's life praxis' That this principle eventually became a convention was confirmed by a statement made in 1989: That a ...

1004 There is no Silence in the Earth - so silent As that endured Which uttered, would discourage Nature And haunt the World. - Emily Dickinson (1865)