Fauns on Film

I hope you all are enjoying this beautiful weekend day and are getting out into this Spring air a bit, because it sure is nice out there right now. Or it was until I came back inside.

 

I wanted to share an idea that we've got kicking around  for the continued outreach efforts around Enter The Faun.

 

Enter The Faun premiered a few weeks ago at the Sarasota Film Festival and it was very well received. People loved it. In addition to that however, Tamar Rogoff and I did several workshops bringing together members of the dance and disability community down there, and it was phenomenal. We met and worked with over 100 people (abled/disabled, dancers/non-dancers), and are currently in talks with them to continue this work and develop a dedicated program a la Mark Morris's Dance for PD program.

 

There's an incredible alchemy in bringing these two communities together, and we think it can be a real model for effecting change. Dancers may have more consciously learned movement patterns than any other profession. Among the many forms and techniques of dance there are often conflicting instructions, and the dancer must translate these ideas into movement and artistry. People with CP may understand negotiating conflicting instructions and integrating them into movement better than most people. Both have a unique relationship and knowledge of the body. Dance is a performing art built upon the ebb and flow of muscular tension. Through muscular tension, dancers express their aesthetic sensibilities. The word "dance," in fact, stems from the Old High German "danson," meaning to stretch, and from the earlier Sanskrit root "tan," meaning tension. The building and resolution of tensions we experience in dance training and performance can affect us deeply -- kinesthetically, emotionally, and spiritually.

 

We had one of our posse meetings here in New York last Monday, and began to integrate dancers from the Hunter Grad program, where we collaborated on a project with the Posse last Fall. This set up just feels right. We believe there can be no limit to what can occur through this exchange of ideas and work with the body.

As our experiment continues we now are asking ourselves two new questions; why can't physical therapy be an exploration of movement in its purest and myriad forms? Why can't it contain artistry? We feel we can model for this potential "Dance for CP Program" (working title) with the connections we have made here in NYC and now in Sarasota to see how this develops. New posses are developing and expanding all the time. We're still figuring this out, but we know this is the direction we want to go in.

We'll keep you posted and look forward to sharing more of what we find.

Gregg

 

Enter The Faun Premieres At The Sarasota Film Festival

Enter The Faun Premieres At The Sarasota Film Festival

Enter The Faun Goes To Sarasota Film Festival

I am thrilled to announce that Enter The Faun will premiere on April 15^th and 18^th at the Sarasota Film Festival in Florida. The team is terribly excited as you can imagine. Gregg and I will travel to Sarasota and do workshops and outreach activities.  We will also celebrate the whole team's achievements to have gotten us this far!  Thanks to all of you who have helped along the way these 8 long years.  More soon from sunny Sarasota.

Sarasota Film Festival Screenings:

Regal Hollywood Stadium 20

Wednesday, April 15, 12:30 PM

Saturday, April 18, 3:00 PM

Tamar

P.S. - Let us know if you know anyone in Sarasota and be sure to spread the word!

Empathy makes me more insightful or Is being dispassionate really objective?

I’m wondering about the role of empathy in healing.
Is it true that scientists/doctors fear empathy because it may obscure the diagnosis/treatment process?
Emotions might come in and we all know how unwieldy emotions can be—so it follows that getting to know your patient intimately might be a bad thing because you then could get confused on the scientific path.
For me the empathy (I admit to being the empathy queen) sends me to the exact right balance in doing body work with people. It’s in service of the person that I use my eyes to scan their bodies, my instinct to sense the rigid places.  I call forth everything I’ve ever read and everything scientific and from the dance world I know to impact working with the them. The gift I give them is the balance I feel within myself.
Empathy/emotions have energy and I need every bit of that energy to find the eureka solution in the situation before me.

Jessy Yates and Tamar Rogoff at the March 2015 NYC Cerebral Posse Meeting

This is me and Jessy Yates at our last Posse meeting. Jessy either whizzes around on her scooter or falls chaotically at a rapid rate through space to wherever she is going. Here we are using my ski poles upside down to slow her down and give her balance and awareness. In the background the whole Posse is giving verbal feedback. In this collaboration Jessy also has to find her sense of empathy for me and my body, as our conversation goes back and forth--body to body.

For more information about the Cerebral Posse, follow this link: The Cerebral Posse

-Tamar

For more information about the film: Enter The Faun

The Boy Who Lived No. 1

When the Cerebral Posse first met in March of 2014 several great things happened, but there were two big takeaways for me that evening:

The first, I had something confirmed for me; that people with disabilities, and in this particular case, people with cerebral palsy, don't commune on a regular, consistent basis. At the start of the evening all of us acknowledged how strange this was. None of us had ever been around this many people with CP before. This was 2014 and there were six of us ranging in age from our early twenties to our mid-forties. This was good for me to hear and important for all of us to know. It's something we need to make the larger public aware of; that very first meeting was the start of a very important paradigm shift. It brought to mind a Margaret Meade quote - Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.

The second, as we sat around the table sharing our personal histories with various surgeries, physical therapy and experiences within the medical community, I noticed another common thread emerging. Each one of us had been given a different definition and reason for their cerebral palsy from their parents. Our parents had probably passed this story down from an explanation given to them by doctors, and these various stories had become a huge part of each of our personal narratives. The only problem was, none of us had explored much about our CP beyond this initial explanation. I don't think many people do. Until now.

Just a few days ago, I found a letter my mother had written dated May 4, a day before my birthday. In the top right hand corner of the first page, she had written down the time; 8pm, roughly nine hours before I was born. I haven't been able to bring myself to read the letter yet. I don't have a good reason as to why. It's true that I've heard that the past can't hurt me, but something in me is afraid of what I might find.

It is the goal of the various posses to connect with individuals in the CP community, and to empower those individuals to collectively engage with members of the artistic, disability and medical communities. We feel this simple act of engagement can lead to a change of attitude, both for people with CP and the people they come into contact with. It's no small feat and it does take practice, but it's easier than one may realize. Investigation into the unknown can be scary and fraught with peril, but the benefits of knowledge, greater awareness and potential relief that can grow out of that sense of curiosity, I feel, far outweigh the difficulties.

I think I'll go read that letter now...

-Gregg

For more: Enter The Faun

Tamar quoted in the New Yorker Magazine!

Tamar is quoted on her work with actress Claire Danes in John Lahr's article in the September 9th issue of The New Yorker.
A taste:

" Rogoff challenged Danes to trust her body to communicate for her. “You don’t have to tell us what you think,” she said. “Just feel it. Your whole body’s dramatic.” "

Check her out on page 5 here!
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/09/09/130909fa_fact_lahr?currentPage=5
Or read the whole article starting here:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/09/09/130909fa_fact_lahr

Summer's Different

Summer's Different premiered at the Ellen Stewart Theatre at La MaMa April 25th, 2013
Check out our Kickstarter page for videos of rehearsal and information about the show!
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1978158876/summers-different-0