Viva La Faun! Dispatches From Valencia, Spain #1

Tamar and I arrived in Valencia, Spain yesterday at the invitation of the fine people of Balletvale+, a local dance company founded by Esther Mortes. Balletvale+ started a dance program for young children with cerebral palsy in 2012 after Marcia Castillo, a local professor who's young daughter has CP, saw the Good Morning America profile (which originally aired in 2009), about our work and Diagnosis Of A Faun.

We are thrilled that our work continues to have a global reach and are extremely excited about this international collaboration. What's most exciting about what the team at Balletvale+ is doing, is that two physical therapists are part of the company and work consistently with the professional dancers and the young people with CP who participate in the program. This merging of these three worlds- dancers, medical (PT's/doctors) and people with CP is something we are currently working towards in the New York Posse, and as of today is completely unheard of in the States. The fact that we can share our insights, about dance, the body and disability, with such a wide array of dedicated experts is a unique experience and a true gift for the both of us.

Throughout the week, we will be teaching a series of classes, speaking at a local neurological foundation and presenting a screening of Enter The Faun- with Spanish subtitles! Ole!

We look forward to posting regularly while here, we'll keep you updated on the work we're up to and if there are any new findings.

Mas pronto y mucho amor,

Gregg & Tamar

What's In A Brain?

A few weeks ago in Tamar's class, Tamar started off the class by asking us where in our body we felt tight or stiff. I mentioned my feet, someone else mentioned their lumbar area and a third person said, their brain. We laughed, and then the laughter stopped. In the spirit of the class and following Tamar's lead, we began an hour and a half exploration of the brain as if it were just another part of the body and a point of initiation for movement. This exploration has continued for the last few weeks.
This dancing with and from our brains was a new idea for us that has opened up a whole incredible realm of possibilities. So much of our focus for the last several years has been about the body, its various parts and those parts in relationship to themselves and each other. We don't often think about that mush inside the bones that are our skull- and what mush! The brain is incredibly layered (it's mostly fat and water), full of neurons, it actually floats in liquid and generates and runs on electricity- Electricity! After a few classes, adding the brain to our arsenal of movement scripting seems like a real...well, no brainer.
For several years I have been working with a young woman named Margot. She is also a "character" in the documentary. We meet once a week for 2-3 hours at a time and she always sends me feedback in the form of notes. Following the first time we worked with the brain in class, I decided it to try it with her and I found her notes following that particular session the clearest and most articulate I have ever seen.
One major facet of the work is the development of a different vocabulary to address the body. More on this in a future blog post, but this meld of images, actual anatomy and ideas to feed into the body was something Tamar and I developed over time. It is something we are passing on to people like Margot and our Posse members.
With her permission, I have included Margot's notes here.
-Gregg

May 3 2015

Margot imagines a brain on her tailbone

I saw Gregg today. I think he noticed I was a little tense. I came into the room and had a pretty nice landing when I put my tailbone further down to sit. Gregg had an idea. He went down the steps, got on the floor and rolled over a few times himself. “I think I want to do some dancing with you rather than walking. I’m not a choreographer but I remember some stuff” said Gregg. “Sounds good to me. It’s all dancing with body directions though. Nobody walks like that.” I said. He put two books under each of my feet. The PTs used to do the same thing in an attempt to keep my feet in a more parallel position. It didn’t really work back then. “Your body is different now” Gregg reminded me. He was absolutely right. The muscles near my sits bones on the back of my leg felt like they had a giant knot in them but other than that my legs were more receptive than they were back in my years of PT. I asked Gregg to hold my legs in place at first just in case. For a change it was easier to keep my legs on the books once Gregg forced me to close my eyes because I didn’t feel like my legs were off the ground. “How about moving from your brain like it is just like any other body part” Gregg suggested. He explained that before we more or less viewed our brains as something big that we had to work around because it was against us. I also have to wonder if Gregg didn’t focus on the brain as much because I used to separate “the CP” from “myself” verbally.

Margot imagines brains on her hands

I understand why that was a concern for Gregg because in a sense by separating it from me I was denying a part of myself and letting “the CP” control me. In all honesty though I just thought of thinking of CP that way was just plain cute and nothing more than words before. Anyway, as soon as I started body scripting with my brain the same way I would with my shoulder blades or sternum my brain replied “Thanks for noticing me.” I noticed my brain could “talk” like the other parts of my body more or less. All I could think of was the fluid that surrounds the brain moving around like when I shake on the floor with the brain floating around. It made me get little mouth shakes. I had a lot of yawning. I used the brain image of lengthen my neck, I had an image of the CP(which kind of looked like a cute little bent neuron) finding a little door inside my brain and locking itself inside saying “I’m not coming out!” then pasting a sign on the tiny door saying “OCCUPIED!” Meanwhile the spiraling signal(a straight neuron) was watching nearby in another part of my brain. Gregg told me to put another little brain image in my pelvic floor. Then he turned youtube on again so I could dance to the classical music. I was happy both my upper and lower body were getting attention. Gregg told me to move my shoulder blades,clavicles, and from my armpits more. Then he had me work with “the inside of my legs”. It felt like dancing simply with the spiraling image itself. At one point the spiraling seemed to move at the same speed as the beat of the song. As this was happening I had the image of a door that looked like a saltine cracker and was completely edible. I tend to think of food when I do certain body/movement scripts for some random reason. Then my arms stretched over to one side of the couch and went in circles as my fingers ran over my neck and other body parts. As my legs and arms moved together to the song I felt a free flow of signals/energy that was similar to shaking(except voluntary) and had an almost magical quality. My whole body was in full voluntary spiral mode. When my body feels like this I have almost no tension at all and my body can move anywhere it wants. “You’re a good dancer Margot” said Gregg. I stood up and ended up stepping backwards instead of falling which was cool.

Margot imagine brains on her ribs and sternum

Christine Bruno At May 13th's New York Posse Meeting

New York Posse member Christine Bruno:
I know I had a breakthrough last week and really want to keep investigating with our posse and work toward a plan that keeps me on track between our meetings.
I have been realizing the past few months - especially at last week's meeting - that I need to make this work a priority NOW!
Note from Tamar:
Christine was working with Gregg and Shawn Shafner, our newest Posse member from the dance community. They had her focusing and investigating her shin and calf muscles and how it is to instigate a new walk from in between those places.
Sometimes, a brand new focus can break through a habitual pattern and in that moment of newness, the brain seems to figure something out. Christine, as an actor, has mastered the power of concentration.
We invite you to comment, and don't forget to like the Enter The Faun page on Facebook!

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