First Contact – Luminous Soul Dance Residential 2010 By Julia Dean-Richards

First contact, Helen Lewis[1] studio

from the Crescent window, Belfast

above the cafe: carrot soup and raspberry tea

we looked out upon a green, open space.

Ten o’clock, with Helen Lewis

imprisoned, shy, our senses shifting

our first electric morning

as we began to move

we saw our luminous souls uplifting.

At twelve we came to lie still

in the kindness

of soft, dancing bellies.

Soon we were styling it out

beginning to sing our colours.

Where did the quick time dance to?

Trusting in our new confidence

My ‘slow’ counterbalanced your ‘dynamo’.

Adapting, we travelled together

wheeling and leaning.

‘learning I’ asked you to show me how to speak with you.

By one o’clock

Helen Lewis is liberated

she joined us in our melting.

Tell me, hold you, bend me

know the way each of our bodies

may stretch and change

when we express our intentions.

Slide past and jam for a while

then settle here with us

to examine a newly discovered gift

turning our bodies this way and that

so the light catches, shines

on this powerful thing we do.

---

[1] Helen Lewis survived the Nazi concentration camp of Stutthof by directing and performing dance for her SS captors and fellow prisoners. She also survived Auschwitz. After the war she settled in Belfast and introduced modern dance to Northern Ireland.

Luminous Soul Residency in Belfast- Thursday

As I sit here writing this blog my mind and body is full of memories from our fantastic week in Belfast. I've had a very powerful reminder as to why I am a dance artist and why I love this work so much. Today it was so obvious how much everyone's confidence has grown and how much of a connection there is between the group.

We began to look today at what material we will show at the sharing tomorrow. The whole atmosphere of being on a residential week is so powerful. I really enjoyed last night as we all sat downstairs in the hotel Lobby singing songs and playing guitar... I loved every minute of it. I cant believe we are on the final day tomorrow I really hope the group continue to develop and that maybe one day I can re-visit them.

I have loved working with Miriam again and having Julia here as my Support Worker has been so valuable... thank you both for all the laughs, support, interesting conversations, the singing and just simply for being you!!! Can't wait to post some images in future blogs.x

Open Arts Residency in Belfast- Tuesday

As I sit in my hotel room, the rest of the group in high spirits in the downstairs foyer, I reflect on the fullness of today. Is it really only Day Two?

Each day so much happens- so many connections

Through the body, newly discovered… Or is it more accurate to say Re-discovered? Re-found? Re-forged? Re-opened?

Between thought and physicality, self-belief, self-image, internal dialogue; voiced explicitly through spoken words, explored amongst the group and acknowledged; or voiced implicitly through the body’s opening pathways

Between past learning and present understanding, ‘light bulb moments’

Between people- meeting for the first time, or discovering newness in old friendships

Between people- in response to seeing how participants with visual impairments take in and express our verbal instructions of exercises, phrases and movements, we have noticed how much detail we miss out in our verbal instructions, just how inaccurate we can be, and this is deepening connections for our own understanding as dancers, as facilitators and as communicators. The gratitude I feel for this is truly noted.

Between past and present- the presence of Helen Lewis, a holocaust survivor who literally danced her way out of the concentration camps. Helen went on to develop vast amounts of dance in Belfast, she died last year and the studio we are working in all week is named after her

Connections from the wider dance world into our own little Luminous Soul bubble- we have all just returned from the Waterfront Studio where we watched AfterLight by The Russel Maliphant Dance Company: the energy is high in the group, the curiosity lit. One participant’s connection: “I get what Sally and Miriam have been asking us to do now, why they have been suggesting we copy other people in our improvisations, pick up on their movements and explore stillness and space as well as moving all the time.”

I can hardly wait to get back in the dance studio.

Open Arts Residency in Belfast

Sally Miriam and Julia have really enjoyed day one of the residency with Luminous Soul in Belfast. We are staying in a very comfortable Hotel. We all sat down together for dinner with the group of about 20 people from all over Northern Ireland on Sunday and got to know each other....lovely evening!

Today we focused on get to know you games and a selection of improvisation tasks. The group already look like they have been working together for months. One of the participants said that this approach to dance was less what dance looks like and more like saying "here's me"... Lucky that because we had already decided to follow that very same theme. In preparation for the week Sally and Miriam have choreographed their own solos based around this theme. The day ended with the group learning Miriam's and it was a brilliantly unifying high point to a fantastic day.