Empty. and Walking.

In 2007 I choreographed our show Right Before You Fell - it was a piece that explored what might happen if all of the elephants-in-the-room, or things we don't manage to say, were physicalized. To serve all that is unsaid.....there needed to be an awkward love story (or two) wound in for good lack of communication.

One "love story" was a series of duets between a singer and a dancer to Crazy by Willie Nelson.
The internal narrative of the dance is a women walking the city to clear her mind of love...but she imagines hearing his voice and his kisses flying towards her on the air.


While I was building the piece with Zoe, my Grandfather (Poppy) passed away.


I came back to the studio knowing deeply that this dance was not just about a break up, but also the intense sense of presence and forever that now fully immersed my Grandmother.

Poppy was gone, but Nanny was feeling him around every corner, and waiting patiently (most of the time) for him to show up, laugh and help her make some sauce.

It didn't happen. Until now. Yesterday my Grandmother passed away. Quietly ushered into death with words of love from my Mom, Dad and me.

And when we celebrate her life tomorrow and Tuesday these new dances about emptiness and fulfillment will begin to be filled with the wisdom of loss, the joy of finding home, and the bubbling laughter that we all can't help but equate with Nanny.

She has always been a wise voice and good listener. She had the strength of love in her actions and words. She will be missed in body here - but her loving ways and advice are part of all of us and will never be lost or forgotten.
Theresa Cerone Sanducci 1926-2009

various

After a couple of quiet weekdays of being able to be a bit spoiled and spend time on an application, while getting laundry done and managing to fit in a nap
I wonder at my huge sadnesses of the weekend.

and I wonder if it has as much to do with vulnerability and joy as it does with sadness.

I'm experiencing the kind of sadness that sits dormant for a bit, and then isn't. At all.

I'm thinking about a piece based on flight and decisions.
the freedom in having a solid base to take flight from.
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wondering what happens to the mind when everything that was once solid is no longer.
when a life partner of 60 years disappears.....carried away by a blinking truck
until he is next seen still in a strangly shaped bed.
Nothing is real unless Sinatra is singing.
He that always fixed and measured is gone,
left next to his space is the she that cleaned up afterwards...
she is cleaning
too much...
repeated motions...a lifetime of repeated motions.
Comfort in repetition.
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And we are all taking up the same amount of space we always have, while life keeps shifting the playing ground.