I was just talking to a colleague earlier today about the subject of planning for beautiful/wonderful moments, and how she was of the opinion that planning the moment never really works as you’d never really be content or happy, and that the best moments are those that just happen without foresight and you choose to live them to the fullest.

So what a delightful surprise it was earlier this evening when we had an unexpected guest all the way from Moscow attend our contact improv jam. Alexei has quite a bit of experience with the dance form, so me and Teresa especially were euphoric, being able to dance with such a graceful dancer. And when I saw Sze and Marc dance together, it was really a joy to watch them having so much fun.

What better way to usher in the new year than such fine moments!

So, here’s a review by Bilqis of the performance that we had at the Annexe last weekend:

http://kldancewatch.wordpress.com/2011/08/03/humorous-touching-surprising-contact/

Am so thankful to all those who came. And we had an amazing Q&A session as well, where we were asked virtually every conceivable question about the dance form, its practice and its use and significance in the performance pieces.

My utmost thanks and hearfealt appreciation to all those who performed on that day: Lucy, Joey, Ulla, Maru, Gene, Elizabeth, Shoko, Chico, Akiho, Munie, Teresa, Tzia Ern, Chris, Sze, Catherine, Deborah, Jay, and Ming-Shen. You guys made it such a memorable event, not just for us, but for the audience as well. Kudos!

Photo by Colin Boyd Shafer

Just yesterday, I received an email from one of my most beloved teachers, Martin Keogh, about his decision to stop teaching sometime this year after having spent 31 years of life doing so. It’s a shocking piece of news, but I’m glad to have met such an amazing and generous teacher and count myself lucky to have him as a key influence in my dance education.

Truth is, these past few months, I myself have been having my own unexpected endings in my journeys in dancemaking. A few of my most trusted and wonderful collaborators have decided to take a break from dancing.

It’s always been a struggle to create or sustain a niche community of dancers with a similar passion for improvising and love for partnering. However, without these few individuals, I wouldn’t even have been able to survive the journey thus far.

I don’t know if they will ever return, and perhaps I shouldn’t expect them to until they are ready. But I’d like to thank them for the countless amazing contributions they’ve added to the improvisation scene in KL.

Aidira Khaidir, Iylia Nordin, and Tuan Fadhlin. Aidira has been with me since the beginning right up to my third most recent performance, which was at the BUKA Performance Party at MAP KL in February. It was probably one of our best works. What a bittersweet memory, if looked at in hindsight. Iylia has similarly been the indispensable part of the trio/quartet. If Aidira was not able to perform with us, Iylia would willingly step up to the plate, even though circumstances made it extremely challenging for her to do so.

Fadhlin, who had only recently joined us towards the end of last year, was an inspiring student nonetheless, and one who made classes enjoyable to teach. Her feedback for our dancemaking was also invaluable as she brought a keen perception towards fine tuning our scores.

I still struggle constantly to communicate with others. It is something fraught with the occasional shocks and surprises. And in the process, some parties get hurt. I guess I’ll just keep picking myself up and learning a thing or two from each fall.

My venture in dancemaking and artmaking in general has left me with scars, both literal and metaphorical, which although at times strengthens my resolve, most of the time breaks me down into a being of nothingness. Not so much of being in one with the cosmos, but rather of feeling purposeless in it.

Back to Martin. I think it is so courageous for such a man of this stature to face up to the circumstances and realize that perhaps it is time to start winding down and begin a new chapter in his life. He looks forward to his new life, informed by his former.

I’m not sure that I consider my next steps to be the creation of an entirely new chapter, but just the other day, I went back to being a soloist after almost a year, and although I was a little scared and self-conscious, I did enjoy the challenge of staying present in the moment while being witnessed by others.

Also, my plans for the upcoming Contact Festival Kuala Lumpur in July 26-31, 2011 is going rather well, with two grants being approved while awaiting a third. I hope to see some of you at the festival.

What prompted me to write this entry after such a long hiatus? I just bumped into an old friend earlier in the day and she told me that I write beautifully. I don’t think I deserve such a compliment, but thought I’d give it a shot – of dancing with words.

Aidira Khaidir and David Lim performing in Improv by the Lake at the Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre, January 23, 2011. (Photo by Lim Paik Yin)

I was cleaning the house yesterday, and as usual, used it as a practice to remind myself to adopt what some might call the monkey position (as it is known in the Alexander Technique).

This reminds me of a rehearsal a bunch of us had for the Sama-sama Guesthouse Mini Alternative Art Festival back in August 2010. We were cleaning the rehearsal studio, and when it came to mopping the floor, I quickly thought of using it as an opportunity to train ourselves to adopt this strong and safe position. Contact improvisers would recognize this as a variant of the high post, a position which is frequently used to support a fellow dancer by offering the surface of your back as a base.

The key to this position is to fold forward from the hip joints (as opposed to the waist) while maintaining a neutral spine – from the pelvis to the top of the head. This entails an elongation of the spine while maintaining its natural curves. The knees meanwhile, are allowed to be soft and pliable, hinging however much is necessary.

Again, this is one of those things in contact improvisation where I see beauty and utility when incorporated into our daily lives.

p.s. I’ve always wondered if consciously activating the core (transversus abdominis/corset muscles) is necessary when adopting this position. Anyone with thoughts on the matter?

I sometimes think about how contact improvisation can carry over to the life that we live in general. Of course, compartmentalization is something we as 21st century beings have gotten quite adept at, and so it’s a constant challenge to see how one piece of a jigsaw puzzle can fit into the whole picture.

One thing that one learns very quickly from contact improv is that when one person intends to dominate the dance, the dance quickly disintegrates into a either a power tussle, or a slave-master relationship where one is bound to suffer under the sheer imbalance of power, and the other to never be satisfied, since domination feeds on itself.

Therefore, one might be tempted to surmise that perhaps just like in dance, in real life, matters of communication and dealings with others require a certain diplomatic finesse. But this ultimately brings out 2 points. Are we doing it just to get along? Which when one thinks about it, makes a lot of sense, since we are after all social creatures, and there is always something to learn in the process of exchanging ideas. The other point is that perhaps there are some matters which we need to compromise with, others where we need to stand our ground (not necessarily a bad thing, since it prevents one from being subjugated to the whims of another), and other times where we perhaps need not engage at all in the first place.

The last point is something worth giving some thought to, even though it sounds a little counterintuitive. Just as there are times we might not want to dance with someone, there are similarly times when forcing oneself to just play along with social mores or pleasing another is either not worth the trouble or requires a little more compromise than we might be apt to like. The other thing is that it forces us to consider the option of leaving others alone when that is perhaps what they need most at that particular time.

Emotions are fluid. People are fluid. Our dealings with others should perhaps be fluid too, allowing for a variety of ways of communicating. Or not communicating.

If you’ve visited the old Musings in the past, you’d notice that the blog has someone changed. In fact, the aesthetic look of the entire CIKL site has been somewhat upgraded, chief being a navigational banner which I’m sure you’ll agree is more pleasing to the eye.

It all started when I decided to move to a new web host, and since they offered this blogging tool, I thought, what the heck. Makes my life easier, which I hope will facilitate me posting more entries in the future, since I won’t have to dread coding the site any longer (although I cheat since I use a wysiwyg web editor). Of course, there’d still be the obstacle of a blank slate to overcome, but I relish that challenge.

Assuming I do overcome the challenge, I’m hoping my next post will be a recap of a wonderful 2010, which has been host to exciting collaborations with wonderful artists such as Kok Siew-wai, Yong Yandsen, Bilqis Hijjas, Kristine Nilsen Oma, Lim Kok Yoong, just to name a few. And not to forget my wonderful dancers too – Leo Yap, Iylia Nordin, and Aidira Khaidir, which I will also introduce you to.

I’ve also taken the liberty of inviting Fadhlin, one of our newest CI regulars, to contribute to the blog, since I think it’d be interesting to chart the musings of a beginning contact improviser. Perhaps I secretly wish that I had charted my own journeys as an improviser, which I might visit at some point in the near future, even though I’m aware of the tricks memories can play on the mind. Anyway, Fadhlin’s first post might be a recap of our involvement in the recently held klpac Open Day arts event, so stay tuned to that.

And of course, you, dear reader/dancer/improviser/arts lover. Make sure to subscribe to the RSS feed of this blog as we hope you will stay with us in the months to come as we bring you insights into contact improvisation, dancemaking, the dance/arts scene in Malaysia, and of course, our personal journeys through artmaking.

Oh, and if you ever feel nostalgic, I know I do, about the old Musings site, it’s still reachable via a click on the menu bar at the top labeled “Past Musings”.