you guys...

a poem for Movement Research
and Raïna von Waldenburg

you guys...

this is not an introduction this is the piece

and a perfect moment it is too

here we are
trying to be in a mystery

the main thing:
to be in the friggin' room with you guys

in the joy

in the wild wind

losing voice
mind
wing
religion
measurement
experiment
shape
senses
time

in the mystery that invites us in
and swallows us whole

you guys
everything in motion
in these days
atomizing
and available

do
do
that hoodoo
that you
do
so well

Eva Yaa Asantewaa
(c)2011

OWS: DYKE CHECK!

Folks, I'm not sure if this is any kind of official Occupy event--or if there is any such animal--but it sure looks promising, and I love the name!

DYKE CHECK!

Queer Takes on The Revolution

at Dixon Place

Wednesday, December 7 (7:30pm-8:30pm)

$-this is a pass-the-hat situation

brainstormed by: t.l. cowan, jasmine rault, susana cook, ted kerr

featuring: excellent talent

Dyke Check! Because social justice is fabulous. Change is queer. And we've been making activism sexy for years and years.

Join us for DYKE CHECK! a quasi-monthly series of queer-minded curated short performances, readings, glitterings, cruisings and conversations that celebrate our revolutionary heritage, exploit our knack for destablization and showcase our role in the revolution.

The future is queer. The future is now. Welcome.

For more information, click to email Tedd Kerr or T.L. Cowan.

Dixon Place

161a Chrystie Street, Manhattan

(map/directions)

Anonymous Abramović critic reveals self and conditions

An Open Letter From a Dancer Who Refused to Participate in Marina Abramovic’s MOCA Performance
by Sara Wookey
posted in ArtInfo, November 29, 2011

OWS: Walk + Whisper with Haenggi

This just in from dance and visual artist Andrea Haenggi:

COME JOIN THE ACTION, AN EXPERIMENT IN NEW TACTICS --
A NEW WAY OF WALKING IN SUPPORT OF PEOPLE’S OUTRAGE BECAUSE

No one ever asked us if we want a person brutally arrested simply for saying no to greed.No one ever asked us if we want a person to be thrown in jail just  for not carrying an ID.No one ever asked us if we want a person who walks a dog in a park after dark to get a Criminal summons.

Saturday, December 3, 1pm

MEET AT COLUMBUS PARK ON BAXTER STREET ACROSS FROM THE REAR ENTRANCE OF THE MANHATTAN CRIMINAL COURT BUILDING.

GATHERING to give each participant the  “ACT OF WALKING SLOWLY  + WHISPERING ” Action Score Instruction

ACTION BEGINS with a “non-linear“ individually tailored walking formation around the Criminal Court Building.

The Act of Walking Slowly:  We will take one hour to make one circle around the criminal court building at 100 Centre Street.

The Act of Walking Slowly reflects on the helpless feeling of being a victim of circumstances and the meditative state that saves us.

In this non-violent journey, we become a community of “IndividualUnity” and search for social change through physical presence.

Thanks for letting us know if you will join us or for more information, contact andrea@amdat.org or squattercity@yahoo.com.

Ken Russell, 84 [UPDATED]

British Film Director Ken Russell Dies at 84
Associated Press, November 28, 2011

New York Times obituary
by Dennis Lim, November 28, 2011

OWS: Now let's Occupy Broadway!

"They say the neon lights are bright on Broadway, but looking at them just gives me the blues..."

Okay, now for a little something to cheer me up:

Gathering the Arts & Culture working group (c)2011, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Occupy Broadway

Occupy the theatre/shopping district 

with performance and spectacle for 24 hours straight!

December 2nd starting at 6pm until December 3rd at 6pm

Occupy Broadway will introduce tourists and New Yorkers uptown going to Broadway shows or shopping themselves into debt in Times Square to the idea of occupation as CREATIVE resistance with non-stop free performances.  We will set up in a privately owned public space near Times Square.  This movement is spreading around the world and around New York City.  In a time when downtown theaters are rapidly losing their spaces, being turned into high-end fashion stores, it is a symbolic attempt to regain the space of theatre as an accessible, popular art form, bringing it back to where it all started - in a public space, for the common citizen.

How you can get involved

The organizers are looking for groups in all styles and genres, to present a segment (2 minutes to 2 hours long) that has a theme of the 99% movement, possibly holiday-related, festive, radical caroling, large puppets, marching bands, dance, etc.

Also, visit this link for an online petition that explains the context of this (and future) events.

OWS: Long live The People's Library!

The People's Library of Occupy Wall Street Lives On
by William Scott, The Nation, November 22, 2011

Flamenco's Leilah Broukhim to return to 92Y [UPDATE]

About a year ago (see blog post here), I advised you to keep watch for flamenco artist Leilah Broukhim who had shown an impressive preview of her developing work, Traces--a blend of Jewish, Iranian and gitano traditional culture--at 92Y. I've just gotten word that Broukhim plans to bring the completed work, now titled Dejando Huellas (Traces), to 92Y on February 25, 2012 as part of Flamenco Festival USA.

Broukhim writes:

Dejando Huellas (Traces) tells the story of a Sephardic woman through time and fuses flamenco with Sephardic and Persian music. We premiered the show to a sold-out audience at this year's Jewish Culture Festival in Krakow and just returned from another successful performance in Paris at the Museum of Art and History of Judaism. For a taste of what to expect on February 25, take a look at the show's promo video.

UPDATE: For information and 92Y ticketing, click here.

Recognizing Rembrandt

Recognizing Rembrandt: Searching for A Master's Signature in Unsigned Work
(Review of Rembrandt and the Face of Jesus, Philadelphia Museum of Art)
by Deborah Feller, News and Views, DeborahFeller.com, November 20, 2011

Hollering space in the African diaspora

The Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute

presents

Hollering Space: Ring Shout and Leadbelly Tribute

featuring two special performances:


RUN MARY RUN
Rashida Bumbray and the Dance Diaspora Collective
with Special Guest Adenike Sharpley
music by Matthew Hill and Christian Almiron

Leadbelly’s Last Dream
featuring Terence Etc. and The Et Cetera

Tuesday, November 29
Doors open at 7pm.

@Dwyer Cultural Center
258 St. Nicholas Avenue (on the corner of West 123rd Street), Manhattan
(map/directions)

Admission: $10 (free for kids)

RUN MARY RUN
Rashida Bumbray and the Dance Diaspora Collective
With Special Guest Adenike Sharpley
music by Matthew Hill and Christian Almiron

For the premiere of her new dance work, RUN MARY RUN curator and choreographer considers the complex intersections between inspiration, re-interpretation, and creative process, using the harmonic ideas and tonal vocabulary of the McIntosh County Shouters—master ring shout artists—as a point of departure. Developed in collaboration with and performed by the Dance Diaspora Collective with special guest master dancer, Adenike Sharpley, and the Dance Diaspora Collective take us on a ride through the cosmologies of the Low Country, Geechie Sea Islands, Tennessee Blues, P Funk, and Hip Hop relating the shout to the history of Black music as well as to her personal development as a choreographer.

Leadbelly’s Last Dream
Terence Etc. and the Et Cetera

Leadbelly’s Last Dream is a musical experience during which Terence Etc. and The Et Cetera relive the last dream of legendary southern folk musician Leadbelly. Through Blues inspired re-imaginings of Terence's compositions.

For more information, call 212-307-7420 ext. 3008 or email.

Into the mystic with Imani Uzuri

IMANI UZURI'S MOSAIC Sacred Music Extravaganza

presented by Harlem Stage
at The Gatehouse

This much-anticipated event highlights sacred music by women artists from around the globe, lead by Imani Uzuri and her Mosaic Sacred Orchestra.

Saturday, December 10, 7:30pm

"...an array of healing music from Ragas to Rock. MOSAIC is every bit as revolutionary as it is spiritual."

Featuring Special Guests DJ Rekha, vocalists Morley, Haale, Soni Morena, Ata Papa, M. Nahadr, Arooj Aftab and pianist Courtney Bryan, accompanied by the Mosaic Sacred Orchestra.

Get tickets here.

Harlem Stage Gatehouse
150 Convent Avenue (at 135th Street, across from Aaron Davis Hall), Manhattan
(directions)

Film on Mali legend Ali Farka Touré

A Visit to Ali Farka Touré (video; 57 min.)

Winner of a Grammy Award for the album Talking Timbuktu, on which he played with Ry Cooder and other American luminaries, the legendary African singer and guitarist now invests much of his time, energy and resources in improving agricultural and social conditions in Mali. Film-maker Marc Huraux visited Ali there. Music is an integral part of Ali's life and therefore an integral part of this encounter. Deep, mysterious and utterly compelling, his playing lights up a striking documentary.

Available through subscription at ClassicalTV. For subscription details, click here.

Documentary filmmaker from US arrested in Egypt [UPDATE]

US journalist arrested by Egyptian police
Documentary filmmaker Jehane Noujaim, director of Control Room, was arrested while filming clashes in Cairo's Tahrir Square.
CBSNews, November 23, 2011

UPDATE

Media Help Set Free Arrested U.S.-Egyptian Filmmaker Jehane Noujaim In Cairo
Deadline/Hollywood, November 25, 2011

Sondheim on what makes a good critic

For me, a good critic is a good writer. A good critic is someone who recognises and acknowledges the artist's intentions and the work's aspirations, and judges the work by them, not by what his own objectives would have been. A good critic is so impassioned about his subject that he can persuade you to attend something you'd never have imagined going to. A good critic is an entertaining read. A good critic is hard to find.

--  Stephen Sondheim, from Look, I Made a Hat (Virgin Books, 2011)

And see:

Stephen Sondheim: who needs critics?
Good reviews can be as harmful as bad ones, says Stephen Sondheim. In an extract from his new book, he reflects on a life of prizes, putdowns – and the joy of songs sung in Sanskrit
The Guardian, November 20, 2011

If performance falls in the forest...

Democracy, Art & Critics, or, What Happens to Important Stuff If There's No One to Call It Important?
by Jeremy M. Barker, Culturebot, November 22, 2011

Jasperse's "Canyon"

Click here to read my Dance Magazine review of John Jasperse's Canyon at BAM's Next Wave Festival, November 16-19.

Hear it straight from the artists

Here are two audience development series that should be on your radar in 2012:

SORRY I MISSED YOUR SHOW

presented by Gibney Dance Center, developed in partnership with Dance/NYC

video screenings of works by both emerging and established choreographers followed by thoughtful discussions and reflections led by some of the great minds of the contemporary dance world

Jill Sigman in her hut at the Oslo Opera House (photo: Elisabeth Færøy Lund)

One recent SIMYS session--part of a marathon afternoon featuring other dance artists--detailed how choreographer/multimedia artist Jill Sigman created and performed in a hut made of trash in the light-filled lobby of Norway's Oslo Opera House. ("I do not find [discarded] skis when I build huts in New York City!") Concerned about the alarming amount of waste produced in the US and developed nations worldwide, Sigman seeks to raise awareness of this environmental issue while also engaging ancient means of forging community around place, work, food and movement. In her Hut Project series, she employs a music system run on renewable energy and elevates her diverse found objects "back into the realm of value."

For information on upcoming Sorry I Missed Your Show events, get on the GDC mailing list. Phone: 212-677-8560 or email here.

location: GDC, 890 Broadway, 5th Floor, Manhattan (map/directions)

Admission: Free (includes "popcorn and drinks")

Video archive coming soon

DANCE TALKS

presented by The Joyce Theater

If a more in-depth examination of issues shaping dance today interests you, join one of our Dance Talks, a series of conversations with artists and audiences illustrated with dance videos and movement demonstrations.

location: Joyce SoHo, 155 Mercer Street, Manhattan (map/directions)

Admission: Free. RSVP at 646-792-8377, although walk-ins are certainly welcome.

If you can't make it to Dance Talks, visit the Joyce's Ustream channel (sample below).

Video streaming by Ustream

November 21 Dance Talks at Joyce SoHo (65:33)

Gideon Lester (Director of Columbia University's Arts Collaboration Lab) chats with choreographer Martha Clarke and playwright Alfred Uhry ("Driving Miss Daisy") about their unusual collaboration on Angel Reapers, opening November 29 at The Joyce Theater.

I really do loveDANCEmore!

...and I'm learning to love learning to loveDANCEmore, a performance journal out of Salt Lake City, edited by dancer-choreographer Ashley Anderson.

Thanks to Ishmael Houston-Jones for alerting me to this publication and to Anderson for selecting one of my more pugnacius blog posts ("Why I no longer consider myself a dance sniffer") for inclusion in the Fall 2011 "everyone's a critic" issue.

I've started working my way through a few back issues, and I really like the engaged, thoughtful discourse on contemporary dance and performance. You'll find the loveDANCEmore blog here, and you can contact Anderson here to learn more about the print journal and, hey, maybe send a few dollars its way.

Happy Thanksgiving!

OWS: Occupy The Walls!

OCCUPY THE WALLS: A Poster Show

Call to Participate

AC Institute Art Gallery
547 West 27th Street, #610, Manhattan
(map/directions)

Art heeds the clarion call of the Occupy Wall Street movement at the AC Institute. This special show of posters is dedicated to the spirit evinced by the patriots at Liberty Square. Original, commissioned  artwork will be shown beside authentic posters from the protest and will be on view for one week. In addition to an opening there will be a poetry reading and performance (date to be announced.) The artists will then take their artwork to Liberty Square to demonstrate. This effort will be made into a film.

Curated by performance artist and musician Holly Anderson and poet and activist Jeffrey Cyphers Wright

You can participate in this exhibition by bringing your poster to the AC Institute on Tuesday, December 6 and Wednesday, December 7, between 1pm and 6pm.
Work may be mailed to the AC Institute or sent in PDF to info@artcurrents.org if received no later than Wednesday, December 7.
The committee reserves the right to disqualify submissions.

Link to original Facebook announcement

Is Sarah Kaufman ignoring DC's modern dance?

What should a dance critic talk about when she talks about dance?

by Amanda Abrams, From the Green Room/Dance USA, November 15, 2011

Seeing. Not hiding.

HIDE/SEEK: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture--which sparked homophobic backlash and a lamentable act of self-censorship when it opened at the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery last fall--has come to the Brooklyn Museum for a run through February 12, 2012.

Cass Bird

 I Look Just Like My Daddy, 2004

© Cass Bird

A survey of around one hundred works ranging from the late 19th Century to the contemporary era, the National Portrait Gallery's exhibition marked the first acknowledgement by a major museum of the significance of gender and sexual identity in the shaping of American portraiture. Co-curated by NPG historian David C. Ward and Jonathan D. Katz, director of the public program in visual studies at SUNY Buffalo, HIDE/SEEK's historic achievement was temporarily obscured by uproar over the inclusion of an unfinished video project by the late gay artist and AIDS activist David Wojnarowicz. That video, A Fire in My Belly, is a furious cry for a world of ignored, unrelieved suffering. Its montage of images includes ants streaming over the body of Jesus on a plastic crucifix. That drew the wrath of the self-anointed Catholic League and a slew of right-wing politicians and pundits. The gallery quickly caved, withdrawing the video from the exhibition--a move stirring controversy of a different sort.

[For a good rundown of all of this, see the New York Times' Holland Carter here and WNYC's Carolina A. Miranda here.]

The Brooklyn Museum's subsequent action (taken in collaboration with the Tacoma Art Museum, which will host HIDE/SEEK from March 17 through June 10, 2012) greatly extends the reach of this show. So, thank you, homophobes, for making it possible for so many more people to see A Fire in My Belly--now back where it belongs--and the rest of this important art!

AA Bronson

Felix, June 5, 1994, 1994 (printed 1999)

©AA Bronson, courtesy Esther Schipper Gallery, Berlin

I can't show you the Berenice Abbott photo of writer Djuna Barnes--I've represented Abbott, below, by her intriguing portrait of journalist Janet Flanner who called herself Genêt--but I can tell you that the Barnes portrait and the AA Bronson work above are my two favorite pieces in HIDE/SEEK.

I love the the Barnes portrait for its nearly 3D radiance that places the woman in question in the room with us today. Abbott poses Barnes within layers and tones of sumptuous theatrical camouflage--the snugly-embracing dark overcoat, the rich tweed jacket, crisp white shirt, strands of pearls, a gleaming wrap of fabric dipping low over almond-shaped eyes with a commanding audacity to them, a frankness that escapes all embellishment or disguise. 

Bronson's Felix, June 5, 1994, is the polar opposite, the deathbed portrait of his friend and colleague from the Canadian art collective General Idea. Felix Partz died of AIDS on the date in that title. Bronson wrote:

I made this photograph of Felix a few hours after his death. He is arranged to receive visitors, and his favorite objects are gathered about him: his television remote control, his tape-recorder, and his cigarettes. Felix suffered from extreme wasting, and at the time of his death his eyes could not be closed: there was not enough flesh left on the bone.

With Felix, June 5, 1994, Bronson also documents an elaborate surface that, nevertheless, cannot distract us from the eyes of his subject. Like Djuna Barnes, Felix Partz emerges out of his busy context to look right at us and will be looking at us that way forever.

Berenice Abbott

Janet Flanner, 1927

© Berenice Abbott/Commerce Graphics, New York

HIDE/SEEK: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture

now through February 12, 2012

Brooklyn Museum
200 Eastern Parkway

For exhibition and public program information, click here.
For general visitor information, including travel directions, click here.

Before conversation

Untitled (c)2011, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Bolshoi Ballet, Manhattan convenience

See the Bolshoi Sleeping Beauty (starring Svetlana Zakharova and David Hallberg) tomorrow, Sunday, November 20, at 10am, live in HD from Moscow!

Ballet in Cinema – Emerging Pictures 

presents

The Bolshoi Ballet

The Sleeping Beauty

Three HD screening locations in Manhattan:

    BIG Cinemas Manhattan Theater, 239 East 59th Street    
    Empire 25, 234 West 42nd Street
    Union Square Stadium 14, 850 Broadway

185 minutes, including one intermission

Ticket price varies by venue.

For ticketing and further information, including screening locations outside New York, click here.

Eiko & Koma: so delicious

Take a workshop in "Delicious Movement"
with master dancer artists Eiko & Koma at Japan Society!

Delicious Movement workshop and talk

Saturday, December 3 (1pm-5pm)

MacArthur “Genius” Fellows Eiko & Koma return to Japan Society with their one-of-a-kind movement workshop and post-workshop talk.  Guiding participants through a series of exercises designed to increase focus and coordination as well as pleasure in movement, this workshop is for anyone who loves to move or wants to love to move.  The session concludes with a talk about the couple’s remarkable 40 years of artistic ingenuity, including video presentation of some of their activities in the three-year Retrospective Project.  Movement workshop: 1pm-4pm. Video talk and discussion: 4pm-5pm.

For complete information and ticketing, click here. 

Japan Society
333 East 47th Street (between 1st and 2nd Avenues), Manhattan
(directions)

Amanda Ameer reads Michael Kaiser

[Michael Kaiser] wrote a blog post on the Huffington Post about how social media and bloggers are ruining arts criticism. Before we go on, kindly take a moment to absorb the irony of someone writing for the Huffington Post commenting on the demise of traditional media outlets.

--Amanda Ameer, Life's A Pitch

Such a sensible woman, that Amanda Ameer. See it all here: Get off my lawn!

Granoff's "intuition..."

intuition is preceding over my understanding., says dancer-choreographer Chase Granoff. Or, at least, that's the title of his latest show, just opened at The Chocolate Factory. In a way, I feel the same.

Consider this:

The door to the performance space slides back, and you're welcomed into a space devoid of traditional seating. What unfolds, then, is more like a very low-key art gallery opening than a dance concert. One by one, or in small groups, members of the arriving audience find their way to a blond-wood table laden with glasses for white wine and white plates awaiting slices of store-bought sourdough bread drizzled with olive oil. Standing behind the table, amiably drizzling the olive oil and pouring the wine, is our very own Granoff.

The offerings are comforting, the lights low. The audience chatter builds as people, left to their own devices, drift to various areas of the space. There are some artworks to look at in the space--a 2004 Andrew Miller video of a spare, carefully delineated Granoff performance, complete with headphones for sonic accompaniment; a poem by Thom Donovan, printed on nice beige sheets tastefully and meaningfully stacked near the sourdough bread; photographs by Paul Mpagi Sepuya; F.P. Boué's time-lapse video featuring various views and tiny temporal and atmospheric changes and flashes of human and vehicular traffic around what appears to be the wrought-iron structure of a greenhouse. Add to these laid-back visual stations the presence of a chandelier of sorts, created by Megan Byrne of glass containers, some sprouting delicate little green plants, clamped to metal rods.

"It is the simplest things that are/Easiest to forget," writes Donovan in his poem, "Two Dances for Leavening." The space acts as a container--a gallery, if you will--for a calm simplicity and subtlety in all things. It feels full of this subtlety as if something about Granoff has been externalized, visualized, embodied in things and the lighting upon things. He's so here. (Much, much later, I reflect on the Christian symbolism of consecrated bread and wine, offered to congregants, as a sacred, embodied presence.) So Granoff wouldn't actually have to dance, would he?

For the first twenty minutes or so, what I've described is all that happens. It's easy to suspect that this is all Granoff intends to do for the hour--have us eat, drink, converse and basically entertain ourselves. I get absorbed by the Boué video to some extent, but nothing else holds me, I am by myself, and the dim lighting precludes reading the poem. Just as I try to take one more gtab at grasping--or intuiting--the point of the Miller video, Granoff walks over and turns it off. He's about to dance after all.

He begins moving, close to the chandelier, developing soft twists through his body as he suspends himself by hooking one lifted arm onto thin air and marks the air along with Bill Dixon's avantgarde jazz calligraphies, filigrees and flutters. He dances within the circle of watchers but sometimes ventures beyond. He's a short, bearded man, barefoot, wearing nondescript black jeans and a cream-colored shirt that makes his chest and belly resemble an ample pillow. My students out at Queensborough Community College would not identify him as a dancer if they passed him on the street.

If you happen to be close enough at one particular moment, you can glimpse into the ruddy wells of his small palms. Even the way he holds these hands in this moment suggests a deep reserve of soul--again, with much subtlety--and this is something that could be easily missed but, if caught, is not so easy to forget. Something is here; perhaps a lot is here.

intuition is preceding over my understanding. goes out with a whisper. Yes, it's over. But the gallery display is still there and, hey, maybe there's some more of that bread left.

Here's what Granoff has had to say about the piece:

A solo performance of a landscape exploring an expression of time and place present and past. Interested in the movements of sustainability, slow and local and how they can be applicable to choreographic thought as expressed through improvisation and score. Inspired by the Steve Paxton quote "researched the fiction of cultured dance and the 'truth' of improvisation". Is choreography an aesthetics of change? How is my interest in bread making part of a dance (life) practice? Is dance a politics? This solo has something to do with becoming a father. Re-becoming a dancer.

intuition is preceding over my understanding. is a co-presentation by The Chocolate Factory and Abrons Arts Center, running through Saturday, November 19 at 8pm. Click here for more information and ticketing.

The Chocolate Factory
5-49 49th Avenue, Long Island City
(map/directions)

Kaiser wrote what?

Why Aren’t Audiences Stupid? (Andy Version)
by Andy Horwitz, Culturebot, November 16, 2011

Talk about Martha Clarke

The Joyce Theater's DANCE TALKS presents

Martha Clarke on Angle Reapers

November 21, 6pm

Martha Clarke says that the making of Angel Reapers was a "labor of love." It has taken Clarke and her collaborator playwright Alfred Uhry seven years to create and produce this dance theater work based on the Shakers. Clarke, a New Englander, felt an affinity to the minimalist Shaker aesthetic, and was fascinated by the repressed community founded by "Mother Ann" Lee. The work is described as "a stirring and dramatic blend of shaker songs, modern dance, and theater about forbidden sex and unchanneled lust in New England’s 18th century Shaker community." In a video illustrated evening, Gideon Lester (Director of Columbia University's Arts Collaboration Lab) converses with Clarke, examining the ideas that make up this new work.

RSVP: 646-792-8377

Joyce SoHo

155 Mercer Street, Manhattan

(directions)

Spotlight on: Shamanic Movement

Sonali Sultana performing at Rakkasah, October, 2011 (photo: Carl Sermon)

Shamanic Movement
by Sunny Chapman/Sonali Sultana

At age 61, I am strong and flexible, full of energy, and look younger than I did fifteen years ago. It's all due to the healing movement that I practice, developed from my studies of many dance styles and energy healing modalities. I call it Shamanic movement, and I want to share it with you.

In 1998, my life ground to a complete halt. I'd always been very active-- dancing, biking, practicing martial arts. I was something of a workaholic, but now I found myself totally disabled. It started with getting hit by a car, an accident from which I never quite recovered.

At first, I dealt with constant pain that seemed unrelated to the accident. I noticed I was always tired. A few doctor visits revealed slight  hypothyroidism but nothing that would explain how I felt. Things seemed to slide downhill. Finally, one morning, I woke up and found that I could not walk. I could not straighten my back. If I tried to stand up, searing pain shot up my legs.

There began a much more intense round of ER visits, doctor visits, medical tests, MRIs and CT scans. Lupus and MS were ruled out, and I was finally diagnosed with Fibromyalgia. For the next five years, I walked with a cane-- when I walked, which was as little as possible. I couldn't sit upright. The only way to keep the pain bearable was by taking medications so strong I slept twelve or more hours a day, and when I was awake, I really wasn't. I no longer had a life. I became very depressed and gained a lot of weight.  My friends drifted away one by one, tired of my endless misery. My world became very small and sad.

One day, lying in bed and really wanting to take a shower but too exhausted to move I thought, "I can't live like this anymore.” I decided I had to try to find a way to make myself well--something doctors hadn't been able to do in all these years.

The first thing I did was contact a Reiki master and ask her to come to my home. She did, and the result of her Reiki treatment was amazing. I got up after the treatment, walked downstairs and ate a meal sitting in a chair for the first time in years. Next I asked her to train me so that I could treat myself, which I do to this day.

I knew I needed to move my body, but I still couldn't walk without a cane. I found a hospital that had water aerobics classes and began to attend, first once a week, then twice a week. I started to regain enough strength to get out and walk a bit, beginning to reconnect with the natural world. I changed my diet and started to lose the weight I'd gained.

Then came the really big change. I left my marriage. As a result, my insurance coverage changed, and I gained access to a new network of doctors. The first one I saw said that she agreed that I had Fibromyalgia but that the severe pain in my legs had another source. An MRI of my lumbar spine revealed one herniated and one fully ruptured disk that I'd been living with for six years!

Now my recovery moved much more rapidly. That doctor, Lisa Bartoli at The Continuum Center For Health And Healing, treated my disk injuries non-surgically, sent me for months of physical therapy and then said to me, "Now you need to start Pilates and do it for the rest of your life."

I began taking Pilates at Greenhouse Holistic and later added yoga. One day I took a bellydance class, and I was instantly hooked. I loved it. Within a couple of years I was dancing in a troupe and, not long after that, I began solo performance. Along the way, I was lucky enough to study with many wonderful, world-renowned teachers, and study related forms like trance dances from North Africa–zaar and guedra. I learned Sufi whirling, studied Tibetan Yoga, learning poses that are supposed to be the secret of eternal youth and applied all of the forms of movement to my daily practice of spiritual, healthful movement.

Having subbed for many teachers, I began teaching bellydance classes in the Liberated Movement program at Battery Dance. I completed a  teacher training program with Tamalyn Dallal and was certified to teach bellydance. At the same time I was developing the new practice I'm teaching at Triskelion Arts in Brooklyn, Shamanic Movement. Shamanic Movement combines all of the various practices that contributed to my recovery and current state of high energy and healthy well-being. It's a style of movement that draws a lot from bellydance but is more attuned to the spiritual elements of bellydance than stage performance.

Shamanic Movement is designed to bring the mind, body and soul into harmony and help people to look and feel their very best. It's a movement style that is gentle on the body and allows the practitioner to move at her or his own pace. It's the reason I look as good as I do at age 61 and feel great.  Meditative dance promotes good health, stress reduction, strength and flexibility, and generally improves well-being in all areas of life. I want to share it with the world.

The work involves stretching, practicing the basic steps and isolations of Oriental Dance, accessing Reiki energy and exploring different types of movement, all in a friendly, supportive atmosphere. It’s suitable for all ages and every level, from beginner to advanced dancer, and those who believe they aren't dancers.

Mondays, 6:30pm-8pm

Drop-in fee: $15   Five-class card: $60

Wear comfortable clothing, go barefoot or wear dance sandals. If you have a veil, please bring it. There will be veils to borrow but possibly not enough for everyone.

If you have questions, please click here to email me.

Triskelion Arts
118 North 11th Street Studio B
http://www.triskelionarts.org/?page_id=2473
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BIO

Sunny Chapman (aka Sonali Sultana) is a visual artist, Reiki healer and dancer living in Brooklyn NY. Chapman studied Cechetti method ballet and modern dance in Chicago in the 70's and later taught ballet at a Chicago City College and performed in numerous venues.

Later in life, she discovered Arabic/Middle Eastern dance, also know as Bellydance, and embarked on an intensive study of the ancient art form, studying not only the theatrical and nightclub styles of performance such as Raqs Sharqi but also healing trance dances of North Africa. She has studied with many notable teachers including Dalia Carella, Rachel Brice, Elena Lentini, Ranya Renee, Anahid Sofian, Andrea Anwar, and several members of the legendary Ibrahim Farrah's Near East Dance Company. In 2011, she completed a teacher training and teacher certification course with Tamalyn Dallall.

Chapman performed in the NYC troupe PURE (Public Urban Ritual Experiment) for 2-1/2 years and helped to create and performed in a theater show called Pure Reflections: Re-imagining Beauty that was staged at The University Settlement Theater and elsewhere.

Chapman currently performs with Andrea Anwar's Dancing Rubies troupe and has presented solo work in many theater shows and dance festivals. She brings training as a Reiki healer into her dance and approaches teaching dance as a healing art form. She presently teaches Arabic/Middle Eastern dance in the Liberated Movement program at Battery Dance Company studios  and teaches Shamanic Movement at Triskelion Arts  in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.