Ordinary Eloquence - by Eva

Two weeks is just a drop of time in the ocean of our lives, but for the three of us, all working mothers, it takes meticulous strategy to carve out even this from the rush of our daily living. But this meeting of kindred spirits, respected and admired colleagues, is what the three of us want, and we've all done everything we've needed to do, to make this time possible. So here we are at Swarthmore, in this beautiful, spacious studio, lying next to each other with feet up against the wall. Such a familiar way to be together.

Talking seems to be the way we begin. This becomes a form, from the first day till the end. It's a way of locating ourselves for each other, catching up, noting similarities and differences, a de-briefing where we use words to offer facts and insights that somehow become the ground on which we then place our moving. We tell stories of our lives (laundry, kids, relationships, teaching, dancing), we ask questions, offer thoughts. We get into the habit of recording, not only our dancing, but also our talking. Sometimes not much of real importance is said, aside from this building of history, this getting to know each other again, in depth, those small and big details of our lives that make us who we are. But at other times we become eloquent as we talk: about our passion for moving, our love of the art of dance, our visions of how we aim to create, our struggles, and ways we do succeed. Outside of this charged context, where the three of us are sparking each other, it's difficult, often impossible, to recapture such degrees of subtlety and articulateness in our language, so we want to have a record of what, and how, things were said. (Who will transcribe the tapes?)

And of course there's the dancing.We all recognize how important the time of being still, being small and close to the floor is for centering and integrating before moving big. We warm up together, sometimes just moving how we feel like moving (Deborah Hay enters the working space with her admonishment - get what you need), sometimes trying out on each other things we teach in our classes, sometimes doing the Meridian Stretches, the series of stretches, developed by Shizuto Masunaga, that Lisa and I taught students at EDDC, and that now I'm teaching to Vicky when Lisa heads home after a day of work. We play with scores and tasks, we agree and disagree, we laugh, and at times we cry. We move, we watch each other dance, then move in response. We are inspiring each other.