Pockets of Rocks & Paths of Least Resistance

This time last year, Japanese dance artist Saburo Teshigawara premiered a new duet entitled "Obsession." Inspired by the creative efforts of Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali's 1929 16 minute silent film "Un Chien Andalou," the piece explores the rigors and conflict the psyche is subjected to by suppressed emotion. The film, consisting of a dream logic narrative and a series of unsettling images, played a role in ushering Surrealism into celluloid. The two co-creators, Dali and Bunuel, are rumored to have carried rocks in their pockets to the premiere of their first collaboration, anticipating a potentially violent reaction from the audience. Much to the disappointment of Dali, the crowd loved the film, thus rendering the use of rocks in self-defense as unnecessary.  This got me thinking about resistance and weight--those rocks we inherit, those we seek, and those we arm ourselves with to make it through life. To what extent do these rocks prevent new forms, new modes of thought and being from emerging?

In Teshigawara lies an artist who moves with the path of least resistance--honoring the presence of the rocks in their varying roles, but ultimately moving like water around, above, and below them. His movements have been described as "unnaturally fluid--" to see him move is to experience the human body as an intelligent organism intimately connected to the fluid system that informs, nourishes, and inspires it. With the upcoming performance of his 2007 solo work, MIROKU, we'll catch a glimpse of the heightened sophistication and articulation the body is capable of--an evolution and transcendence of form before our eyes.

And if we're not quite capable of moving like Teshigawara quite yet, there's always the fine Spring pursuit of skipping rocks--how better to celebrate the thaw?