LABAN

it's been a whole month and a half since i came to this wonderful extraordinary place. The Laban Centre. Every single day is just so fresh so new so filled with new ideas! so open so accepting so challenging and a day almost never comes to an end. becos whenever the clock strucks 12 i know i still have so much which i have not the time to absorb digest and integrate.

I was at the International Laban Conference for 2 days. I missed out on the 1st day but still 2 days of compact workshops, performance, lecture demonstrations blabla, it was already overwhelming. i am totally overloaded with information, from Laban's principles to its development and usage in today's world, dealing with multimedia, psychotherapies... too much way too much. i only get to know the breadth of things and at the end of the day i just find myself in this blackout state of mind. becos i hv no idea where to start reading/thinking!

the reason i m back to blogging, is that i really need to put all these into concrete words, at least for myself, to comprehend and to let all these information settle in my brain, and give a concluding remark. so that i know, what i shud do next. or what is best to do next.

i think that the common themes that the speakers keep coming back to, is the idea of Laban's notion of dance as experimentation, incorporating the use of space and dynamics. keeping in mind that nth is static, and the goal is nv the product but the process.

i got to know this wonderful lady, Dr. Ana Sanchez-Colberg, who is totally a walking dictionary. She embraces philosophies, the old and the new, seeks to understand the self in relation to the changing world, understands and explores space and environment, and certainly without diminishing the essence of dance movements. Her theatre background was also of interest to me, and has certainly made her think of dance differently from those coming from a pure dance background. My interest in her work was also due to my increase interest in dance theatre. I have to get my hands at her books, papers and works. and get ideas from her work for my 1st choreography homework - a movement embodiment of our self portrait.

The fact that she touches upon various psychological concepts, eg. memory, discourse, syntax, etc. and also phenomenology etc has also inspired me further. and all those speakers that talked about dance therapy in relation to helping ppl with eating disorders, autism, personality disorder, depression and so on was just AMAZING. of course it wasn't the 1st time that i knew these sort of things existed, but the fact that legendary and important ppl are standing just inches away from me, giving such extraordinary speeches is just sooo unbelievable.

i am a small small stone in the universe.
i hv yet to use my miniature magnet force to take in more energy of life to move on to become a greater representation of a stone in the universe
a stone that has a life and a meaning to the universe



Commitment. is another word. that i as a dancer and as a learner need to embrace and implant into myself, physically within my muscular system and perhaps further into a cellular level, as well as mentally within and beyond my soul.

SOUL. a good word/ concept for self portrait.
now i hv gathered SOUL and MEMORY. two concepts to work on. and more to refine.

i am excited.
still many months to come, but just before mid term break begins, i m already so drawn into being labanised. i do hope this process will continue into a beautiful pathway that i will keep walking jogging running dancing on, a never ending journey to search for the inner and outer balance.

BALANCE, YIN AND YANG. another good concept, to symbolise a mobile yet harmonious way of living on and on and on.....