What can be expressed with gesture that can’t be expressed with words? What does your body feel that it can’t say? What does it see that doesn’t readily translate to words? How do we navigate between being alone, in a group, in relation? What do we rely on when the written word falls short (non verbal utterance, tone, inflection, hand gesture, eyes)? Where does the body rise to meet it?
Language moves us, navigates us through looking, breath, proximity, the gesture of a spoken, written or drawn line, our maximized senses. In this meeting of Dis/Courses, we will depart from the spareness of the page and enter into a maximized space of the senses to generate a new, less verbal and more corporeal body on which to write. Using the line as a thread to navigate across mediums, we will trace the fault lines between language as written and language as gesture across disciplines of writing, drawing, speech, and movement. Incorporating the gesture of body and line we will explore the possibilities of language as it navigates us through gesture, looking, and writing. Working across the gesture of the body, the text, and the visual, we will maximize our senses. Together we’ll use ritual and poetry, dance and prayer to create an ecstatic act.
Our reading / looking / listening will include: Leonora Carrington, Sara Siestreem, Demian DinéYazhi’, John Berger, Rainer Maria Rilke, Etel Adnan, Anne Carson, Frida Kahlo, Gabrielle Civil, Renee Gladman, Emily Skillings, Trisha Brown, Clarice Lispector, Yvonne Rainer, and more…
This meeting is free and open. Participants are invited to RSVP in advance to receive a packet of readings and other material to begin the conversation. Reading in advance, however, is not be required, nor is any particular education background or expertise. Come, talk about poetry and possibility, teach, learn, share, and connect more deeply with The Poetry Project community.