Radiohead's I Will is a song that comes up in this exploration voice/movement juncture. It felt apt particularly during this long lockdown in Melbourne.

I set a task to explore the voice/movement juncture – what kind of attention or timing between movement, breath and utterance. One useful strategy is to delay the impulse until the field of attention is thickened. The lyrics and movement co-exist: movement can corroborate the lyrics or negate from its meaning. Delaying impulse allows me some time to sequence the action: to follow the impulse or leave it alone.

Having been dancing outside the studio for more than 5 months, the studio is no longer a default setting in my practice. While exploring the granularity of jo-ha-kyū, ​being outside in open environment, I needed to choose sensory inputs to work with. I used a strategy of 'attentive waiting' to allow my body to take in various stimulus and see where the field of attention landed and became thickened.​​

While waiting attentively, I noticed many things that were apparent as well as surprising to me.  What was apparent was the presence of the gum trees as I always look up to their branches to see if any of them are endangering of falling down. The surprising were that I noticed the minuscule organisms that live in my small backyard – grass pushing up the brick pavement, weeds of all sizes and shapes, bees, wasps worms and other strange creatures I don't know.

Can attentive waiting be performative – a genuine choreographic material – a moment in which there is nothing is needed to fill?

Suddenly, Victoria was in Stage 4 lockdown as the second wave of COVID-19 hit us with 700+ new infection cases per day. My studio bookings are cancelled and we had 'Zoom fatigue' from May – July period. While Janette and I were in regular contact, I continued to work on my perceptual tools. I turned my attention to granular movement, real or virtual.  Without having to confined my space to the Zoom camera, I ventured out to practice at various spaces in my house including the beloved backyard, living room and bedroom.

Once outside, the perceptual tools openned up to ferocious sensory inputs – the two majestic gum trees, a small field of peppermint I grow, other plants and small aminmals.  I felt there was no need for music as sound in open environment was already so rich that I had to make an effort to discern what sound I could relate to.

The small image gallery on the left shows a collection of studio notes and elements in my improvisation practice, along with drawings approximating my improvisations. 

Janette: ​I was wondering what excites me about texture that inspires me to dance?  Something that gives a sense of impermanence. There is something about memory and time that comes into play; also, the physical tactile and texture that triggers my memory. I see memory as a part of texture in my mind – the crossover between texture, time and memory. 

Naree: ...what struck me the most was the crawling of the hands, I felt what I took from watching you wasn’t explicit things that you did – not the hands. When it was my turn to do the second improv, my body was as if we are chatting and something suddenly popped up in my head and I wanted to tell you something. So, I told you about the chef (Josh Niland) who treats fish with respect and uses 90% of any fish he has in his kitchen. 

Naree: To me, your first improv was your jo——it's as if you just got started——and it has its own arc too. In the second one, you went full-bodied, grounded, stretched. The particular quality of the first improv permeated deeper in your body in the second one.

I carried that quality in your second improv into my third improv. I don’t know where the voice came from – I guess it’s from a breath, the viscerality I simulated from you.

​

Janette: My second improv also carried through with what you did, which was the percussive hands on the ground, the noise, the surface created the meeting point with hands. I felt it occurring in my body. Perhaps one of the things I took from your improv is a sort of rhythmic information by absorption, not really formulating too much. It was just – I’m looking, I’m watching, I’m listening.