without fear of appearing foolish
Dance is not a familiar art form to me. But I found myself on Deborah Hay’s website where I ran across these statements. I like to try to apply them to poetics, whether performed or on the page. (Is lying there on the page a type of performance?)
_Your ability to laugh at your serious intentions at any given moment is a tool you like to remember to use.
_You have explored “self-expression” and found it limiting as a means to create performance continuity.
_You are drawn to explore movement in all its variety – either through a cultivated or ingrained absence of discrimination.
_You are not content with partial practice.
_You want your process to be continually challenged.
_Your respect for the intelligence of your whole body is unqualified.
_In performance, your non-attachment to professional training in dance or techniques in acting is a source of on-going insight, and delight.
_You are without fear of appearing foolish in your capacity to violate form in order to recognize where and why it exists.
_Integral to your experience of performance is an inclusive regard for the presence of your audience.
_You are becoming or already are skilled at monitoring your own performance.
What this means is you have developed a capacity to witness yourself from more than one perspective at once, not as a judge but a guide in the practice of attention.