Lineage and Influences
Lineages
For Dr. Bingkun Hu
As a teacher, he continues to grow and shift, and his dedication to the practice of Wild Goose Qigong is in turn an inspiration to my own learning, teaching, and practice. Through him I learn vibrant facets of the changingness and open-systemed nature of our life force, our qi. Dr. Hu has spent hours with me generously sharing subtle details on the qualities of movement, of intention, of the experience of the sets of Wild Goose, and though I don’t always have the capacity to enact them all, they have been absorbed into my being, in perpetuity. This dedication to the form has grown tremendously through my study with Dr. Hu, and for this I thank him.
For Dennis Leri
His clarity, precision, depth, and research has been the foundation with which I understand the Feldenkrais Method, learning, and embodied research altogether. Through Dennis I was exposed to thinking and perspectives that brought movement and learning into the contexts of awareness, neurophenomenology, sense perceptions, Buddhist thought, hands-on practice, mathematics, and the mysterious and vast possibilities of connection through self organization. All of these threads and more formed the basis of his unique understanding of Feldenkrais via Semiophysics. This potency extends beyond his life through all of us who he reached. May he rest in revery.
For Joan Hanna
Joan, her vast and spacious relationship with environment and its pattern language is highly influential in my life. It offers a kind of loving generosity that has grown in my awareness over the decades. Health, the elegance of simplicity and space, that we are never-ever finished, the unfolding of process of life, wellness, pleasure, generosity, sharing, humor, connection, honesty, real talks, resonance, intergenerational friendship, dancing from where we are at. It was with Joan that I first learned I could eat a flower: borage. That we started Authentic talking. It was on the Hanna land that I most likely first accessed / understood a love of the Tao. Gentle heart connection, development, growth, and radical transformation - radical through s l o w.
For Karen Nelson
karen’s wild brilliant discovery being that uncovers new ground, that seems creative in every pore, every cell, her honesty, her capacity for courageous life actions, our tremendous collaborations over time, it’s a blessing. With karen I experience an ally, a friend, a teacher, a dancing inspiration. It is through her teaching that I was exposed to Tuning, that I deepened in my connection to the ground, awareness practice, to the radical power of gravity as a partner for dance and for Contact Imrpovisation. It is through her that a door opened into creative bohemian artistic life practices that was part of my inheritance and somehow occluded through the restrictions of culture, institutionalism, professionalism. With karen I experience a tremendous resonance that at once creates new ideas on the planet and sometimes vibrates at a frequency that reflects the challenges and frictions I experience in my own doing. I continue to find inspiration in the elements of her art and life.
For Lisa Nelson
Instantaneous affinity. A mosaic of scores embedded in life, environment, inquiry, sensation, patterning, labor of love of the multitudes. How a person could bring Tuning into the world is hard to image, and imagine we do. A life-long learning practice that has so many applications and streams into how one sees, how one enacts, that it has become an implicit layer, like the wallpaper or lens; and then at the same time, so many ways to explicate. To spend time with her for hours talking, ideas taking form, letting the minds meld, through to infinity. Being as land as perception as touch as atunement.
For Micheline Bogey
The experience of coming into Wild Goose qigong with Micheline was immediately accessing something felt simultaneously cosmic and home at the same time. I am forever grateful for the early experiences with the form, which I now understand to be filtered through her own unique signature, as the lineage has integrated through her body-being-in-practice. Micheline has a positive outlook and generosity that is forever a teacher, and I have learned so much from her over the decades. I thank Micheline for all that she have offered, and for how much she has shared with me in terms of the bounty of her life. Micheline is a huge influence, and I continue to learn from her through our studies, practice, and friendship.
For Steve Paxton
It’s remarkable how sometimes a person has a huge influence, but the nature of the material and the quality of that person is such that their influence becomes second nature. Coming into Contact Improvisation as a younger adult and then later to Material for the Spine has been foundational for the movement of my body-being, and to the capacities I have for intentional action, length, and technique, sensorially-based movement, and understanding of form. More recently, I have been amazed at how these tools have propelled me into language, that the elements of dance as instigated by Steve aligns with the act and practice of making theory, forming text, and their meanings. Steve is a part of Madbrook and the land is in the movement and the movement is of the land, inextricably enmeshed, and a direct inspiration for the possibilities of a life well-lived. It is such a joy, really, to tend to the sensing of the center as means to propel oneself into dancing. With much appreciation, here to honor Steve. What fortune I have been able to be around and with him over these years.
For Suprapto Suryodarmo (Prapto)
The Vivid Grove is inspired most intimately with the work of Amerta Movement and the land and center, Padepokan Lemah Putih. The way that Prapto has made a learning environment, - Lemah Putih, and the practice Joged Amerta - ones that are organic, multiplicitous, collectively understood, mobile and rooted, based in the garden and a village sense, these have been essential to how I understand the capacities of movement and the role of humans in nature-culture. How movement is connected to art, life, atmosphere and dialogue has expanded and shaped my artistry and teaching to a wildly expansive view. With Prapto, I have learned to access my own empty axis, to sense many levels of communication, and to experience true dialogue with others, neither from above nor below. With Amerta Movement, I have had the blessing of blossoming in regions and places I never imagined, with lessons along the way that have helps me grow in my own creative evolutions as part of a living breathing world.
The Embroidery / Felt / Constellations
For the folks and places around whom I have been surrounded and practiced over the last several decades
These people, places, and worlds have vibrated the inquiries of the vivid grove. They are an integral part of its many facets. Some I have met in person, others through reading. The influences range from cultural, energetic, bodily, ancestral, movement-wise, spatial, erotic, aesthetic, kin, and on, anon. So much so, they are the context and a part of how to understand this whole garden. If I omitted you, you are still felt. Thanks for time and presence; without which it would not be this:
A Hud. Abby Crain. adrienne maree brown. Agung Gunawan. Alia Swersky. Alice Tierstein. Amerta circulation. The ancestors. Angelina Baldoz. Arawana Hayashi. Aristotle’s Lyceum (grove). Asia Wong. bae laurel. Beth Ahlstrand. Beth Murray. Bhanu Kapil. Bill Basquin. Bill Seto. Dr. Bingkun Hu. The BodyCartography Project ~ Olive Bieringa and Otto Ramstad. Brigitte Morot. Bunny Roberts. Calvin Rocchio. Cara Judea Alhadeff and Zazu. Cathy Weis. Cave Coast Collective Continuum ~ Alex Cruse, AW, Chani Bockwinkel, crystal jiko sasaki, FR, Geana Sieburger, Isa Leal, JJ, Kevin CK Lo, Lara Durback, MP, Mollie Moorhead. Cave Hags. Chris Marker. d.k. pan. Daniel Lepkoff. David Scalzo. dd dorvilier. Denise Leto. Dennis Leri. DJ E-Race. DJ Kamikaze. Diana Cage. Dorothy Allison. Dos Rios Residency folk ~ Brianna, Chani, Elizabeth, Jacob, Jose, Layton, Lukaza, MP, Tati, SP, Tyler, Yetunde, Zulfi. E.E. Miller. Emelia Martinez Brumbaugh aka Jubilee July. Eleni Stecopoulos. Ellen Webb. Emily Nahmanson. Dr. Enoch Page. Erica Newton. Erika Mijlin. esco lacqua. Flavia Cymbalista. Florence Roberts. Frances Rosario. Francois Jullien. Francois Rabelais. Galanter-Rosenfeld family people, Gilles Marin. Gloria Azaldua. Gretchen Till. Gopi Krishna Sheldon and his beautiful family, Bi-Sek and Paloma. The Grove in Central Park. The Grove in Marina. Grand Central Studios and Jon Dixon. Gregory Bateson. Hana van der Kolk. Hanna Barn. HIJACK Dance ~ Arwen Wilder and Kristin Van Loon. Huey sisters ~ Rose and Zoe. Huichin, the Ohlone land where I sit right now. Ishmael Houston Jones. Jack Magai. James Kidd. Jennifer Monson. Jerald Walden. Jess Dorrance. Jessica Kenney. Joan and John Hanna. Joe Mejia and Revolu. Josiah Hincks. Julie Nathanielsz. Julie Tolentino. The Late Julius Ford and his dear family with Deborah and their kids. Justin Desmangles. Karen Nelson. Karen Schaffman. K. J. Holmes. Kadet Kuhne. Kathe Izzo. Katya Bloom. Keith Hennessy. Kirsten Funke. Kriti Sharma. Laura Sedlock. Lila Hurwitz. Great Aunt Lily. Lin Lucas. Linda P. Austin. Lisa Nelson. The Late Liu Ming and Da Yuan Circle. Luciana Achugar. Mara Poliak. marbles marbles jumbo radio. Marc Galanter. Marcia Scott. Margot Lystra. Marissa Perel. Mary Peterson. Matthew Shyka. Matthew Sperry. Maureen Whiting. mayfield brooks. Maxe Crandall. Meg Wolfe. Melinda Buckwalter. Micah Silver. Micheline Bogey. Miguel Gutierrez. Morgan Thorson. Motor ~ Elisabeth Reed and Song Nelson. Neil Marcus. Niki Ford. Oakland Summer School. Padepokan Lemah Putih. Pak Heru. Panca Daya and all the teachers, of course, especially Rully. Patti Roberts. Paul Hoskin. Pearl Ubungen. Philip Huang. Prosodic Body ~ Daria Fain and Robert Kocik. Ralph Lemon. Randy Reyes. Ray Chung. Ryder Cooley. Sakura Shimada. SALTA Dance. Sabuk Janur. Saida Desilets. Samuel Ace. Sandra Reeve. Sara Ahmed. Scott Smith. Seth Eisen. Sheri Cohen. Sherwood Chen. Simone Forti. SLMJ ~ Sally Dea, Lily Kiara, JN. Stephanie Skura. Steve Paxton. Suprapto Suryodarmo (Prapto) Temescal Arts Center ~ Dance Elixir, and Leyya Tawil. Tanya Stiller. Tessa Wills. Tony. Trees, stone, ocean and waters. Tuners far and wide. Una Nicholson. Valley Space in Oakland, Huichin. Violet Ace Harlo. My gentle mother, Wynne Galanter.
and so many more…..
Site Support
the vivid grove website was created through the support of many hands. Calvin Rocchio, designer, and one part of Companion-Platform; Mara Poliak, letter drawings and vivid grove mer-troll extraordinaire; Emelia Martinez Brumbaugh aka Jubilee July overview and vivid grove consulting; Amy Walsh - Bureau of Tactical Imagination, visual narrative consulting; Allison Wyper - Rhizomatic Arts, early design consultation; Emily Nahmanson, technical support; and Asimina Chremos, explicator.
It truly takes a village.
Honoring this place today, here on golden land, Huichin, as a settler-guest on stolen Indigenous land. Feeling the wind, sun, the bay, stones, and trees, the bay trees, the oaks, the root and roof, earth and sky.
