This is how I know a deadline is quickly approaching:

1. People are buying tickets.

2. I have a nightmare about the piece.  Last night I had a nightmare about it.  In it, I get lost outside of Spacetaker (the event venue) while all of the viewers are trapped inside watching the film.  When I finally make my way back to the entrance, they are exiting Spacetaker and each give me one of the phrases I say to people whose work I not particularly a fan of.  You know those things you say when you want to say something encouraging or positive, but can’t quite bring yourself to fully lie?  It was that, 100x.

So….yup.  It’s the final stretch.  And now that I’m awake and watching what I’ve made, I don’t think the nightmare will be a reality, but I’ll keep having those nightmares until Oct. 14.  It’s just part of my process, I guess.

Oh yeah, and there is limited seating, so please do get your tickets early.  If you’ve been with us all along as we’ve blogged this journey, you deserve to see the final product!  www.framedance.org/boxoffice.

Can you put these in the correct order in which this moment occurred?

Photography by Lorie Garcia, Studio 4d4.

You’ve been reading a lot of fine words and seeing some beautiful still images of LOVE ME. How about a moving refresher?

Reminder: get your tickets at www.framedance.org/boxoffice.

Below are images from past shows, rehearsals and films. I’ve tried to stump you. Name the piece that the picture came from. For the final image, name the location of its premiere. First person to do this correctly will be entered to win a pair of tickets to Framing Bodies: LOVE ME and an enthusiastic cheer as you enter the building. The drawing will happen the week before the show.

Last night we filmed. It was like learning to drive a standard shift automobile, except better than that. It was like learning to drive your big brother’s standard Mustang on a hot summer day with the windows down and loud boy music playing. Not that we had music last night. We were music. The way we were music when we learned to drive, and we could get into the car and turn on the radio and drive off a long way from home being free. Not that we were free. Lydia was in charge of us and she kept saying things I couldn’t understand, and I kept asking the nearest trained dancer to translate it. “We rehearsed it. Remember? I did this. You did that.” Oh yeah. It was fun. It was a game. It was play. After I got home all sweaty I didn’t want to take a shower the way you don’t want to take a shower after really fun lovemaking. You want to leave your sweat on because it’s sweet. When I got up today I put on my old hippie music and danced some more, and sweated, and thought about people dancing at Woodstock and how they wanted to change the world. I thought about Woodstock because I’m old enough to be Lydia’s mom, and the thing is; it’s not the music that never gets old: it’s the dancer, because there is an inevitable joy in the body. It’s what the body knows about what you really want to do: dance like nobody’s watching. Right?

This is what Lydia taught me last night. In rehearsals she taught me that a gesture is older than a word; the way a smile is truer than what is said. She would give a writing prompt and then ask us to isolate the parts the jumped off the page at us and then walk around the room softly saying those words until our bodies knew what movements were in our words. Doing that is profound. It drove my voice down deep into my body and gave me goose bumps. Then she took the words away, and I was left with only the gestures, and then the gestures told me another story than the one I began with. If my original gestures were for shame then eventually my body would lead me towards gestures for release. Not that my body wanted a happy ending. It was just that my body knows what to do with shame, and my words don’t really know how to undo shame with an idea. It was a healing process. It is something very old.

Get your tickets at framedance.org/boxoffice.

Lydia Hance is a recipient of an Individual Artist Grant Award. This grant is funded by the City of Houston through Houston Arts Alliance.  Frame Dance Productions’ Framing Bodies is  funded in part by the Puffin Foundation.  Frame Dance Productions is a recipient of a Rice University Dance Program Space Grant.

Not to worry…it’s anonymous. And what’s so wrong about having an opinion, anyway? Check back next week for the results.

recommends Third Coast Dance Film Festival! Check it out here.  And check it out tonight!  or tomorrow…7pm, free, Rice University Cinema.

The project…
Framing Bodies: LOVE ME
I remember reading the title in Lydia’s first email, and I didn’t really linger there long on what the name was because I wanted to get to what the project was actually about. I wanted to find out what the meat of the project was going to be about. As I kept reading Lydia’s description of the project, little preconceptions just started popping up here and there in my mind about love, trust, openness, love, loving, vulnerability, my twin, love, twin-love…..all these thoughts about love…

And all these little thoughts stemming from that LOVE ME title that I tried to read over so quickly in the beginning.

They were not well rounded thoughts one way or another, per say, on these split second thought interruptions as I was reading Lydia’s email. However, these interruptions just kept rolling forward and building and peaking my interest more and more. I was so “in” the project before I even finished reading the whole email, and in my mind I had already signed my twin Cassie up for it too! (Cassie didn’t even know that yet!)

With no other better way of putting it…It just felt right to do this project right now. It was right, and it was right now. Now was the time. This time in life. And with these people.

Throughout our rehearsal process, the project has me journaling on several topics, questions, and personal theories that tend to fascinate me…and in some instances tire me out. The tiring out part comes from an overload of thought or focus on a question I propose. And I have a lot of questions in life. The fascination part comes from my inclination to think. I really tend to keep my mind working, whether I’m trying to or not. So when Lydia then asks us to share all these personal thoughts about certain writing prompts, it really felt like a lot was being asked of me. I felt mentally exhausted a couple of times after rehearsal. Nothing too dramatic, but it was definitely utilizing all of my being to engage in this project. The mind is such a powerful tool. It really is one of our greatest gifts as individuals. And this project put together all these unique minds, and bodies, in one space at the same time…and I’m most interested in what the next step reveals.

Get your tickets at framedance.org/boxoffice.

Lydia Hance is a recipient of an Individual Artist Grant Award. This grant is funded by the City of Houston through Houston Arts Alliance.  Frame Dance Productions’ Framing Bodies is  funded in part by the Puffin Foundation.  Frame Dance Productions is a recipient of a Rice University Dance Program Space Grant.