let the countdown begin
so grateful to be a part of their young dancing lives
Canadian Contemporary Dance Theatre.
Read about their upcoming NYC debut here
abundant love in no particular order
settlers thank you
I learnt these words from Brandy Leary of Anandam Dancetheatre, she learnt them from Aimée Dawn Robinson. Aimée's latest work can be found here. I think these words are very important:
"We wish to acknowledge the traditional territories of the Anishnaabe, the Mississauga’s of the New Credit, the Haudenosaunee, the Huron-Wendat, the Cree and any other Nations who cared for the land (acknowledged or unacknowledged, recorded or unrecorded). Thank you for hosting this performance on your land."
hindsight is an asshole
“We all have the potential to fall in love a thousand times in our lifetime. It’s easy. The first girl I ever loved was someone I knew in sixth grade. Her name was Missy; we talked about horses. The last girl I love will be someone I haven’t even met yet, probably. They all count. But there are certain people you love who do something else; they define how you classify what love is supposed to feel like. These are the most important people in your life, and you’ll meet maybe four or five of these people over the span of 80 years. But there’s still one more tier to all this; there is always one person you love who becomes that definition. It usually happens retrospectively, but it happens eventually. This is the person who unknowingly sets the template for what you will always love about other people, even if some of these loveable qualities are self-destructive and unreasonable. The person who defines your understanding of love is not inherently different than anyone else, and they’re often just the person you happen to meet the first time you really, really, want to love someone. But that person still wins. They win, and you lose. Because for the rest of your life, they will control how you feel about everyone else.”
I have been given many gifts, most recently the gift of grief. I’ve been able to study it up close, its movements, its desperation, its disarmament. How it makes feet shuffle, chins drop, heads shake. How it holds breath, and stops time, stops light. How it covers us in fog and leads hands to hands, heads to shoulders. How it steals sleep. How we learn to breathe again, an unconscious breath, and find comfort in places we hoped would remain unfamiliar. How we laugh, when there should be no laughter. How everything tightens, and upon release, there is guilt. How the world sways from side to side and we follow, without question. How we do, we just do, through blurry eyes...
And how we still find love.
-- n.nigro (2015)
Ford Advantage, Nicole Nigro, Ponderosa Movement & Discovery, Stolzenhagen , Germany. Documentation: Tessa Kate Broadby
forced weight
we carry them with us
and in turn they carry our pasts
our years of experiences held in their palms
weighting our futures
painting our present
written on our bodies and smothering theirs
can you love me while you're holding those i loved before you?
-- n.nigro (2015)
unexpected gifts. uninhibited gratitude.
Robert Montgomery and his page at Artsy
happy international dance day
“I love being horribly straightforward. I love sending reckless text messages (because how reckless can a form of digitized communication be?) and telling people I love them and telling people they are absolutely magical humans and I cannot believe they really exist. I love saying, Kiss me harder, and You’re a good person, and, You brighten my day. I live my life as straight-forward as possible.
Because one day, I might get hit by a bus.
Maybe it’s weird. Maybe it’s scary. Maybe it seems downright impossible to just be—to just let people know you want them, need them, feel like, in this very moment, you will die if you do not see them, hold them, touch them in some way whether its your feet on their thighs on the couch or your tongue in their mouth or your heart in their hands.
But there is nothing more beautiful than being desperate.
And there is nothing more risky than pretending not to care.
We are young and we are human and we are beautiful and we are not as in control as we think we are. We never know who needs us back. We never know the magic that can arise between ourselves and other humans.
We never know when the bus is coming.”
—Rachel C. Lewis
and just like that it swallowed me whole.
-- n.nigro (2015)
algonquin national park 2015
no why. just here. -- john cage
"In the end, only three things matter: how much you loved, how gently you lived, and how gracefully you let go of the things not meant for you." -- Jack Kornfield
Canadian Rockies
"You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.”
-- Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit
"I’ve been thinking about the possibility of dance being a fundamental human experience..."
I have the fortune of spending time in the studio with some pretty incredible minds. Daryl Vocat is no exception; an artist, writer, thinker, mover, and generous human being. I am honoured to have a little shout-out in his latest article.
"There is the idea in class that now is the time, more than ever, to try things, to fail and learn from those failures without judging them."
-- Daryl Vocat
you've got what it takes to save the world
why are you searching for our smiles
when you are the ones that stole them
from our bellies
and put them in the palms of your hands?
-- n.nigro (2015)
niagara, roma, terento, brunico, bressanone, dolomiti, verona, arezzo, innsbruck ❤
FERGUSON, MISSOURI
This is for the kids who die,
Black and white,
For kids will die certainly.
The old and rich will live on awhile,
As always,
Eating blood and gold,
Letting kids die.
Kids will die in the swamps of Mississippi
Organizing sharecroppers
Kids will die in the streets of Chicago
Organizing workers
Kids will die in the orange groves of California
Telling others to get together
Whites and Filipinos,
Negroes and Mexicans,
All kinds of kids will die
Who don’t believe in lies, and bribes, and contentment
And a lousy peace.
Of course, the wise and the learned
Who pen editorials in the papers,
And the gentlemen with Dr. in front of their names
White and black,
Who make surveys and write books
Will live on weaving words to smother the kids who die,
And the sleazy courts,
And the bribe-reaching police,
And the blood-loving generals,
And the money-loving preachers
Will all raise their hands against the kids who die,
Beating them with laws and clubs and bayonets and bullets
To frighten the people—
For the kids who die are like iron in the blood of the people—
And the old and rich don’t want the people
To taste the iron of the kids who die,
Don’t want the people to get wise to their own power,
To believe an Angelo Herndon, or even get together
Listen, kids who die—
Maybe, now, there will be no monument for you
Except in our hearts
Maybe your bodies’ll be lost in a swamp
Or a prison grave, or the potter’s field,
Or the rivers where you’re drowned like Leibknecht
But the day will come—
You are sure yourselves that it is coming—
When the marching feet of the masses
Will raise for you a living monument of love,
And joy, and laughter,
And black hands and white hands clasped as one,
And a song that reaches the sky—
The song of the life triumphant
Through the kids who die.
-- Langston Hughes
A SYSTEM CANNOT FAIL THOSE IT WAS NEVER BUILT TO PROTECT.
REST IN PEACE MICHAEL BROWN, and ERIC GARNER, NICHOLAS HEYWARD JR., AMADOU DIALLO, MALCOM FERGUSON, PATRICK MOSES DORISMOND, OUSMANE ZONGO, TIM STANSBURY, SEAN BELL, RAMARLEY GRAHAM, TAMON ROBINSON, KIMANI GRAY. BLACK LIVES MATTER.
