intimate encounter with a robot
On Friday night I "went" to the performance, A Thousand Ways: Part I, created by the theater company 600 HIGHWAYMEN, out of On The Boards in Seattle, WA.
In the age of Covid, this meant calling a specified phone number from the comfort of my home here in Colorado, being connected to another human — whose name I never learned, somewhere in the world— where we were then guided through a highly curated conversation for the next hour by an automated robot
(I think it was a robot…though someone pointed out maybe it wasn’t a robot…maybe it was an actual person acting like a robot...).
It was kinda meh at first, but then slowly and over the next hour it became a highly focused and unexpectedly engaging experience.
I was “A", and the person on the other end of the line was “B”. The robot was the intermediary between us.
The robot would say things like, "A, trace your left eyebrow with your right pointer finger while repeating back what B just said to you about the room they are in." Or, “Both of you find your pulse. Got it? Good, now one at a time, name all the women in your family line," Or, “B, are there any farmers in your family? A, have you ever held a gun?" Or, "Turn off all the lights in your house and sit with each other without saying anything for 2 minutes."
Or, “Touch your cheek. Your throat. Now your heart. Look at your hands.”
Throughout, the robot would say poetic things about fragments, or language never being enough, or how easy it is to say hello and then good bye.
Toward the end of the call, the robot said, “A, what will you remember about B?”
“Counting the stars with her,”
because at one point, we went outside with our phones and counted the stars together — not in a linear way, because who can count stars like that, but randomly, kinda like
“I see 1, 2, 3, no 8, 5, 23, 103, 384 — I mean 385, 47…I see 47 stars.
I see thousands."
B said that she'd remember my voice, “A’s voice sounded like my best friend’s voice, so I felt like I was talking to my best friend,”
Immediately after B said that, the robot said, “Okay, well…good-bye.”
And then we were disconnected from each other, and that was it.
Weirdly heartbreaking, and barely out of reach.
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On Saturday, I taught an all day Dog Dance Workshop and oh it was so yummy. The expanse of time to drop in and find the dance, then follow that dance, for hours.
I fell in love with dancing, as I tend to fall in love with dancing, as if I’ve never known dancing.
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I keep forgetting to tell you:
The Sky Inside, the dance film my class and I made last year, received Honorable Mention from the Experimental Forum which just feels, well….really good.
Thank you to all who donated, supported, helped, listened, spent time, and were there to make it possible for this film to be. I remember that time with you all so fondly.
~
I imagine you are registered to vote — all set and good to go on that front?
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Speaking of, I read Letters from An American by historian Heather Cox Richardson every morning, and she reminded us recently, that:
“…ordinary Americans have a crucial role to play in this moment. It is up to us to reject Trump's fictions and reclaim the national conversation from the anger and hatred and fear Trump is stoking. It is time to reassert our core American values so they dominate the public realm, demanding of our representatives a free and fair vote for everyone, a free and fair vote count, and a government of our own choosing.”
We, the people get to decide how this plays out -- as I know you know -- through our voting, our giving, our speaking, our learning, our engaging.
Also our resting.
I love that about Ms. Richardson's newsletters. She’ll say sometimes, “And now it’s time to rest.”
I feel better and a bit okay after reading her words. Still wary — who isn’t — but trying to do everything I can to be part of the people power she is talking about.
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Which brings to me to our fundraising.
As I mentioned before, I'm in the midst of a 6 month training about community organizing (which, I just learned, is different than community mobilizing). Our director, S. Juliette Lee, calls the work we are doing, “mushroom work” — pretty much never seen, but essential to growing the social and racial justice mycelium of our world as we work toward the collective liberation of all.
So that’s what I’m doing when I’m not dancing, teaching, working in the prisons, and writing weird poetry that I keep hidden under my bed — I”m learning about fundraising.
I’ll keep you posted seekers.
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How 'bout a dance mission to end?
Put your hand on your cheek.
Let it rest there for a full minute.
Then put your hand on your throat.
Over your left eye.
Now your heart.
Feel for your pulse.
Got it?
Notice your breath as you also notice your pulse.
If you can see the stars, see the stars.
If you want to and it feels right, take a moment right now, too dance.
Standing with you in love and solidarity,
joanna