Monthly Movement - August 2024
Reconciling with the past to press on to the future.
I’m late. I knew I would be and I truthfully wrote most of this last week and just couldn’t get to the loose ends until today with the found time from last minute canceling our last-minute backpacking trip.
It’s not the in-depth and well-tailored update I wanted to hold myself to the standard of, but the standard was also to just keep this up – so bare minimum it is.
I don’t particularly enjoy the notion of catching up.
“How’s it going? What’s new?”
“Everything and nothing” has been my go-to answer as of late. I don’t mean for it to sound dismissive of the others’ curiosities, I’m just unsure of if the details are new or just delayed.
In August, I had the immense privilege of photographing two of my college friends’ wedding back in Salt Lake City. It was an immensely beautiful celebration, accompanied by so much love and saturated in dance. I reveled in how many hugs I received between photos. Hugs are a love language lost to the pandemic and my cross-country move and I don’t think much of it till I’m back in the embrace of friends.
I built in buffer time to make for cheaper airfare and to spend time with people I’ve mostly only seen in passing on past returns. The time was sweet, the company was so needed, and I couldn’t wait to leave.
The inner conflict was torture, adoring time with the people while feeling so at odds with the place. I left with a very held heart and comfort that the cards have fallen where they needed when we moved our lives to Richmond. In some way, I think I just wish the return didn’t require “catching up” but there’s always too much change to pick up where we left off.
Funny how everyone there knew me as a dancer, and everyone here is only now finding out. Parts of myself seemingly fragmented in space and time and August was the month of trying to string them all back together.
Now I’m still reliving it as I keep editing through the gallery. Weddings are an extensive labor of love for love.
I’ve begun my first semester teaching Screendance at Virginia Commonwealth University. While my teaching methods are still being teased out, I feel the most sense of purpose to date. That MFA craving has stuck around longer than usual. Now if I could just find the time – err courage – to apply.
Maybe the greatest [read: only] benefit of the adjunct pay is having access to space again. So, on September 1st, I took myself back into the studio for some solo movement research. The muscle memory through string theories and mental mapping was still there, residuals of the theorizing that never dared to leave my mind. But the body, it’s trying to remember more than the thread. In some gentle video self-critiquing, I took note of what’s been lost over the years: kinnesmphere, completion, something about my traps and cervical spine not being accessed. The old self was there, it was just stale. Or rather…
Freezer burned.
So I’ll be brushing off the crystals and hoping that what’s left is worth saving once thawed out.
Monthly Flavors
Watching: So much screen dance that I need your recommendations to expand upon. I’m supposed to be curating an evening of films later in September and I’d truly love your films or recommendations. This is screen dance specific and requires attendance by all the dance majors.
Podcasts: There is so much talk about the value of higher education all the while I have a bulky folder of tabs on my desktop called “grad school” as I feel more and more inclined to pursue my MFA. This episode from Freakonomics about the financial institutions and resulting admissions of colleges in the United States is here to simply taunt me.
Cooking: I made my partner a cheesecake for his birthday and improvised a strawberry chia topping which I’ve tried to share from memory below. I wish I could complain about its week-long presence in our fridge since we didn’t share but it may have also gotten me through the end of the month.
Ingredients
About half a carton of fresh strawberries
One lemon juiced
A little sugar to your liking (about 1-2 TBS)
Chia seeds to your liking (about 1 TBS)
Instructions
Put strawberries and lemon juice in a small sauce pan. Heat on med-low while stirring until strawberries soften.
Mash strawberries (a potato masher works great) and then add in sugar. Continue mixing until its well mixed and is nearly simmering.
Pour into a canning jar and add chia seed. Stir well. Put on lid, and refrigerate until needed to spoon over or eat by the spoonful.
Stuff: I don’t intend to tell you to buy stuff but sometimes there is that one thing you do in fact just want to rave about. Nothing here is sponsored.
I haven’t been “perceived” at work in years now so I may have had an identity crisis about my wardrobe before my first day of class. Typically, I dress a bit too much like a student myself I fear. Mostly, I needed some teacher shoes that would never be taken on a camping trip. I got myself some of the Doc Marten clogs on a recent sale. As promised, they’re taking their time being broken in but I at least feel like I have something a little more polished than my beaten-up and very loved Blundstones that should last just as long.
In the same vein and aiming to stay true to what little personal style I have, I’ve been pulling out an oversized linen short-sleeve button-down from Eileen Fisher I got from an outlet store in Vermont a few years ago. I feel like I’m channeling my inner Joan Woodbury (IYKYK) whose broach I was gifted by her family after she passed last year comes with me to class on my backpack. A dance educator legend, a dear mentor, and arguably even more-so family.
Everyone told me it’s ok if I wear a hat to teach, thank god because I’m naked without one. That said, I’m looking for the perfect two-tone cream and black hat to add to my collection to be a “nicer” ball cap. Or if anyone knows where I can still find this hat from Sci-Fi Fantasy, I need it.
Thank you for reading, if you made it this far. I had hoped to get some other drafts worked through before the end of the month but alas, I barely got myself out of draft mode. More to come. I swear.
Written by Tori Duhaime, photographer and movement artists