Field Notes | The Art of Huddling

pc: Chris Humphreys

Art is a living shelter.

A 2019 outcome from a university Improvisation course outcome, The Art of Huddling was inspired by my son’s struggle with the challenges and misunderstandings of ADHD and his experiences in a private school. There was so much stress and anxiety that year as our son met resistance ​upon resistance to how he was wired.
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Focus was consistently given to how he did not fit into his school’s mold. I mean, the very notion of an educational philosophy that supports the thriving of all children, no matter how they are wired, manufactured ridiculous in this season of our lives. My response as a mother and as a maker was to create a dance piece for him; to visually show him that we could make place for him to thrive as a family and that I had confidence there were other professionals and laymen in our community that would join us. 
 
Improvisation is a dance form that is open to simple experiments of the ways in which the body moves or the depth and complexity of human relationship.  Kent De Spain calls it the fundamental relationship between intention and action. The original students were required to challenge their experiences of dance training to more fully embrace the body that God has created for them as a moving entity and as a vehicle of human connection and meaning to become more practiced at how we create in relationship to one another. 
 
We touch, we connect, we experiment, we empathize, we support, we make meaning, we create, we play. Is this not the way we process life in these bodies of ours? 
 
Image inspiration came from Simone Forti’s, Huddle, a dance sculpture where you could watch people climb and others support that climbing. If only we could all feel that space of being able to climb and feel that support. You'll find a link to Forti's work here. 
 
A quiet rebellion against individualism, The Art of Huddling is a commentary on the ways in which our society scraps to live in individualism when we were built for community. 

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Title:                                     The Art of Huddling
Improvisation Director:      Rachel Bruce Johnson
Original Dancers:                Valentina, Alvarez Gomes, Natasha Breon, Sequoyia Farr, 
                                               Corrie Hendrickson, Dru Myerson, Annalise Ousley, 
                                               Alyssa Robledo, Natalia Rodriguez, Ashten Urquhart, 
                                               Courtney Wright, Julianna Yap
Music:                                   Andrew Rothschild, Stephen Andrew Perez

Dedication:  To my son, Henry, you are stronger than you think; you are braver than you know, but when you are not, God is. ​