The Launch

As movement and the body have been the big topics in my personal exploration recently, I find myself thinking about projection into movement. The launch. The moment when mind, body, and spirit collectively thrust into motion. Before the launch, there must also be an ability to reach working stasis, an alive stillness, breathing and beating, silently preparing for the moment of movement. 

Dancer Francesca Harper said, "The idea of launching your body back, without seeing, is liberating but also terrifying." The launch takes great strength and coordination. It also takes great vulnerability to trust your body in space. Pina's words, "Your fragility is also your strength", are especially relevant. 

I look at this sculpture and observe first a beautiful opening of the heart, generous trust of what is within and what is without. To open up the heart and expose it so fully is to both absorb and give at once. The extension and connection from torso to hips to legs, from fingertips to toes exhibits an aliveness, a working together of the body, and again a trust, this time of the mechanics of the body itself. 

In a time of transition as now, I feel myself aligning for the launch. My nerves exposed, a firing pulse just under the surface of every centimeter of skin. And I think Harper is right. In a launch, in true trust, there is a certain terror. There is something to relinquishing control, taking up space and opening to the unknown, the unseen, and launching anyway.