11/12/24

Time for most of us is a driving force even though we are always trying to catch up. I for one find my relation to time to be pivotal. Having been described as a time-oriented person to “get things done” is a compliment I feel. Invoking a sense of reliability. It also means tethered and perhaps inflexible. In a production meeting, Pramila offered us a reflection of equilibrium, to practice our relation to others by finding ways to take care of ourselves. I remember coming from a previous work into that meeting and being very focused, present for the work. Meeting one on one with Pramila I admitted there is space for that modality from me, but there is also a need to slow down. This writing reflection is my modality. An active pause, to witness and pour out.

12/09/24

As of today, I have not sat through a full run of the show. My other duties require me to be attentive to the land and not just the performance area. There is tension in this present observational glimpse of the work with the potential or historical embedded relation I’ve had with Pramila. I know the possibility, but the reality is otherwise. This “Reflections” series is pre-faced with “Each dance is different. Each reflection is different.” So I remind myself of this state in relation to Plantulary to be true despite my own tension of not witnessing the whole. Just because you plant a seed and know it can grow, does not mean it will. All the watering, light, and time you offer, you still have to remember it is its own life force. Slow down. Listen. Observe. These elements appear in this work as reminders.

12/09/2024

I enter Red Eye again with the intent to reflect with Pramila. As she gets ready, I pull out two clementines as a snack and start to peel off the outer skin. My fingernails press into the orange exterior and I work my way around to remove it in one strip. Enough so that if I were to reform just the skin without the fruit it would still have a spherical shape. I repeat with the second one. 

I ask Pramila how she slept and she says just fine compared to Saturday. She notes the sound elements are loud at night. Her mind considers how to continue invigorating life into the mostly improved score of the performers. How to acknowledge patterns and how to shift them. Patterns, in the realm of habit, but I also wonder about the geometric patterns of the space itself. I ask Pramila on the decision of these geometric lines by the grow lights and the hanging plant hives in specific. Visually they draw the eye in and logistically there is an element of precision, mathematics. A contrast to the world of nature in my mind. Pramila points out the negotiation of the outside and inside landscape. Where the lines of buildings meet concrete slabs on the floor, or bricks are stacked on top of each other, and where plant life emerges in between cracks. Further is the relation of the sun shining inside a room, painting and highlighting existing shapes on a wall and then distorting them as the sun begins to set. These observations of light, lines, and time are easily held in a sundial. An inspiration for the visuals installed at Red Eye. A container for elements, a border for ideas, and a playing field for life force to move through.

Pramila points out the learning that has occurred. From shifting the angle of which the plant hives are in relation to north (the corner of the room, “centering” the performance stage) to the biodome inside the space itself (plants in the east side of the stage are thriving more than those in the west). The plant hives themselves are growing life and only in the re-layering occurring between performances do the outer layers of the hives fall to reveal the lush green life hidden from our eyes. Pramila has listened and felt the moisture levels be high as much as they have dried out. Bags, misting, saran wrap are used to help retain moisture in the dry space. As Pramila notes, there is truth happening. In each observation from performers, personnel, or audience members these plants are a testament of life force in their respective stage. The performance itself leans into this occurrence and is returned. Today for instance, I see how Jeffrey’s bean sprouts have flown in performance or placed intentionally on the plant bed and now they are sprouting. In this line of truth, I ask Pramila if she has imagined what “winter” in this piece would have looked like. She tells me she hasn’t thought of it. The solstice begins December 21st and this work began to materialize in April of 2023. So the process has never and will not exist during winter. 

Through and through the idea of interconnectivity is the foundation of “Plantulary”. Of course there is tension, but only at the forefront when there is no active listening happening. “Vibration is the connection between all of it, between life and death.”, Pramila tells me. Vibration felt by plant life, but also our own internal vibrations; of our hearts, our pulses, our energy moving us through life. Independently and together. I hear Pramila speak and I also let my mind wander to those ideas of mathematics, geometry, and precision. Of course these things also exist in nature. Pramila and the “planties” (performers) observed the occurrence of numbers during their plant walks. I vaguely remember the possible origin of numbers and mathematics to have already existed in nature and come into fruition and into language because of these same observations. Then shortly, made into figures we now use every day. “Plantulary” is a connected world to that history, living now. 

As Pramila and I close this reflection, we know there are more things to do in this work. A big part of that is clearing out the space. For me is this continued image of life emerging from the cracks of this space, no longer cement from the outside, but wood from the sprung floor. An inopportune thing for future performers in the space, but what if? I pick up the skins of my clementine and just as quickly Pramila offers her hand for me to pass them on. We may know their future, but the gesture speaks of this connection we have formed in working together. I am grateful and still learning to connect with one life force to another.