Friday, March 22, 2013

Nia for Parkinsons/Urban Bush Women

My artists in residence at the JCC this year are Urban Bush Women and Liz Lerman, who are collaborating on a dance piece about wealth and poverty in the US, and the ways these things are physicalized and embodied. Their work is fascinating and brilliant, and if you are near NYC, you might want to come see it. But the other thing going on during this residency is that two members of Urban Bush Women are working the the JCC's Nia for Parkinson's group, and creating a collaborative dance work about the wealth and poverty in the bodies and souls of people who have Parkinson's disease. I've been going to these collaborative workshops, and participating along with, and listening to, the people who have Parkinson's. It's been wonderful to be in that space, and to move my body, and to experience Nia, and to feel my own stiffness and my own expansion and my own body moving in the space with other people who were moving their bodies in the space. I just felt very connected to the other people in the room—everyone—and remembered that there is very little difference among us, really. Which is a simple yet beautiful thing to remember.

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