inside me

inside me there is
air
spit
chocolate
shit
bananas…

inside me there is
music
voices
noises
secrets
my secrets
other people's secrets…

inside me there is
madness
demons
songs
fantasy
rhythm
a famous actor…

inside me there is
bacteria
chewing gum
bitten nails
cigarette ash and smoke…

inside me there is
poetry
words
a library
photographs
my mum and dad and friends…

inside me there is
maps
history
an old man
dead people…

inside me there is
tomorrow
a template
my unborn children
the unborn children of my unborn children…

inside me there is
a snake charmer
a shaman
a faith healer
a rhymer
a pied piper

a plain speaker
a layman
a messenger
a muse

a joker
an angel
a ballerina
a soothsayer
a dragon slayer

a potholer
a rock climber
a salt miner
a plate spinner
a fire starter

inside me there is
Babel
buckets
oceans
a creel of fish
a cathedral
pigeons
a tunnel
kittens
the future
a field of red tulips
the stars
the Louvre
the planets
the stars…

Photo: Keith Pomakis

inside me by J.M.

i died today

Image: Glen Van Etten
Sugar skulls and marigold flowers on:
The Day of the Dead, Mexico

Actually, I was meant to have died yesterday! Or the weekend. But, nonetheless, I was - apparently - dead.

I spent the weekend away with family, catching up with friends, writing and planning.

When I got off the plane at midday I received a call from an old work colleague who had heard that I had died: that I was dead. If I was dead, why were they phoning me? I wouldn't have been able to answer! But I wasn't dead, so, perhaps this was, actually, quite a good thing: to be calling...

We caught up, and laughed a lot at the rumour that had spread that I was dead. But I wasn't! How did this happen? Who first thought that I was dead and then said that I was dead.

I received another call later in the afternoon, from another colleague, wanting to talk to the dead. But there was no dead. I wasn't dead!

I had fantasies throughout the day about being on the front cover of the paper with a 'dead' headline; and then another headline the following day with a 'live' one; it could have resulted in a national / international story!

I am posting about it because the experience throughout the day was a very curious one: as a consequence, I spent most of the day outside my body; I couldn't be in it because I - it - was supposed to be dead / in-active. It all relates very directly to our outside / inside theatre piece we have been working on.

I had a great day, really: I wasn't dead any more...

I made a great peace in the day: and am very happy at having made that peace.

But it's not so much the being dead but the dying - the process of dying - that perhaps holds fear.

I am not dead.

This blog entry would take on profound significance were I to die - and be dead - in the next couple of days.

I am not dead.

But: a starting point for a new piece of theatre on body and dead: i died today...

Breathing with Bare Bones

'Breathing' with BareBones on Monday evening with both Robert Bell, Robert Clark (pictured above) and members of the JAC youtheatre was an inspiration re: outside / inside. As, indeed, was their BareBones6 performances these past two evenings. I went twice - it was that 'on the edge': on the edge, even, for contemporary dance.

Talking with David Massingham about the company's work, and theatre, these past two days has now so informed the next four weeks' approach to outside / inside.

Wanting to dance at the end of this week seems to supersede the want to act.

We spent two hours on Monday evening:

• moving
• dancing
• breathing
• t'ai chi - ing
• watching
• listening
• moving chairs

I could never have imagined that moving 16 chairs: in a space, across a space, for a space - could be so poignant, relevant, watchable, so moving - until Monday.

Checkout BareBones6 at:

http://www.dancexchange.org.uk