foi response from David Dorfman (CT)

what a beautiful writing miguel and all those that have written
ironically i was just going to write, but i read yours instead it
might be the same thing really but not

i too will write soon and include some letters i have received

i loved you talking about intentionality m it's mundane occurences
and it's sublime

i was just standing in front of my closet upstairs in our house for
the first time in four and a half years i hung each shirt and pair
of pants i cleaned the floor in front of it it's beautiful and
i know i was partly able to do this because of foi

our little samson and i spent a bunch of time together right after new
year's and one night when i was not responding very well before
bedtime sam said "there's one thing i know right now - daddy
isn't very happy now" i pride myself on never ever losing my
temper with sam etc etc etc and yet (or perhaps because of
that), whenever i'm the slightest bit removed, frustrated, sad - sam
calls me on it and i love that and then i change and we all
can change yes, somtimes, some people more than others but i agree
miguel, war is a construct because we've make it that way and accepted
it as such

well, i'm writing

i'll write more but i must say that i might have had the fewest
amount of people on a snowy day in the middle of woods maybe three
people besides the hosts, marya and dan and lisa and sam and that
was beautiful i have to admit when people were there i had more
energy one time i had been alone for so long (except for incredible
danielle short who videoed the entire thing - took a couple of naps
along the way but was in the building somewhere the entire time)
that i thought i heard two people enter the space and take their coats
off and sit down i jumped up and danced and danced for twenty or so
minutes who knows for them for me for all of us who knows
i started to get a bit tired and noticed that there was no rustling
no breathing no nothing out there i had just manufactured friends
or onlookers perhaps so i could dance that's what we always do
we manufacture a lot of our lives sometimes we do a good job
sometimes not but we're calling a lot of the shots i watched
lars and the real girl the other night and he made up his world
and people chose to go along wow

the last six hours i started to hallucinate quite fiercely and i
started to lose my ability to place myself in the lovely octagonal
room when i finally took daniel nagrin's scarf (he died that
monday before we all danced) off my tired eyes to the sound of bells
and chimes played by dan and marya i couldn't believe that i had
been in that space i out of a fierce sense of claustrophobia etc.
had limited my movment to only a relatively small area of the
expansive space i had found a path to the bathroom and to a safe
spot in the room where i could flail and not bang my arms on the
walls and mirrors to find this spot and took frequent tours around
the edge of the room it was my ritual within a ritual i loved
it it passed the time especially when the here i am again
happened to strongly the feeling of i have nothing more to say
with my body! but then there was touch the walls the beams
the ..... my mind made them into the most interesting sometimes
scary textures on earth reality was a let down but profound in
it's bare quality
i was alive i am alive my eyes vibrated at the moment of de-
scarfing i cried in lisa's arms i watched a sleeping sam
after a bit we drove home in the snow
not so smart! particularly for someone who had run off the road two
years ago in the winter but i was with a non-driving local
activist who had come to see in the new year with us i started to
see little animals on the road i realized they weren't there, and
went a little more slowly and all was okay when i got home and
alone again before bed i heard a very dim radio station in my head
and started to see colors and patterns and bugs that i will never
forget our bedsheets had the most vivid black tiger print on them
(okay they have that print no they don't )
the walls around our basement stairs disappeared as i walked up in the
dark i could see way beyond them an intricate pattern or wild
geometrics my mind wouldn't stop
it had created another universe

twice during the 24 hours lisa and sam came and danced with me it
was so beautiful the first time i held lisa's hand after having been
solitary for 12 hours it was the most full sense of touch i've ever
experienced it was love it was deep it was life when i
kissed sam and lisa it was as if i could be blindfolded for a
million years if that was the payoff it was .........

i love you all for dancing i love you miguel for being such an
intelligent, vulnerable soul in your life and your art and i love my
family for being and for loving me

whew

with respect

david d

Connecticut -- David Dorfman

Connecticut – David Dorfman
David Dorfman, artistic director of his vainly named company 1985 to present, is now also William Meredith Professor of Dance and Chair at Connecticut College (since 2004). He received a Guggenheim fellowship in 2005 to continue his research and choreography in the topics of power and powerlessness, including activism, dissidence and underground movements. His research culminated in underground, performed by David Dorfman Dance and 25 additional dancers, which had its world premiere at the ADF in June 2006, had its NYC premiere at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Next Wave Festival in Nov. 2006 to conclude DDD’s 20th Anniversary season and continues to tour internationally. Dorfman has received 4 fellowships from the NEA, 3 New York Foundation for the Arts fellowships, an American Choreographer’s Award, the first Paul Taylor Fellowship from The Yard, a 1996 “Bessie” for his community-based dance Familiar Movements/The Family Project, a 2003 Barrymore Award for best choreography for the original musical Green Violin - Prince Music Theater in Philadelphia, and in 2007 received the Mid-Career Award from the Martha Hill Fund for Dance. Disavowal, DDD’s newest creation, inspired by the legend of John Brown/radical abolitionist, premiered at The Dance Center of Columbia College in Chicago in Sep. of 2008 and will tour extensively before coming to Danspace Project for it’s NYC premiere May 21-24, 2009.
photo by Vincent A. Scarano