hey tahni, just flew to bologna today. thought of strings during train ride to paris and then again when i woke up on the plane to the sight of the alps. must admit to being extremely tired/headachy today. paf was amazing i didn’t want to leave, but it’s equally amazing here in bologna. now is time to go out to dinner with festival people but wanted to send hello much love
e.
strings go out to you my time at 10am. I send you string and send Malina light strings. We shall see how it works.
Tahni! Hi, Monday afternoon. Just spent short time in the sun thinking of you, thinking of the strings. I’m on my way to pa-f today. Morning train from gothenburg to stockholm and now train to airport, flight to amsterdam, then flight to paris, before rer and sncs to laon to taxi to pa-f. i only slept for an hour last night. we had an amazing performance. the students showed there solos and we showed two of the ballet projects i’ve been working on with them. slept on the train, but still feel out. after the show we did alot of dancign which included headbanging and it was amazing and energizing and after i organized suitcase ,shower, ect there was about two hours till i had to wake up. and i couldn’t fall asleep. thought of you adn it being sunday night, and couldn’t get up to write, but beginning to focus on sleep through strings. feels fitting to return to pa-f in same sleep deprevation that i left it in. so mentally distracted sitting in the sun focusing on strings. sending them out to you, feeling them coming towards me, using the sun to reflect them, and just knowing they’re there, all of that was good, but i so much just wanted to write you and was flooded by memories of you at cdg. both the pick up and the departure. and nariman and thinking about event.space. and the planning of your other performance, ceromony. do you know the first ballet was produced for a wedding? 1581? called ballo, which now is ballet in italy.
anyhow love, wishing you lots of it, and will focus more on the strings through out my travel to pa-f today. i should be there by 9 pm euro time.
xxo
elizabeth
Tahni! Hi, Monday afternoon. Just spent short time in the sun thinking of you, thinking of the strings. I’m on my way to pa-f today. Morning train from gothenburg to stockholm and now train to airport, flight to amsterdam, then flight to paris, before rer and sncs to laon to taxi to pa-f. i only slept for an hour last night. we had an amazing performance. the students showed there solos and we showed two of the ballet projects i’ve been working on with them. slept on the train, but still feel out. after the show we did alot of dancign which included headbanging and it was amazing and energizing and after i organized suitcase ,shower, ect there was about two hours till i had to wake up. and i couldn’t fall asleep. thought of you adn it being sunday night, and couldn’t get up to write, but beginning to focus on sleep through strings. feels fitting to return to pa-f in same sleep deprevation that i left it in. so mentally distracted sitting in the sun focusing on strings. sending them out to you, feeling them coming towards me, using the sun to reflect them, and just knowing they’re there, all of that was good, but i so much just wanted to write you and was flooded by memories of you at cdg. both the pick up and the departure. and nariman and thinking about event.space. and the planning of your other performance, ceromony. do you know the first ballet was produced for a wedding? 1581? called ballo, which now is ballet in italy.
anyhow love, wishing you lots of it, and will focus more on the strings through out my travel to pa-f today. i should be there by 9 pm euro time.
xxo
elizabeth
Hi Tahni, the strings, as i was falling asleep on sunday night, i thougth about how we hadnät wrote each other, but because the wifi at my hotel is so maddenly slow-none exsistant i thought i would write to you yesterday morning which also didnät happen. I got home late, around 1 am and had developed a migrane. lying in bed i though what about the strings. envisioning anything outside of my body, expecially light hurt, but thinking about the bones and specifically portland in my bones, and atlanta, and new york felt good. stayed with that for a bit, before the head ache was just too too much, i had a super pain pill given to me by friend before flying to knock me out if i needed knocking out. i took that and the conciousness of the bones dissappeared into sleep.
Elizabeth,
i woke up this morning thinking I was going to attach strings today, even though we hadn’t spoken. I thought I would do it when I was planting the salad greens that TOby and I are going to use for our wedding. This seemed aligned with meditational, string attachments. I didn’t get around to planting and thus I forgot the strings as well. Did you do them or maybe we could do them tomorrow? I will be sending a string or many your way when I garden in the morning (my time) 9-11am or so.
I hope all is well with you. I am busy with many details that are needing to stay in my brain around .event.space. -the performance that is happening april 9th and 10th. I am really excited about this one and hope to show you a video when next we meet. Did I tell you that I bought my ticket to europe? I am flying into Dublin on June 1st. Really, I can be anywhere I need to be at anytime. I am excited to say the least.
How goes it in Sweden?
love lvoe loev leov lveo,
Dear Tahni,
Hello, how are you? Yesterday was such a stressful day. Insomnia, early morning pick up for leaving the sublet, still no answer to my sos “am I going to sweden this week” email, my debit card was frozen for the supsisious activity of using it in canada after i cleared it for use in canada, no $ to buy snacks. Today i’m calm but yesterday I felt crazy. really crazy, mainly because of the uncertainty of sweden.
It was a ground though to imagine you imagining strings in your bones and thinking of me. In the beginning of the day i felt incapable of holding on to the strings or feeling them in my bones. in the sleep deprived crazy of the a.m. it was impossible, but once i came to the theater it became stronger. I could feel more. In the first run of the piece i felt you beside me through the 45 min dance. task of being aware of my partner kg, the audience, and you felt good and I adapted it into parts of the actual show. it was one of those shows were everything that could go wrong does, but it was a pleasure to navigate through the world, sometimes thinking of you and the residue of your strings.
i’m on the 12 hour train back to nyc right now. no internet so later i’ll cut and paste this into an email, but i know that i’ll have so much more time to write now, than when i get back.
i did some sleuthing and am indeed going to sweden. Mårten is m.i.a. this week. i’m actually kinda worried about him now that i’m done being stressed. last week he send mail saying all’s perfect, ticket bought, but no confermation and no responce to my mails. so i took a guess that i would be flying sas airline (based on him mentioning finding a flight from newark and i looked up newark to stockhom and found sas) I called there 1-800 number to request a vegetarian meal, but really to find out if i was flying! and viola, i’ll have the asian vegetarian meal to stockholm on thursday!
past lake champlain and along the hudson. it’s really a beautiful train ride between montreal and new york city.
Next monday i’ll be in stockholm and no idea what’s in store for me.
xoxo elizabeth
Hello Tahni,
somehow it’s sunday night. tomorrow is the performance here montreal.
it’s been a long week and half of all day in theater. I’m excited for
the show and suprised by the passage of time. honestly i don’t knwo
when i go to sweden. either on wednesday or thursday of this week.
just sent marten the, so what day did you end up booking the ticket
email.
?
my day is
wake up and move out of apartment staying in/lug suitcase across town
getting to the theater by noon to do runthrough(s).
dress rehearsal at 5
show at 7:30
I think the best thing for me will be to think about the strings in
the am, while at the house, and then possibly during the first of
probably several runs.
In this piece two women dressed like ballenchine ballet boys do a
repeating akido kata, taisabaki, together on specific floor patterns
for 45 minutes. it’s a lot about dancing together and i wonder if it
would be possible to feel kg, my partner, and you from so far away.
antonijia’s got the idea that it’s best performed either cold or after
you’ve done it over and over that day, so we’re doing the do it a
thousand times before performance route. it feels good. so sleepy.
xxo elizabeth
Elizabeth,
everyday this week I woke up thinking I needed to write to
you…alas, everything else seemed to get in the way. I am going a
little crazy over here: keys are getting lost, little things I saw in
my bag dissapearing. I thought it was the lepricauns for a while
there but honestly I think it is my brain. This is my brain. this is
my brain on stress.
Strings: I too tried to string on monday. I painted our office space
a beautiful honey yellow and I was able to think about you, the
strings during the meditation of painting. I kept hoping yellow
strands of honey were coming your way-but then I would forget-over
the methodical motion of painting. I think, for me, it is going to be
an interesting time for the next couple of months to get the strings
in my bones. It will take some serious discipline. Seems possible,
though, especially since it is really only once a week right now. It
is just a matter of really carving out that intention. I think it
also might be nice if we do it at the same time-if possible. Or if we
know ahead of time what time we will be trying to do it. Example:
sunday night you email me and tell me when you are going to put
intention toward strings. Even if it is in an early morning yoga
class-and I am asleep-it might be interesting in my dream time to
know those strings are there. Who knows. The act of emailing
eachother on sunday also helps me with the intention bit-not
forgetting, setting aside time-even in the act of doing something else.
I am still going to get a blog up for us so that all this can be
documented-the just between you and I-seems easier to archive and
will help in the long run, I think.
love to you. It sounds like Montreal was a good experience (?). At
least on monday it seems so. I would love to see the piece.
until sunday….grave digger to grave digger we dance,
Tahni
Dear Tahni,
Hi, not sure how to procede today, but I’m finding myself in a moment
of down time so i’ve decided to use it to write. I woke up this
morning and took a hot yoga class. When i got to montreal Antonija
suggested i do a $20 week special at a studio close to her house. The
first class I took a couple days ago was amazing. I was so happy and
energized afterwards. today was a little different. walked there in
the snow thinking about what this practice could be, what it is for us
to contemplate each other from far away as a means to continue a
practice. And at the same time really trying to see where I was.
neighborhood, plateau, street duluth, remember it as a familiar place.
my sister lived in the plateau and i visited her in montreal 4 times
in the early ’00. (what will we call this decade? the o’s) anyhow once
I was inside the class the teacher asked us to forget the outside
world, to just be present with ourselves on our mats. had a confusion
of what to do with the heart strings, be away of them or follow the
instruction and just try to be present in the class. because the class
before had been so good for me i decided to let go of the conciousness
of the harpstrings and just try to be in the class in the room. and
then i got so bored. i was in the worst mood. really agitated with the
following of instructions and moving in and out of downward dog ect.
really tried to just focus on breathing because that seemed to be all
I could do to not want to get up and leave. class continued, made it
through, left feeling anything but exhilerated and then on my walk
home i though of course, i let go of my personal assignment of the day
to be present with tahni and i felt like i was missing something and i
was and and and and ….. i don’t know what i’m writing, but it felt
like this weekly meditation, holding of the other in the mind was
really important. I thought that before, but the yoga class experience
made me believe it.
i’m back at antonija’s right now. we are suppost to meet for lunch,
she’s late, i’m wondering if the plan is still to meet here, but i’m
making some potatoes, always love the potatoe salad and drinking
coffee. toni is also off of the sugar, so i’m figuring why not and am
trying it as well. today after yoga my impulse was to buy something
junky, cuz i was so agitated, but seeing that as a habit and buying
vege pate instead shifted things. it’s always funny to me what we fail
to see or recognize. for example, at anymoment in yoga i could have
gone back into the heart/harp strings, but i was so locked in the
boredom of my mind that i forgot it was even an option.
I’ll be in nyc in a week and will mail the hard drive then. kevin, my
roommate friend who was going to help me with it, was busy busy during
the couple days i was in town. i left the harddrive with him and made
the plan that i’d mail it when i get back. hope that’s ok. my tiem in
nyc felt like such a whorlwind. i was in town for 5 days. two of those
days i taught, had a rehearsal on the other, and moved my/the sublet
room from one end of the living room to the other, + the jetlag
tiredness and trying to see some friends. i brought my taxes to
montreal to do, but have a feeling they might be coming to sweden with
me as well.
Kathleen Keogh wrote me about european ideas, where to go, ect. i
suggested she get ahold of you to learn about pa-f.
lots of love and missing you, gravedigger
xxo elizabeth
Hey, i’m in montreal and nyc already seems far away. it’s really great
to be here and i’m enjoying the new work with antonija. totally
different from what we were doing but also asking what does it mean to
dance together. the show that i’m doing consists of one movement done
over and over next to the other person for 43 minutes. it’s really
intense and really beautiful. i can’t believe tomorrow is monday, I
feel lost in time, but yes let’s do something. think i’ll go ahead and
see those harpstring, the one’s that always exsist that i don’t have
to make, and see how that goes. miss, i’m so tired. one of those days
were i never really woke up and then hours spent in the theater. while
we’ll only perform one movement we’ve been doing a lot of different
exercises. must go wash my hair it’s greasy, greasy. you’ve been in my
thoughts lots.
xxo elizabeth
Hey you,
I hope your time in new york has been good. Sounds like it started out
better than you predicted. I was glad to hear it. i came home and am
scrambling to get all my shit together for this other performance and the
wedding (CRAZY!) The work we did is really helping me get this other piece
together. I can’t believe it has only been a week since we left-it feels
like a couple of months.
I know, when we have real time, our project will open and grow and serve us
well-it already has.
I am going to try and talk to my web guy about the possibilities of creating
something that maps the space made between us and are travels. I am unclear
if we can do this electronically but damn it would be interesting. Hopefully
I will talk to him next week. Do you want to start our diary of monday
moments tomorrow? I think the once a week-need to pay attention and write
something to eachother is a good one. Not a huge time commitment but worthy.
We should set up a private blog that we can use to track this shit. SHit,
I’ll talk to my guy about that too.
Here is my address so you can send me the hard drive:
Tahni Holt
8514 N. Oswego Ave.
Portland, OR.
97203
love to you,
Tahni