Find a cushion and a mat to sit on, and we'll check back in...

The Autumn is arriving and it's time to get back in the studio

Dear Dancers,

I feel like a schoolchild writing my “What I did this summer” essay. It was good to be away and take a long break, but it’s also good to be back. I’ve missed you, the rhythms of our bodies moving together in this beautiful space with this scarred and storied floor.

We’ll all get a chance to talk, but let me give you a sense of what has happened since I’ve been away.

For my first draft of this post, I practically wrote a novel...

But now I've decided to keep it more brief. This is the warm-up. You haven't seen me appear in your inboxes recently, so I wanted to let you know that term has started again.

Some big changes are underway on my end, which I will tell you about in a later post.

For now, I'll give you a couple of lists about the summer just gone.

Books I Read:

• How to Bake Pi: An Edible Exploration of the Mathemathics of Mathemathics by Eugenia Cheng

• The Maths that Made Us: How Numbers Shaped Civilisation by Michael Brooks

⠀For some reason, I had a huge urge to read books about maths written for mathsphobes. This was puzzling for many people who caught me with these books in my hands. Sebastian? Reading maths books?

What on earth is happening? Is the cosmic order still in order? Surely not.

When others started puzzling about it, I briefly scratched my head, too. I realised that since starting my psychotherapy studies, I can no longer read therapy books for pleasure. Maths, being neither about the psyche nor storytelling, is somehow a holiday.

I highly recommend these books, especially if you’re a mathsphobe like me.

Perhaps less surprisingly, I also read:

• Baking With Kafka by Tom Gould

and

• Memories, Dreams, Reflection by Carl Jung

Workshops Taken

• No Neutral Canvas—A personal dramaturgy with Angelique Wilkie

• Rewriting Distance and Who Needs a Dramaturg? with Guy Cools

• Natural Forms and Narrative Journeys for Non-Fiction with Ruth Allen

You may notice a theme here. More on the dramaturgy classes next week.

In case I’ve not mentioned her before,

Ruth Allen

is my official Substack crush. I love how she writes, and I have bought but have not yet read both of her books. They sit on my bookshelf, like a dessert I am waiting to eat.

At the beginning of August, she taught a class on creative non-fiction (for more on whether Ruth agrees with this description, see the comments section). I think that’ll also pop up in another post soon.

Performances Attended

• Il Cimento dell’Armonia e dell’Inventione by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Radouan Mriziga / Rosas, A7LA5

• Non human dances by Jérôme Bel & Estelle Zhong Mengual

• Air Reservoir: a Dystopian Poem by Beate Poikāne and Ode to Joy

  Amanda Coogan, Lianne Quigley and the Latvian Association of the Deaf at Homo Novus Contemporary Theatre Festival, Riga

The last of these was ridiculously moving. It was a deaf choir singing/signing Beethoven’s last symphony, which he composed after he had lost his hearing. Out of everything I saw this summer, this was absolutely the highlight.

Listening to:

• The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust by David Bowie

• Oliva Newton-John's cover of Take Me Home Country Roads (which starts with an epic choral intro!!! I found this by watching the Studio Ghibli film, Whisper of the Heart)

• Beautiful Struggle by Talib Kweli

Some updates to come:

I'll do this as a separate post, but some things are on the horizon.

In Autumn, I plan to get a solid Body-Mind Centering and Six Viewpoints class in Vienna.

Also, on the 27th of September, I am teaching a (free) workshop called Visual Thinking for Beautiful Brains.

Finally, in a couple of weeks (on September 21st), Clémentine Antier and I will be doing a poetry booth live on the streets of Vienna.

Finally some pictures

That’s it. I’ll see you next week, bright and fresh, for the next rehearsal.

Love,
Sebastian