Take me to the water
Take me to the water
Take me to the water
To be revived
I hear the mothers calling
I hear the mothers calling
I hear the mothers calling
They know my name…
Explore the Open Studio Practice Map to learn more about how we are discovering the correlations between water entities and systems, our bodies, and the movements that connect us to it all. Take Me to the Water is an invitation to experiment and create from the energies, stories, and possibilities emerging from the waters within us and the waters all around us.
Registration is open 1 november through 1 december 2024
Complete the Returning Participant registration form if you have participated in the Open Studio and/or danced with Mother Mother before.
Complete the New Participant registration form if this is your first time dancing with Mother Mother.
Take me to the water
Open Studio #0002
What
A soft-time community performance portal for dancing mothers centering explorations of water/bodies, movement, and revival
When
In lush, expansive, possible pockets of soft-time, initiating Sunday, November 10, 2024 and activating through the Winter Solstice
Where
Wherever you are on the globe + intimate virtual portals + spontaneous moments of possibility in family-accessible spaces in Washington, DC
How
Soft-time and self-paced, with optional in-person and virtual engagements where you can create your own joyful adventure
Who
Radiant dancing mothers who feel the Yes and are curious about moving and creating in soft-time with other dancing mothers
Why are we going to the Water? and Why Now?
An introduction & invitation to the experiment from Mother Mother
So much has happened in this month since the first Open Studio. My family has laid my grandmother to rest, and we are all discovering the world as a very different place without her here in the form she was. Her celebration of life services felt like both a grand and beautiful benediction for her earthly story, and also the beginning of deepening into more intentional and meaningful relationships as family to one another.
I am learning each day how to commune and be in a reimagined presence with my grandmother’s spirit, and all the light she left in place of her body and breath. As we gather ourselves day by day, I am grateful that we get to continue, that we get to be so thoroughly immersed in the love and labors of the living.
The movements are coming to me slowly and tenderly, most often in the pre-dawn becoming of a new day. My body is acclimating to new spiritual powers, and sometimes this takes the form of respiratory recalibrations that bring me into full presence with all the forces that animate my existence. The breath is the first dance—I came into that consciousness a long time ago. And now the mothers are inviting me to revisit that knowing as I practice how to breathe even more deeply and more intentionally. I move through my moments with reverence and celebration, with joy and awe, that this singular, recurring miracle, called the breath, sources my life, my dance, my all.
For this second installation of the Open Studio experiment, Take Me to the Water, I am turning to the water for remembrance and restoration, for activation and amplification of dreams, starseed communions, and vitality for daily life. You are invited to join me as we dance whenever, and wherever, and however we make a way to our movements. You are invited to dance and engage at your own pace and to your own desired level of interaction with the circle.
We are dancing with and finding inspiration from a multitude of water sources: the precious waters that compose the greater parts of our body, the waters gathering on the floor of the ocean and the swift, winding rivers that pour into them, the waters that facilitate our fertility, our hormones, our bleeding cycles, the tiny waters that collect as droplets on leaves and blades of grass before the sun rises, the waters that rain quietly from the sky, and sometimes from our eyes too, the waters that carry us in our mother’s womb, the waters heavy and dense beneath the rainforest’s canopy, invisible but tangible all the same, the waters that run clear from the faucet for drinking and cleaning and bathing, the waters that rise up from the bottom of the well or boil vigorously in a steaming pot, the waters that spill from our pores when we sweat, the immense, mysterious waters at home on faraway planets whose oceans really do touch the sky, the waters bursting wildly from orgasms and geysers, the waters holding onto all of our prayers in the little bowl at the altar beside our bed—all the waters everywhere. All the holy waters of life. This is where the dance is inviting us to play.
I am also feeling and listening for which songs the mothers are stirring up in my soul to sonically aid this sojourn into deeper spiritual waters and movements. Take Me to the Water is an old freedom script (negro spiritual) sung by black people preparing to be baptized. I have been rewriting this song and other freedom scripts for many years now, reconfiguring lyrics to be more expansive and reflective of my experiences and intelligences as a dancing mother. I will also share some of these water songs and the stories of their evolution as part of our explorations in the Open Studio.
The Daily Dancer is an exploratory constellation in our central practice portal for Take Me to the Water. The Daily Dancer constellation a soft-time collection of micro-movement prompts. The Daily Dancer encourages you to make the most of every minute of every day, realizing that there is always time to BE in your body and to dance.
Take Me to the Water opens Sunday November 10th and flows to the Winter Solstice. Soft-time and spontaneous-time offerings will be shared as they emerge into the field of possibility. Will you join us for this next Open Studio experiment at Dancing Mother?
This is a soft and love-filled invitation. If you feel the Yes, explore the Open Studio Practice Map, register as a participant for our experiment, and enjoy the adventure!
Registration is open 1 november through 1 december 2024
If you do not feel the Yes this time, but would like to be invited to future Dancing Mother programs and offerings, please stay in the loop in whichever ways feel good to you:
Complete a Curious Dancer profile (for future possibilities, collaborations and invitations)