Baylor Residency -- Pre-visits

Pre-visit #1. Stephanie Miracle and I traveled to Baylor in Delaware. We led a warm-up and improvisations based on text from the women at York CI centered around the theme of the seasons. Stephanie led an exercise with drawing and music from Vivaldi. After the drawing, the women tried walking the drawings to see the elaborate pathways they had created. Then the women wrote about a season via a memory, scene or image. We sat in a circle and shared our observations. Then, we began building a phrase based on their spontaneous gestures. We tried the phrase to different music with some women sitting, some standing, and everyone exploring different timings. We finished by sending a blessing in movement across the circle.

Pre -visit #2. Today Newman Taylor Baker and I traveled to Baylor Correctional in Delaware. I led an improvisation based on text they had written during my last visit with Stephanie Miracle. The women created trees from different seasons as well as "Tree-o's" a trio representing a tree. Then we sat and were led by Newman on an extraordinary journey through his instruments and the lesson of sound and feeling. We explored how the quality of touch influences the sound of an instrument. The women got a chance to play the instruments with different qualities. Afterwards, the women worked with their writing and began creating movements that will be a part of our culminating performance on May 22nd, 2009. We finished with a review of our gesture phrase and a seated blessing "wave."