A Time For Everything

Raymond Shaw

There is time to think. Time to watch. Time to have. A time to dance. A time to play. A time to pause. When you think of time do you take a moment, plow right through, or contemplate just how much time there is?

These timely questions all come to mind when I think back (in time) regarding the work I have processed with my dear colleague Kitty Clark. We call ourselves MAD Dance. We first thought of it as an acronym Implying Mature Authentic Dance. In the space of asking others what they thought it meant, we collected words like; mutually assured destruction, my adventurous depths, mesmerizing achingly dreamy, make a difference, and mistake after dark. 

In this light, we began our process of time, took the space to ponder, and used our two bodies to explore. We began to move. We began to dance. We explored. We did what we were taught to do and moved our bodies in time and space. Simple guidelines like, “A five minute improvisation with contact three times.”, “We start here. End there. Leave and re-emerge once, pick me up three times.”  I believe these simple guidelines folded into our decades of experience propagated a fresh young perspective. I recall the summer day pre-pandemic, when I looked at Kitty and said, “ I feel like a 22 year old rebellious dancer who doesn’t care who likes my work. I just feel compelled to put it out there!” 

I held on to that notion. I committed myself to let go, to learn, to dance out my vision, and renew the joyous freedom that dance brings to me. So, we danced. In the park. On the bench. In the studio. Discovering our chemistry. Finding that when it comes to authenticity, our subtlety lies within the details. The intimate contact of shoulder to shoulder. The release of breath before pouring her weight into me. The sensibility of moving rhythmically and in harmony, even though we are back to back. The moment our eyes connect as two dancers sharing time, space, mind, and body. It would fill the room with light as manifested phenomena.  Then in a flick of the switch, the lights went off. The studio closed up. Our last performance, on stage, together, gently left the tree and fell to the ground. The pandemic hit. 

Kitty and I were MAD. We were determined. What happened next became a statement. A statement of time and space, of dancers young and old, of the events of a culture. It all happened. In that moment. In that space. Two dancers were present and we took action. 

-Ray C. Shaw

Blog. “MAD about time”

Raycshaw@gmail.com

Kitraydance@gmail.com

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