This course focuses on invisible ornamental movement as a source for external manifestation. We begin by drawing two simple, indeed obvious, lines of movement––curves and straight lines––with body parts. As we mark the canvas of space and time with Oriental motifs, the primary dance composition technique to emerge is fragmentation, the breaking of a movement in half or into pieces to reveal a new movement. This foray into micromotion which requires both attunement to and appreciation of sensorial subtlety, is an ideal vehical for meditation.

The practice of ornamentation initiates inquiry into foreground/background. In Western terms we see ornament as an added furbelow decorating a driving underlying path. By contrast, in Eastern art the underlying path is incidental while the complex unfolding of arabesques are the power of the design. This orientation concerns finding what is between and inside, and is a way of delving deep into the present. As we frame our movement work with these impulses we might discover elongated, internal tendrils of motion, delicate and ephemeral as incense smoke. They weave a new felt vision of our dance and, indeed, our body. We sense how these suspend time then gather into an effortless release of fire.