Work Begins

Hofan and I went to Y Space yesterday, where we'll be working and performing. It was a great first day. We warmed up and jammed together, the first time we've danced with each other in in seven years. I felt a little clumsy at first, but soon we were in sync, almost like we used to be. We've both matured as dancers--we're less hurried, more able to sink into the depth of a motion or a connection and patient enough to see it through to its natural end. It feels good to be dancing with Hofan again.

Following this, we planned through our rehearsals with the cast (I meet them for coffee tonight!). Very productive.

The space is beautiful, though to my eyes as hidden as everything else in Hong Kong. We have an hour and a half commute, three buses worth, followed by a walk through a labyrinthine shopping mall. You have to cut through the correct alleys and up the right elevators, and suddenly you enter these extraordinary spaces. Y Space is one. Another is Club O, the green/new age institution Hofan's father has founded. We went there in the late afternoon, and I participated in my first healing session--a chi focusing practice to replenish others' chi pathways. It was actually astonishing. As I (and everyone else) held our hands over the first person to lie down on the mat in front of us, I became aware of a cushion of force holding my hands up. Every time it reasserted itself, I was surprised, but managed to keep it mostly there. Between this healing practice and tai chi it's been something of a crash course in Chinese chi practices.

Returned home last night and collapsed into bed before 10.

We're off in a few minutes to the studio again. We'll start focusing in on some specific scenes we can choreograph without the cast today. We begin with the cast on Monday.