As the day progressed I found myself more and more atuned to what was said in Trajal’s class about death, connections between events in terms having the right question for the specific time when it should be asked, how different each of us can view dance practices and re-enactments. The reason why I titled this reflection Endings/Beginnings/States/Distracting the Self is for the theme of death and rebirth through dance in way to pay tribute to a certain artist (as Eliza mentioned about her concept for the Kazuo Ohno assignment) and their work, but most importantly – how does one find meaning and strenght in themselves to come up from the ashes figuratevely speaking after going through a major event of personal transformation that feels as death of their former self and birth of a new, more ‘evolved’/mature and stronger self whether the person is an artist,performer of some sort or just a regular person with their own life story and  creativity. All of this spoke volumes to me as I can relate to the ideas of endings and beginnings of one’s being and the various states one goes through in every single moment while they’re alive. Those thoughts of personal transformation, inner changes and empowerment through initially ‘losing control/power’ over ourselves (or at least we think so) are a form of ‘distracting the self’ in a sense of , as was mentioned in Jonathan Burrow’s book: How do I release my grip on the desire to do, enough that I can do?

Distracting the self:

‘You have to be right there [at the moment], and at the same time you have to give it up completely’.  What I mean by using this quote is that one should be able to look closely and observe the self,how it changes,evolves,transforms, but on the other hand, not getting stuck in one’s own head with those observations of the self as in this way one might lose sight of the present [moment] and disconnect from reality on the expense of self-indulging and overanalyzing the inner processes going inside him.

As I write these sentences, I realize how much they reflect my own experience from the day and the realizations I eventually came to about myself as a person. It is fascinating to what extent the topic of death and butoh dance resonated with the events and things I am going through in my personal life. In conclusion, this might just turn out to be one of the greatest benefits of the class – developing the mind and body in dance aspect while simulteneously being able to relate this process and the experiences you have during it with the happenings in your own life as regular human being.