Choreography of the Unseen Self with Stephanie Zaletel

This week we’ve got LA-based dance artist/body wizard Stephanie Zaletel in the broadcast portal with us. GIVE THANKS! Church is served, honey! This episode is very much about the vital research of coming back home to yourself, your body and your essential creative voice, and the cost of not answering the call. 

You KNOW we got up to some 12 step talk and wooooo baby the ancestral addiction to shame and emotional spirals that get lodged up in our tissues. Stephanie’s exquisite research on the nervous system and somatic practices of care work and co-regulation are unmatched. The way she talks about her research and outlets for group practice is nothing short of stunning.

Get somewhere soft and low to the ground to tee this one up.

 

Learn more about Stephanie HERE

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Stephanie’s IG

 

Sign up for Melissa’s Scrap the Plan workshop in August!

 

Book a 1:1 Creative Revival Session with Melissa

Free Resources —

• Download Attention Reset - my free digital art zine on getting outta your head and into your body

Stay Connected —

• Follow Melissa’s Instagram for hot art memes
• Join Melissa’s weeklyish newsletter for creative musings and studio news

Big thanks to Ben Coleman for composing our theme music, and Gavin Bernard for vocals

Sound Clip: Magic Stars Retro Sparkle by smokinghotdog via freesound.org

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Music.

(00:45):
Okay, y'all. So I'm playing with this new idea where in lieu of making a long,
rambly little introduction to the episode,
I instead wrote what I'm thinking of as an episode flavor profile that I would
love to share with you. That just like gets you in the mood. It whets your appetite.

(01:06):
It lets your sweet little nervous system know what to
expect for the next hour and 20 ish
because we we really
like ran this one home we ran it to church we ran into outer space we ran long
and strong with the themes of this conversation stephanie and i um guard your

(01:31):
loins hold on to your wigs and your hats and your skirts it's all gonna get blown up.
I just love Stephanie I can't wait to share this episode
with you okay so the episode flavor profile this is
what you can expect the vibe the feeling the mood the world first the blue butterfly
emoji and also the water fountain gushing emoji the feeling of leaving your

(02:01):
little Little leather sandals out on the front porch in the sun.
So now they're all supple and warm when you slide your little footsies in. That feeling.
Lavender and chamomile tea. Made in the French press, though.
So you can see all the little plant materials dance around in the water.

(02:21):
Georgia red clay clumps. California sagebrush.
Dusty golden hour in L.A. it's like kind of peachy kind of smoggy the feeling
of jumping on the trampoline when you were a kid after all the big bully kids
that were kind of assholes and wanted to booty bounce you,

(02:44):
they've all left and gone home so you're just alone on this trampoline together
and it's like almost about to be dinner time and you are safe you are free you
are limitless that is the mood that is the vibe that is the world.
This other thing happened in the episode where usually when I have guests,
I will do this thing to like get us both in the like dreamy flow state and get

(03:11):
out of our little monkey mind,
anxious brains about talking into a microphone.
I will usually lead us in a grounding, presencing little visualization.
And I almost, I always cut it out. I always cut it out. I'm like,
that's just for us. Nobody needs to hear that.
But this time I decided to leave it in. I left it in.

(03:33):
So I invite you to ground with Stephanie and I if you want to.
Or if you're like, boring, snooze fest, just get me to the goods already.
Then I invite you to press that little button that you know how to press,
which just like zooms the episode forward.

(03:54):
Word yeah okay i'm so happy you're here
let's go let's go okay let's do the thing let's do the thing where we just like
i'll lead us through a little moment so we can um be in the secret third thing
that is this podcast that is this podcast that will reveal itself into something
okay first i'm gonna take a little sip of my green tea.

(04:19):
And then we'll invite us both to take our big gorgeous eyes away from the computer
screen and do the meandery eyeball wash around the space.

(06:45):
Music.

(07:18):
Music.
When you're ready, as you're ready, taking your sweet, sweet time.
Letting your eyes receive the light in your space again. If your eyes were closed.

(07:46):
Thank you. you always love
doing like one-on-one moment groundings because
i it just feels so like i'm just
pulling the threads of whoever this being is and whatever they're surfing at

(08:07):
the moment i'm like huh okay cool great interesting image let's go with it it it landed it was great,
i feel like anchored with like a root under my house because there's this huge
tree and i'm like i know there's one down there i know there's roots everywhere,

(08:32):
your whole the whole undercarriage of your house just like cradled by root tangles.
Okay log off and cry now oh
my god i also just love how

(08:52):
we we sort of only
know each other through this weird like internet and
i mean we had that one time when we met finally but
it was it's just been interesting to have this like timeless relationship
with this person this
like magic person from like far away i really we experience each other like

(09:18):
in boxes like we're in zoom boxes now and like through internet screen box but
yeah yeah similarly okay in lieu of an introduction i will just like.
This will segue into like sprinkling in like how I understand your world,
how I perceive your world and like what feels so electric and interesting that

(09:42):
like bursts the box like prismatically in a thousand directions.
Yeah, I remember finding your like capital D dancing work.
I don't know maybe like 2019 2018 2019 and
just followed you on instagram because i
was like oh dope like this babe is making cool dances

(10:05):
on the west coast i like cool dances i too
speak this language let me like just watch
you from afar this way um and then
there was this one time when you posted this video it was and you
had a ween song playing i was
like i'm just gonna casually DM this
person be like uh-huh that's

(10:28):
the textile wean band poster it's just
close to the background okay yes this is
that's my partner's that's not mine but it still makes sense it's synchronous
the synchronicities are happening um yeah but then okay so but for actual context
it's like you are someone who I understand to have gone through the gauntlet of of dance training,

(10:53):
concert dance, professional dance, classical training, and then tumbled down
the rabbit hole of somatic explorations,
deep nervous system work and education.
Which for a lot of people is a place that gets, they stay there because those

(11:17):
worlds are actually quite different, astoundingly, even though it's like body
practice, body research.
Church but that you are someone who
is like one of the few ish
people that i know that is
like coming back around and and bringing these two worlds together in a really

(11:41):
like fascinating way i feel like you are like building the blueprint for how
making making dance making performance,
making live experiences where bodies are doing things together and people come to witness it.
But that is so deeply informed by these practices that actually often happen without witnesses.

(12:11):
Speaking of, just to be a little bit more clear for folks listening,
of like you know the deep somatic explorations
and like nervous system work it's often extremely slow
it's visually uninteresting one
might venture to say because the whole purpose is to like be healing from like

(12:32):
the priority of like posturing the body and you're instead like really prioritizing
what is the body feeling what are all of what is all the sensation material,
anyways that's a whole sort of like swirl of
things that is like when i think of you i think of someone
who is like oh up to some radical blending

(12:56):
of the like how the people are in their bodies and you're also now transitioning
you have for a while been like really deep in facilitation work for helping
other people understand that they have a body that is feeling a lot of things,
that they may or may not be aware of.

(13:22):
You can check those receipts you can fact check me well i first i just want
to thank you um for starting off that way and also for like,
seeing and witnessing in in
that way like I feel very seen hearing that

(13:42):
and um yeah and
it just like means a lot to know that that's visible because I think speaking
to sort of what we like touched on before the intro it was like I feel like
prior to 2020 like I was really deep in that,

(14:03):
capital d dance world and generating
a lot of choreography and touring choreography
and creating and like had a company and
like all these things that was very um just super creatively centered and and
also aesthetically centered and then you know simultaneous with like working

(14:27):
with a psychoanalyst and like dream work and like personal trauma healing.
And then the dance space was the space where I got to just like bring some of
those images into consciousness or like a dream I'd been working with and wasn't making sense,
putting it into the body, putting
it on other bodies and then seeing what it wanted to say back to me.

(14:48):
Like it was really like, it was already a really therapeutic environment, but it was just for me.
And I think the dance artists would experience catharsis and like they were
asked to like work in really deep ways.
And, you know, but I don't think I was necessarily I was just like getting my
footing as a facilitator during that time.

(15:10):
I was like learning how to do how to like translate these things to larger groups.
And I was doing it like Like I was facilitating constantly, but I didn't identify
with it the way that I do now.
I think 2020 was like, like, you know,
like a very big portal for change and not just on like the global spectrum,

(15:36):
but also like a lot of people, hopefully most people's personal like world got a little rattled.
And I just experienced like a lot of change like my my company had to fold because of,
there was just no resource and I was navigating a lot of health issues and my

(15:59):
like marriage ended and was falling apart and I had to move out of the state
I couldn't afford to live here without a partner like I moved in with my parents
I started doing caregiving for my grandmother other,
like, I just, I kind of had like two and a half years of just like the, the void,

(16:19):
not to mention just like the calling in, like into social justice work and doing
a lot of deep unpacking of like,
you know, how can, how are the things that I'm doing rooted in colonization?
And just like questions where I was like, oh my God, like.

(16:39):
Now I have nothing else to distract from. And I absolutely, I was just like in shadow work.
I was in like decolonial shadow work and I was in like anti-racist shadow work.
Like I was just in all of this, like, oh my God, like what are all of the ways
that I have been unconscious?
Like what are all of the ways, for whatever reason, everything that I had been

(17:02):
using to, to heal and to grow and to be who I wanted to be.
And everything disappeared, but my whole identity with my relationship.
You know, I, I also in this, inside of this time became estranged from my paternal
family because there was all this other stuff that came up that I was like,
I can't be a part of this family anymore.

(17:23):
Like they were just like, like everything familiar was just like, poof.
Um and to cope
i mean not even like it was like out of survival um i
had to deepen my somatic practices like
it was just like i had to to stay
with being alive like and

(17:46):
and then and then
of course that that fed into caregiving and um
learning how to like tune with the nervous a
system of someone who has like dementia and like
is their body's stopping working and it's
like her listening to her granddaughter isn't
gonna work it's not like she she needs her body

(18:07):
needs to trust my body and just all
this stuff where it was like i just started to get these it just became
a very somatic period um and
like i said now like to come back to where you said like now i'm in this like
swing back where i moved back to la and i'm making art again and so it's just

(18:29):
like like everything is in the soup together now.
I don't know. It's so beautiful.
It's so beautiful. There's so many threads to pull out with that.
The soup, you named it as like,

(18:52):
yeah, I've been thinking a lot about the pregnant void and how terrifying the
void feels because it is nothing but uncertainty.
Uncertainty it is nothing but no clear paths yeah it's all paths collapsing
into like the illusion of no path and like just face down on the ground of like

(19:17):
what the fuck is happening to me,
and that just feels like so clear in your
story and like like the origin of the last like four or
five like soupy strange void years
and that like
yeah we were talking earlier of like you
know just how um the scrappy diy artist life of like having the idea and like

(19:46):
pulling it off and making the thing used to feel like the the the path was very
clear on how to do that we knew which grants to apply for.
We knew who had like the lighting kit that could bring it in.
And we knew who the right people were to like load the stuff in and the dancers you could count on and.

(20:08):
And then like, there's something in this time that's like, we still cognitively
know those things, but there's like a, there's like a disconnect or there's friction.
And it, it reminds me of what you were just saying. Like, you couldn't just
say to your grandmother who has dementia, like, okay, this is what's about to happen.
Like, I'm going to do this and, you know, to like, try to apprise someone of

(20:32):
the caretaking you're about to do.
That didn't work. So you had to find these like other doors of how to like make something happen,
which in that instance is like the caring, the keeping alive and well,
the well-being of the person you're giving care to.

(20:53):
I don't know if that lands. I don't know if that makes sense.
I'm seeing like a lot of like spider web threads with just like,
oh, yes, we are researching like there's friction on the old pathways and we're
having to like open up these different doors and LOL plot twist the doors or the body.

(21:16):
The doors have always been the body.
Hello. Hello. Hello. yeah i
mean this sort of goes i'm trying i similar listening to you i have a million
threads that i want to follow but this is just something i've been curious about

(21:36):
talking specifically with you um which is that,
i also feel like there's something about being an american artist like being
someone who lives in America and works in America. And.

(21:57):
Is under-resourced because of that and um
undervalued you know like i know we're valued from a lot of people but like
in terms of like monetarily valued by our like government and most people um
that like live in in this like capitalist system but i'm just like Like,

(22:19):
I feel very different about that now.
Like, I used to, and this also goes back to sort of my, like,
lack of awareness around my own, like, privilege of being, like,
a white privileged artist and making work from that place,
you know, like, prior to this, like, giant awakening season.

(22:42):
Season um but i do
feel like part of the like quote-unquote friction that i
am experiencing now is like i am unable
to either like
i'm unable to work in the ways that i used to work because i don't uh align
with the ethics of institutions or certain places where i used to get funding

(23:08):
or certain tasks I used to use to get X, Y, or Z.
Not that I was like, I've always been a, you know, generally ethical person.
And like, you know, I consider myself like a kind and well-researched person, but like.
I can't, there's certain things where I'm just like, if, if,
you know, if this aligns with this or if this does this or did it,
I like can't actually like, I feel sick to my stomach engaging with a person

(23:32):
or like things I used to do or people I used to resource from or, um.
And not to say that they're, they're bad people or anything,
but it's more just this like lack of, um, moving forward into this like future
way that we, I believe that we need to be like organizing.
Organizing and if and

(23:54):
if things that fell back to like the way it used to
be like prior to the pandemic I like
can't I like literally can't work with
that anymore I'm like if like people that
like went back to normal I felt uncomfortable around them
and um and I
think it's created so much slowness in

(24:17):
my progress of making things yes it's
also made it so that a lot of the places that I do align
with to resource from are super competitive and
like usually maxed out with resources so it's like
sure there's like it's not like there's not people
places and things that I want to be working with but it's
just the it's a much harder process

(24:41):
to like get into some of those spaces they're limited so you know I like I love
everyone and everything that like got me here and I think all the lessons have
been loving and necessary and.
You know, I think everyone's doing their best, but I do think a lot about like

(25:04):
when people are telling me like, oh, I just want to move to Europe and just
like make whatever I want.
I'm like, I think we have to stay here and we have artists like we have to.
We have to like I I would love to just go and make whatever I want and make work about my dreams.
But I'm like, what are my dreams without what's going on globally and without

(25:28):
how my body affects everyone else's body and just like my existence,
everyone else's existence and the opportunities I say yes to or no to affect other people.
Like, and so I think this, again,
of all the lessons, it's like this, this is a big one in the last four years,

(25:49):
but it also keeps me a little bit stuck, I think, in ways that I am praying will start to melt.
Like and because i need there to be movement i can't just be stuck in this like existential.
Loop all the time um but anyway

(26:10):
i know i'm like going on and on
but it's beautiful i i have a similar feeling i had a um a pretty intensive
natal chart reading a couple years ago like 2021 21 and um i remember sort of
predictive astrology vibes and um the astrologer was like.

(26:34):
He was sort of like, what is your work? Are you, you're an artist of some kind?
It feels like some, it feels like your work is like kind of not super legible in the US.
He was based in Europe. He was like, there's something about your chart that
like suggests that your work makes a lot more sense, not in America.

(26:54):
Like it, it reads, it reads or that's
kind of what I interpreted from it this many years later
of like it it would be
easier in some sense and um you know
that that doesn't mean that i won't still move
out of the u.s at some point but the thing that feels really like hot about

(27:16):
what you're saying is that it's a it's almost an act of like potentially like
going a little bit back to sleep Like having the easy way out of just like.
Yes, wouldn't it be so nice if my government gave me a big grant to just roll
around on the floor and make dance about my dreams?

(27:36):
Dreams like that is the world i fully
want to live in and also that idea
is like a fantasy in the sort
of bigger ecosystem of why other
people don't have access to that utopic
dreamscape and it's also like to speak to

(27:57):
what you were saying a moment ago of like if we started pulling back the
veil of these governments that do say art is
important like there's just a whole
bunch of other fuck shit going on that it like has a cost it has a cost and
we can either be paying attention to that cost or not paying attention to it
um and i hear you like naming this desire for like what is what is this nuance between.

(28:27):
Not just choosing the hard road to feel our face scrape against the pavement
by being artists in the U.S.,
but also not just look for the easy way out and miss the muscle building potential.
Potential, that's how I sort of interpret what you're saying of like the choice

(28:47):
to stay and be in the trenches and like find the emergent resources,
the emergent pathways that are deeply in concert with the land,
with a liberated humanity,
a design towards a liberated humanity and the more than humanness.

(29:10):
It's like, we're not going to do that if we just get the dangly carrot of moving
to places that just automatically, like, say artists are important.
I think. Working thesis. We'll see. It's hard to say.
It's more just like I almost have to believe this so that I can keep being an

(29:36):
artist here because it's just so much.
But at the same time, like you said, the challenge of it is kind of a blessing because.
Because I go back and forth between being really frustrated that I have to prove
why what I do is important, like, constantly.
But then also that has

(29:59):
forced me to like deepen my
education in like like very thorough
ways of like like I'm always in the middle of some form of research so that
I can back up my offerings with like science and like neuroscience because if
you have neuroscience behind your somatic workshop people are going to listen

(30:21):
to you and like there's often things where it's like.
Yes, the dance wisdom is very real. And I think this goes back to that like
blending this like Venn diagram of like capital D dance and then like somatics
and like where they're intersecting.
But like dance wisdom, we know that dance is healing and we know that it feels

(30:43):
incredible in our bodies.
And, you know, we know that, you know, placing things in three dimensions in
front of you and then having it reflected back might teach you something about
a pattern that you're living out unconsciously.
And we, you know, there's, but then to go and then be trained in like art therapy
and, you know, dance therapy and all these things.

(31:05):
And they literally have you do choreographic exercises but
without like choreography necessarily it's like
composition and they're like oh like let's let's create
your family system like who's like what is your mom what's the shape of your
mom what's she doing how's she looking at you like where's the kid you're and
i'm just like this is literally like this is baby stuff i've been doing this

(31:25):
forever but it's like in the framework of you know a psychology space and And the clinical space,
the codified clinical institution.
Right. Which, again, it's both
affirming and existentially a little upsetting. Like it did both for me.

(31:47):
Mostly affirming because, again, I grew up in this.
It's like this is the system I know as being an American person.
And but yeah with like a western framework on everything that I'm like perpetually
trying to like look past and unlearn but yeah I think um.

(32:11):
I think that's it, actually, on that. That's it. Science. You feel complete?
Science. We could talk for six hours about it. That's the thing. It's like...
I have to be honest with you and tell you that I'm glad you mentioned this because
I do find myself increasingly, like...
I'm not going to fully come out and say, like, anti-science because that's absurd.

(32:35):
But I feel myself increasingly on
the spectrum that is pushing back against that
sort of inner expectation that I put on myself to be able to make the thing

(32:57):
legible by making sure everybody feels safe,
that there is science upon it. And like there is a benefit to that, right?
Because we are talking about the nervous system and like when things get a little
bit too kooky out there, air quotes,
and don't have like the tether of a known body of knowledge,

(33:18):
like capital S science, right?
That people start to shut off
or shut down and can no longer receive the experience and the information.
I think it's a lot of the strong Aquarius places in my chart that are just increasingly like.

(33:39):
You know, what if we, okay, how can I finish this thought?
I just, like, I too deeply feel that, like, affirmation of, like, ah, that's right.
Look at all of these, like, these things that we've been learning in a very,
a pretty exclusive and niche space of the, like, contemporary improvisation-based

(34:04):
movement dance studio world.
World it's a very niche space but the things that have been happening and they're like super um.
It's not democratic but the ways of sharing knowledge and
exercises through that that space space
it's always like you know the the facilitator will

(34:25):
be like i learned this from so and so who learned from so and
so who learned from so and so who learned it from like who fucking knows where
Like the provenance of these tools is so like generously circulated that I think
also lends itself to like it just feeling somehow not as like serious or codified maybe.

(34:50):
Maybe historically in my brain, that's kind of how like, it's just like,
oh, yeah, I did this thing in Jesse Zaret's class one time. And now I love to,
you know, be blindfolded and do this weird wiggle thing on the floor.
And then you understand it's like that is like deeply important somatic research
that would like fully unlock years
of trauma for people who had never been exposed to that kind of work.

(35:16):
But I, okay, let me land this plane. I'm thinking about like that knowledge
bank that is in our tissues from being in spaces like that for so long.
It feels like there's such a taproot to an indigenous self that is pre-science.

(35:39):
It's pre-being able to articulate what's happening through studies and protocols and procedures.
And, um, I identify for myself that like, I've been, um,
I've been programmed by the idea that like dance is sort of the weird stepchild

(36:02):
of the art world, the most underfunded and most under-resourced, um,
that somehow made me just discredit all of this like wealth of information.
Or not discredit, but just not see it as important or rigorous or something

(36:23):
as a more scientific approach.

(36:43):
It's called Scrap the Plan. This is a hand sewing and textile collage workshop
that is specifically about weathering uncertainty how moving our hands creatively
can be an inoculation for when life in the world goes differently than we expected right,

(37:06):
So the really cool dealio, if I do say so myself, with this class is that when
you sign up, you will receive in the mail, in the U.S.
Postal mail, a mystery scrap bundle.
This is a curated, special little bundle of fabric swatches from my personal fabric library, a.k.a.

(37:34):
Textiles that I have been collecting and hoarding, frankly, for decades, okay?
We got baubles from the window to the walls.
And you'll get a little package. You'll get a little mystery package.
Package and you'll be like oh my gosh what's in
my little surprise mystery package and you will open it and those will be those

(37:56):
contents will be specifically what you will work with to create our project
which will be like a hand-sewn little tapestry and beginners you are welcome,
seasoned sewists you are of course welcome yeah it's going to be a really playful

(38:17):
space for us to get out of our heads, my God, get out of our heads and into our hands and into our,
like intuitive musculature.
We're really honing in on our intuition and trusting that we know how to make
something magical from literally what is right in front of us, right?

(38:40):
So it's the micro of the creative play and it's the macro of like laugh lessons and stuff.
I hope you will join us. It is August 13th and August 20th. It's a two-parter.
It's cute. Check out the show notes for all the details. All right, back to our episode.
And again, I think that just goes back to...

(39:04):
Just western systems and and
also like oppression like like western oppression uh which is basically,
it is this like ephemeral non-verbal deeply therapeutic deeply liberating practice

(39:24):
that everyone can do word so of course it's not going it's a threat,
hold on um and
yeah again that's part of listening
to you talk about it it was sort of i was going toggling between
like micro and macro a lot while you were talking because recently this is like

(39:50):
a personal like anecdote um i i in the last four years like while i stepped
away from dance i I really did step away from my professional career for like
basically two and a half years.
Like I just, I was improvising in like the mountains and like still dancing,
but like not training and doing like caregiving work that felt rooted in like

(40:15):
dance and somatics, but it wasn't again, like codified in any way.
No one was witnessing it. No one was paying for it.
I just kind of had this very weird life for a few years where I just wasn't part of the cog.
And when I came back, I kind of, when I came back to LA, I felt really lost

(40:39):
and I came back for community.
I just missed my people and all these things. But I was looking into going back to school,
getting like my master's degree in psychology because I had convinced myself
like, okay, like dance time is over. Like that was good for you.

(41:00):
Playtime. Yeah. That was cute. Cute playtime. And like it got you to here.
It got you to your like science brain. And now we're going to like go get a real job.
I've been saying this. I'm like getting pain in my body. It's making me so sad.
But this was where my head was at and there is a
part of me that maybe will do this someday because i love like i
that my left brain nerds out on this

(41:23):
like i love learning about the nervous system and so.
I was like really seriously contemplating getting
a master's degree in psychology and clinical psychology and
doing that whole process of you know
becoming a licensed therapist and you know taking all of my dance wisdom with
me into that space but and every step I took was just like grueling and uncomfortable

(41:52):
and didn't feel right and I,
And, and so then I just like left it alone for a while. I was like,
okay, well, I really thought that's what I was supposed to do, but I guess not.
And, um, and then literally like I, this year, like I, or this like two months

(42:15):
ago, um, made the decision to get an MFA in choreography.
Beautiful. beautiful that was one of those things that I never thought I would do ever like ever um.
And it's partially because I'm like well I'm already doing all the things that

(42:37):
I'd be doing in an MFA but I was like but actually I'm not I miss I miss having
to dance every day I miss I miss moving my body every single day.
I miss access to a studio.
I miss that old version of myself that used to process whatever I was going
through through the choreographic lens.

(42:59):
I feel like I've just been lost in this somatic soup for four years where nothing
is concrete and nothing makes sense because I haven't been able to dance it.
Because I haven't put it on stage and look at it and feel it and see people
witness it and witness people seeing it.
And like, like that is actually what makes it make sense.

(43:23):
And so I was like, okay, I can either, well, how can I make this happen as soon as possible?
I was like, oh, I can just go to school and have access to all these resources
and just like, that's where I'm at.
So rather than try to like self fund it or like, you know, ask a bunch of wealthy
people for money and have to try to explain myself and apply for a million grants.

(43:46):
This is also coming out of a season of getting like five rejection letters from
things that I really, really was praying for that would have helped support my work.
And I was just like, oh my God, like it.
I need to just, I need to just have resource again. And maybe after I start

(44:09):
dancing every day, I will be able to actually be able to make sense of all of this, like the last.
And so what I was thinking with the, the toggling back and forth with like micro
and macro is like, that was my personal return to the dance and like the dance being important.

(44:32):
Important and like and i really and i really believe that like if we listen
to like our our earth like our matter like our body our yes then the more we do that the more that,
echoes and like we we actually know what it feels like to listen to earth matter

(44:57):
when we listen to our own intuition come on full church ah thanks for letting me church.
Try to find that language but our body as earth matter as the the bat phone the telephone,

(45:19):
to like yeah you can go like hug a
tree and listen to what the tree has to say to you and you
should also like and you fully freaking should what
are you doing turn this podcast off go to it right now
um wow
yeah or you can just like touch your own body and and
know that that is like the that's the proxy that's

(45:43):
the the telephone cord yo
okay oh i'm obsessed i'm fully obsessed
with this um pivot congratulations this
new path that is emerging from the
pregnant void for you it feels
very correct that's my peanut gallery well

(46:04):
i had one more thing and this goes back
to listening to your dreams which is a whole other oh
well um but i
woke up from a a dream and this was
like maybe six months ago and i don't remember anything from the dream but this
phrase and i just like jotted down the phrase in like big like letters so like

(46:28):
3 a.m just like but it was the choreography of our days becomes the narrative of our lives.
And what choreography of our days becomes the narrative of our lives oh and
that was like haunting me um i was haunting me because i was like what is the

(46:51):
geography of my days i'm not doing the thing.
And the way for me to do the thing right now, the path of least resistance for
me to do the thing is to go receive the resources from school.
And just like that is how I will be able to live my daily life in the way that I am like yearning.

(47:15):
And then I have to just trust that clarity will come from that. But.
Yeah, the narrative was not a good narrative for a while.
Not good choreography choreography is
bad who will let this poo-poo dance
exist on the stage choreography of like

(47:37):
doom scrolling and like barely working
and being depressed i'm like this is not this isn't the choreography this is
i want my money back i don't want to go to the show anymore yeah oh dude aruni
okay so beautiful i feel personally called out.

(48:00):
We have to hang out in the void we have to
it's so beautiful i i i
too just hearing the way that you are articulating this
thing that i have known to be true very much in what feels
like a former life pre-pandemic like 20s
era of like i understood choreographic process

(48:21):
was the therapeutic process it's
how in lieu of having a therapist i was like i
just i arrived to
a studio with other sensitive beautiful collaborative
beings and we like tease out the contents of our stuff and our our life and

(48:42):
like the currents moving through us and we let the dance unfold and then we get to see,
exactly as you said our lives reflected back to us it's like you can't see it
it's like a fish swimming in water and being like describe the water and you're
like i don't know it's just it's the stuff but then all of a sudden it's like

(49:05):
oh the water ballet appears and i can understand,
my life and myself and yeah there's a deep there's a deep longing there's a
deep yearning within me to understand um.
To be the little amphibian in the soup of the last few years of just totally shaking everything up.

(49:31):
And I too really have that longing, but also like a, holy shit,
I have no idea how to begin.
What does my process look like?
For me, the process really pivoted into like, oh, quilts are choreography now.

(49:52):
Like, fabric is who I collaborate with, the dancers that I collaborate with.
And that is still, there's so much fruit and juice and life there for me.
But yeah, there's a total, there's a total desire.
There's a total desire for movement.

(50:15):
Well, and like, we, the thing is, is like all those things are still.
Like with us and useful and making us
better people like as as again
like i'm speaking as to you as like a dance person who's also
in this like place where you're just like where
how does this keep folding in um and

(50:40):
to me like the last few years has been a lot of i like i'm
a nanny like I'm a nanny and I um I
go to ACA meetings like like the
biography of my days come on is like step work and caregiving and like taking
a dance class when I can taking a yoga class when I can like but the thing is

(51:03):
is both of those things like being a nanny has been deeply,
deeply like informing my ACA work and vice versa like yelled it's literal it's
like literally healing my inner child to work with this beautiful toddler with
two really healthy parents and um,

(51:27):
and I'm like I couldn't if I was just dancing my ass off all day long and like
Like, just like, go, go, go.
Like, I would be missing this, like, very slow, very important season of learning.
Like, all of this other stuff.
I feel like what's happening right now is I'm getting to the point where this
stuff is ready to be integrated through the body in a way that's not just somatic

(51:51):
rolling around, even though I love rolling around, as you know,
that's like my favorite thing to do.
But like that in a way that's like presentational and like you said,
like the water ballet, like it's ready to be integrated.
All of my cells are like pop rocks right now.
Oh, my God. this is feeling so

(52:11):
like the timing is feeling so
correct like i really feel
and it sounds like this is happening for you as
well that it's like oh god we just like really had to
go through these incredibly necessary soul initiations
of like the non-presentational yes

(52:32):
12th house the things that it happen in the
eclipsed self like the shadow work i'm also
just like fully geeking out of our like tandem path
of like what i would describe as like this is what i've been
doing in my like weird non-artist life
it's like deep 12-step work

(52:54):
extremely rigorous 12-step work
and learning to become a death doula which those
two feel like are so
in the same way that you're like aca and
nannying is just like the most trippy exquisite a heartbreaking glorious miraculous

(53:18):
i don't know i'm fully projecting from my experience of what the intersection is um Um.
But like, those are just such beautiful and nest, like, we're going to look back in 20 years.
We're going to look back in like 20 minutes and be like, Oh,
this fully like there, there's been so much information in this.

(53:42):
Strange um unseen self the practice the choreography of the unseen self is actually so.
Like incredibly detailed and nuanced oh my god i love that phrase that's amazing
we just said that together i was like pulling on your amazing dream quote the choreography of the

(54:09):
unseen self well because it's true it's like I I really felt like I had no choice,
in the last four years like it was like my body
wasn't ringing with anything else even dance even dance felt amazing and I miss
it and I long for it and I'm grieving how it used to be and all these things

(54:31):
still but it's like the the doors weren't weren't open and the doors were open in these other avenues.
And yeah, ACA, I started a year ago.
And I... Do you mind naming for us, for those who are uninitiated,
what ACA stands for? It's so fun.

(54:52):
It is. It's so much fun. It's Adult Children of Alcoholics and Dysfunctional Families.
And it's a 12-step program that essentially helps you recover from addiction to addiction.

(55:13):
I think of it as addiction to like shame. It's like emotional addiction,
addiction to shame, um, addiction to like feeling like shit.
It's basically like addiction to feeling like how you felt when you were a kid
and like recreating those patterns in your daily life.
Um, so it's really, it's really intense, um, work.

(55:40):
Um, and again, like a lot of it is like reparenting work and inner child healing
and to be doing that with like tandem with like working with this.
I started working with this child when she was eight months old and now she's
like almost two and a half.
And it's just been like so beautiful.

(56:02):
And it is, again, it's somatic because it's like, it reminds me of the work I did with my grandma.
And it informs i haven't even brought this up
yet but it informs the work i do with i care about your body
which is like again it's all rooted in those
lessons of like reciprocal caregiving and
how you need to be feeling grounded in

(56:24):
order to offer safe care and like how do you
do that at the same time and um so
again like yeah okay aca i care about
your body like development behind the scenes and then
nannying it's like invisible like right
like the visible version is the doom scrolling that's the

(56:45):
visible choreography but the unseen self choreography is all of these like just
absolutely saturated gorgeous incredibly intricate like woven threads behind
the scenes but go ahead I feel like you were going to say something else.
Oh, I don't really know, actually. I'm just kind of, it's really,

(57:07):
I'm loving this conversation because it's, I think today especially,
I was just feeling really lost and confused.
And it's helping me to, like, put it all into language.
Give thanks. Yes.
I also just love the way you are naming like the 12 step process that you're

(57:34):
up to is like healing the addiction to like feeling the shittiness that you
felt in childhood that like when you are.
A child that is you know this big beautiful connected being like cosmic,
like just incredible intelligence incredible

(57:55):
capacity to like discover this
body and feel this body and be this wild spirit in in
form and then to be just like the ball be totally fucking dropped by the people
who were you know maybe by design are supposed to be like ushering you into
how to navigate this world of form this material reality as a spirit in in a body,

(58:21):
and um yeah just all the dis inner disfiguring that happens all of the perversion
my sponsor uses this word perversion,
the perverted facets of the self and these weird,
dumby shapes that we get ourselves into to try to approximate safety by any

(58:45):
means necessary when the childhood was very unsafe, not a safe place to be.
And all of those things are just running in the background all the time.
Driving. Step work and somatic work is like the most fascinating Venn diagram

(59:06):
territory because it's very, I mean, I like I'm obsessed with steps.
I think they're so freaky and trippy and bizarre. I'm like deeply in my fourth step writing process.
Not easy.
I mean, I'm in step three and I'm afraid of step four.
Buckle up, baby. Buckle up. Step four. I've been working on it since October

(59:30):
and it is like one of the most rigorous things I've ever done.
Step four, for those listening who are like, what's step four?
I don't understand. is a an inventory process it's a writing a very specific
writing process um to be able to like really let the stinky poo-poo thoughts

(59:50):
that your mind is just constantly generating and,
we're either taking at face value and believing our facts or we're like ashamed
that we're having those thoughts.
But it's a very specific way to get all of the judgments and resentments you
have about every single person you've ever encountered the world.

(01:00:14):
And just get it on out on the paper and then yeah, to be able to air it out
and really like, look, it's almost like what we're talking about with making dances.
It's like, you have to get it out of your body, put it on the stage,
put it in the studio in front of you and be like,
wow, look at this material that lives inside of me.

(01:00:40):
All of the perversions of my most innocent, essential self.
Right. Yeah. It's so trippy. And it's an essential step.
It's like we actually have to. Otherwise, it's driving the car.
Like it's running the show. And yeah, well, truly bless you in this because yeah,

(01:01:12):
again, it's invisible work, but it's so radical and important and like,
life-changing for you and everybody who will know you.
It feels that way it really feels that
way it's so beautiful that you're taking care of a child right now
and i think about that a lot as like someone

(01:01:34):
who um you know
goes in and out of seasons of like longing to
parent a child and and and bring a child into
this world i'm like wow i'm gonna
make damn sure that this stuff is
like really tended to yeah um to

(01:01:55):
the best way that i can before i can i mean
we all it all happens when it happens and we do what we do but it feels exciting
to have that potential available yeah absolutely i mean even you're just you're
changing yourselves doing this work so So it's like fully.

(01:02:17):
Yeah. It's already bully already a safer place.
Just the work. It's not a little bit.
Just the action.
Yeah. It just feels like a death over and over. I'm just like death midwifing
myself over and over again.

(01:02:38):
Which is also incredible. And I really want to talk to you about death's doula work.
Yeah, it's, it's, I love to talk about it. Can't stop talking about it.
I am enjoying the experience that I've been having lately of like saying it more.

(01:03:00):
Like I've been meeting a lot of new people recently and I'm like,
you know, just testing the waters of dropping that language in,
in the kind of weird swirl of introducing oneself and.
I'm mostly encountering people who are like tell me everything,

(01:03:24):
I'm so interested and I wasn't sure if that would be the case I wasn't sure
if people would be like oh okay gotcha you're a weird chick gotcha okay,
I mean I think I think there is a shift, though, in the last few years,
just with all of the death that we've all been witnessing for so long.

(01:03:49):
I mean, we always have, but I feel like especially in the last four years,
everything has been so broadcasted, and a lot of people have experienced a lot
of death in the last four years,
and are realizing...
That we aren't equipped emotionally for all of the grief.

(01:04:16):
And so I think, I think it's changing. Like I do think people are starting to
see the value in the like mystical or whatever, but also the somatic,
like people, I know that, um, this, I'm going to shout out my mom, but my mom,
that woman has been just growing and.

(01:04:39):
And doing somatic work. And like, this is a person I never, you know,
and she, and she just talked to me.
She's like, yeah, like I'm, She's doing hypnosis.
She's doing like she's working with like a somatic therapist.
She's doing all these things. And it's like, I know because things just became unmanageable.
Like, and, you know, I just think in general, like, folks are starting to feel

(01:05:05):
the effects of the times we're witnessing and living through.
And again, that micro and macro of like our own traumas and our own personal
stories and journeys, and then like on the backdrop of what's happening globally
and to the earth and to like women and children's bodies all over the sun.
And men you know um

(01:05:27):
yes I'm just speaking because it was my mom but
just like I think there's this awakening that's starting so I I feel like you're
not alone in that kind of like oh people are starting to value this interesting
like even though you've always known yeah for sure yeah Yeah,

(01:05:49):
I feel that so big and like it just,
yeah, it feels like step work again of like.
To be in this time of the dial getting turned up so high and so furiously of
just how much unthinkable violence and death.

(01:06:13):
But the violence before the death, it's like the violent circumstances that
are creating just this enormous amount of death that we're now fully steeped in and acculturated to.
And the way you were describing like, oh yeah, we're realizing that we're just
not equipped to be both consuming that much and that degree of content.

(01:06:39):
And it also feels like it is the underscore of like oh but there's all this
backlog of like untended violence,
in the micro of my own tissues that I actually do not have the capacity to witness

(01:06:59):
other people's violence,
because like I feel like that's what is that's the setup right that's the deal
is like when we have all this backlog of unmanageably.
What we were able to manage through our coping mechanisms before,

(01:07:20):
it's like the jig is up. We can't do those things anymore.
Many of us can't because...
Yeah, it's just, it's becoming so, the temperature,
the tenor, something is becoming so loud that it is revealing all of these things

(01:07:41):
that have been running in the background of our bodies and our inner lives.
It's just actually was like really not okay for a long time.
And i don't know it just speaks so much to like we have a responsibility to
in order to be able to meet the enormous need of like the earth and humanity's um.

(01:08:11):
Yeah crises like we
really have to um yeah like
listen to this backlog of stuff in our
tissues shoes yeah yeah that
was very beautifully put um do

(01:08:34):
you do you have the interest desire and capacity
to speak a little bit more about i care about your body
and if and how the dear listeners that
are like i'm so obsessed with this person how can i work with them all the time
how can mentally in their world well I'm obsessed with all of you too yeah I

(01:08:59):
mean I care about your body.
Is everything we're talking about um and it's it's like it's been birthed out of this,
pregnant void that you've been referencing um it was a download that i received,

(01:09:23):
while caregiving for my grandmother um i literally it was during a time when
i couldn't get her to listen to me about wearing her oxygen and i literally
just was like i care about your body That's why I want you to do this.
And again, that phrase was just ringing and resonating for a while and I didn't know why or how.

(01:09:51):
And then I don't remember even, I think I was driving and it downloaded as like an offering.
I was reading Resmaa Menakem, who's a somatic abolitionist who writes all about
healing the self, healing the cells in our own body in order to heal collectively
and specifically in the realm of racialized trauma and violence.

(01:10:11):
And I was reading, I was rereading his book, My Grandmother's Hands,
while in this caregiving season.
Wow. wow and and it wasn't on
purpose or anything i just i love that book and i think
it's again like really important to just always

(01:10:33):
be taking in something like that like even if it's just you don't know how the
synapses are forming um and then when i came back to la i wanted to hold a workshop
that was all about sort of just like tuning like somatic tuning in a community,
something that brought us back to really gentle dance and also listening to

(01:11:00):
the amount of time that it takes the body to trust another body.
Um, um,
And it was a really incredible, it's a three-day workshop.
And on the last day of the first workshop, it was when my grandmother passed away.

(01:11:21):
So everything about it felt like you just gave it to me. She's like, here you go.
It's so beautiful. Oh, my God. That's stunning.
I love her so much. Um, and so we do, I've done maybe five or six of them now

(01:11:43):
I've been doing it for a little over a year.
Um, and like I said, it's a three-day offering.
Um, we build a community altar, we do presencing exercises that are rooted in neuroscience.
And then we also do, um, a practice that I call rolling practice,

(01:12:04):
which is like a pendulation.
Again, if I'm going into of the neuroscience you're literally pendulating your
right and left brain into balance over like time and slowness um while accumulating
like natural intuitive range body um but if i'm just speaking to what it actually

(01:12:26):
is you're just rolling across the floor really slowly for two hours,
um and it's thanks give thanks yeah i need more of this everywhere all of the time,
but that's the thing it's and oh and then there's a we do a vocal sound meditation
with my collaborator o'deanini but it's again it's like three days it's like

(01:12:47):
you treat your body like a retreat center for three days um it's really so beautiful.
And that's been like the greatest gift of the last four years was like receiving
that download and then bringing it into the world.
And it is resonating like I have four more like coming up.

(01:13:11):
Like it just keeps if you want it, let me know if anyone wants to host it.
All we need is a dance floor and some help with marketing.
Amazing. We're fully bringing you to Atlanta. It's happening.
I'd love to come to Atlanta.
Uh maybe because you'll be in you'll be in the south soon next month um so okay maybe we can.

(01:13:37):
We'll just start a little side chat here and we'll see what we can do with the
old google cal i would love that i mean it's really it's just an absolutely
beautiful practice and the idea is
yes it's a retreat yes it's a way to tune
our nervous systems and feel really good for three days but ideally

(01:13:57):
it's also giving us a deeper understanding of
like what our capacity is and what our capacity can be and giving us like grounding
practices that we can like utilize to help increase our capacity for this really
chaotic world we're living through um,

(01:14:18):
Um, um, so yeah, it's been a really beautiful journey and, and I'm also,
it's part of my, um, I'm bringing it with me to my MFA.
Like, I'm like, I'm going to build this out in a much bigger way and use the
resources of the institution to help me like build this out even more so that
it's incredible. Self-sustaining.

(01:14:41):
Um, but in the meantime, it is a, that's, it's just me.
Um yeah but anyway i i really would love to bring it to atlanta i would love
to like just talk to you all the time anyway about everything please i'm thankful that,

(01:15:01):
that we were brought together through the the web of the internet and it through ween.
Give thanks to ween okay the song was sarah i remember that yeah there was definitely
a season where we listened to sarah on a loop for like two weeks and just made material so that's,

(01:15:27):
isn't that that's such a specific i uh okay one more rabbit hole and then we'll
probably wrap this up i know we're having some yes it's like okay i've been
on the screen for a while So, yeah.
There is something so specific about the dancing body that gets that song that
is like the knife into the solar plexus.

(01:15:51):
And you're just like, this song is everything to me.
And I need to keep letting it unfurl for days and days and days on repeat.
I just had the experience of, I have this track, my current track that I've
been working with. I've started renting studio space, dancing studio space. Yes!

(01:16:13):
Let me, this is in the last two months, and I'm like, let me cosplay as a dancing
capital D dancer and go rent some doggone studio space.
I immediately went in and just laid on the floor and cried.
Talk about return of the dance that you mentioned earlier.

(01:16:34):
That's step one. we have our own step work in return of the dance.
Um and my song my
track has been a track by carlos
nino who is the producer of
andre 3000's new blue son i met

(01:16:57):
carlos nino yes two days ago because he came to atlanta to um spin records at
a wine bar and listening room that i've helped open and they're just the trippiness
of and the synchronicity of like.

(01:17:18):
To have that song that is like deep soul research. Right.
And it is such a specific way of engaging with art and sonic material to be
like, I need to dance to this over and over again for weeks.
To understand myself and to understand all of the pockets that lead to the wider

(01:17:40):
cosmos just through this one track.
And then this man is just like, hey, what's up? What's going on?
I made that track and i'm like yeah you did
and you're just like a really cool normal ass person yeah
i love that for
you by the way that's amazing i loved it too it was it was wild it was so trippy

(01:18:03):
andre 3000 walked in the door last night there was like 40 people in this room
it was oh a full portal wormhole was opened andre introduces himself he's like hey what's up
i'm andre and i'm like the actual fuck what what
okay cool yeah normal

(01:18:26):
this life is weird and so normal i love this for you i really do oh my god return
of the dance baby i'm saying all this not to just flex not for a full andre
flex and carla's like i'm saying this because it's like.

(01:18:48):
It is not lost on me that like returning to the thing that felt like I too had
the moment of like, I guess my dance days are over and I'm just a need to pivot into a grownup career.
But like there is an essential longing in the fabric of my soul that is like
the dance wants to dance and the body wants to be moved by music that moves it.

(01:19:15):
And I'm in the act of starting to say yes to that. The universe is like, okay,
well, here are the people that made that stuff for you just to let you know
that, you know, that here's just a flag waving in the wind that says like, yes.
Keep going. I don't know. I'm fully just, that's all I'm doing for me right now.

(01:19:37):
That is so beautiful. Because again, it's, I mean, to tie it all,
but like even with step work, they talk about these like miracles that start
to happen when you're living in alignment.
And it's like the dance brings us back into alignment.
And if that's what's calling and yearning, it's like we have to listen to it.

(01:19:57):
And and like i said earlier like i believe it's
it's not this like isolated selfish thing
it's like when we listen to our bodies we listen better to the
earth we listen better to community we listen better because we are aligned
with matter with the matter that brings us through life so i think it's radical

(01:20:20):
full yes just vibrating tambourines of yes over here,
oh I'm so happy you're going into the studio again yeah hey the studio the studio
rat in me season honors the studio rat in you and.

(01:20:42):
Oh yeah so trippy oh my gosh I just love you I'm like reaching through the screen
and kissing your sweet face you too thank you so much for this.
Music.