“You’re retired. You have all the time in the World!” Well, yes and no. Somehow my days speed by and at bedtime I reflect on how quickly time has passed and how I spent my day. Housework? Of course not – life is too short to be busy sweeping away cobwebs. Just a quick “lick ‘n promise” to make sure that the kitchen and bathrooms are clean and the rest will keep. Exercise? Essential – if I wish to keep mobile, I must keep moving. Writing? Ah! By the time I have written my daily “Morning Pages” (see Julia Cameron and “The Artists Way”) and penned my weekly letter to my brother, I have used up quite a bit of my writing energy. Then there are my hobbies. I have just discovered “quilling”, a traditional art going back centuries which involves curling very narrow strips of paper and gluing them down on edge to create patterns. Very absorbing and very satisfying.
So: what happened at our last session with Kirsty and Raf? We began by donning our denim-wear for Raf to assess as he works on his vision for how we dress for the final performance. When one Elder walked in in her gear I truly thought that some random teen had wandered into our room by mistake!
Then Kirsty warmed us up, helping us to relax and ‘be in the moment’ with some seated Tai Chi. Now it was time to work in pairs and start to play. For this task Kirsty produced string so that we could try “Cat’s Cradle”. Back in the day I recall standing in the school playground watching in bafflement as pairs of girls deftly transferred the string pattern from one pair of hands to the other. How did they do that? My partner was very patient with me as I clumsily pinched the strings to lift them off her hands – and lost the pattern again and again. She was able to take the pattern off my hands. No problem.
Now for the task of the day: ‘score making’. Kirsty instructed us to work together in fours with an object, remembering the key words, “over/ under/ around’” and “copy/ complement/ contrast” and all the time being aware of the other three. My group grabbed a massive band of elastic enclosed in turquoise velvet and we chose a quiet corner to work in. The four of us held on to the band, twisting, turning, ducking over and around. Reflecting on my own movement I realised that my first attempt was so much more fluid than my second try because I tensed up. Instead of “being in the moment” and being aware of the movements of the other three I was focusing on my own body.. And when I stiffened up, my body could do so much less! I forgot to “copy, contrast and complement” while going “over, under and around”. I was, in effect, not working collaboratively at all. Mea culpa! After practising, we returned to our tables to create a score, recording our moves on long sheets of paper. When that was done, we had one more practice before performing our score in front of the others.

Homework: study the RSVP handout and research the links to performers. Next month we’ll have two sessions with Kirsty and one session with Harriet, who led us for the “Hauntology” workshop.
RSVP Cycle By Lawrence Halprin courtesy of Anna Halprin
R stands for Resources
S stands for Scores
V stands for Valuation
P stands for Performance
(Click here)

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