Where a live performance takes place is a sacred space.  What you are experiencing will only happen once in that particular way.  With all the time and energy that goes into creating a Flock performance  we consciously add a specific thought towards what we’d like to see changed.  At a particular moment of transformation in a show, each performer fills in their own wish/prayer. 

 Ritual is often associated with a repeated prayer-like action, the calling in of what is needed.  Through ritual we can help to bring forward what we envision and  imagine what is possible.  By linking a wish for change to a discovered special place or time, the connection both to our surroundings and to our self expands and strengthens our sense of purpose.  

 Promoting Planetary Change

During a choreographed dance depicting cremation and CREMATION: Dancer flames, collectively cleansing
purification, there came a high energy moment when the
dancers, individually, displayed their own compact solo
expression of cleansing.  Each chose and transmitted at
that moment, their own idea of a specific change that
they wanted to make happen in the world.  They then
moved into a circle, turning as a collective wheel of fiery
energy. There was a rising thrust of wind-like power,
up and out, carrying all their individually held wish-prayers
and producing healing energy for our planet.

Honoring Water and its care is a most important
element that Flock frequently addresses.  After  WATER as blue rope
warring over water, dancers redistribute water 
by untangling the complexities that the “owners” 
of our water have brought upon us.   

THE RETURN OF WATER being conjured by children

Grandmothers Dance

In the Cowboy Hall of Fame Museum of 
Western Art in Oklahoma City,  I saw 
a simple drawing of two native Women 
sitting on the ground, side by side, each
facing in opposite directions.  There 
was a strong feeling of solid connection 
between them and of the strong 
quiet power that these women possessed. 
The idea of the women carrying the care 
of the future generations came to me.  

The Grandmother's dance came about 
towards the end of a full length work 
needing a pivotal moment of transformation.  

These Grandmothers were able to connect 
over same concerns and create a wind storm 
of change to the world. The entire dance 
remained with the Grandmothers sitting 
side by side on the ground.

Women Carrying Water

Augustus St. Gaudens created a relief of a 
procession of Greek Women carrying jugs.  
He loved parades and processions, as do I.  
The grace that comes from labor that a body 
continuously repeats is dance.  Much traditional 
dance the world over, has deriven from the physical 
work at hand. In line with many painters, this is a 
favorite aspect of my choreographic vocabulary.

The gathering of women at the village water hole and 
gathering around water and the many ways in which            
this precious element is transported has caught my    
interest. We performed this procession in Cornish, 

New Hampshire, where St. Gaudens had his home, 
as did Maxfield Parish.  The light that embraced our 
procession caught the colors and startling light that 
Parish himself captured in his paintings. 

Gleaning  is another physical work dance, 
and, again, often done by women as Monet 
shows us.  It has  always been the women 
who do the most stooping.Why not celebrate 
this motion as there comes a rhythmic pattern 
to leaning over,  picking up andtucking the 
hay into a growing bundle on your arm as 
you move to pick up the next bit.

 Christina’s World by Andrew Wyeth 
brought me to think about what it’s 
like if  we are lacking something important.  
Concern for how gadgets and the web of 
communication that is with us at all times 
have taken us so far away from being 
present led me to connect to Christina’s 
world.  As a young adult I made a decision 
to increase the use of my senses for the rest 
of my life. I imagine and dance what Christina 
notices there in the field by herself, not able 
to walk away.  The entire dance is done with 
her back facing the audience. She hears something, 
and we see her turn to find it and see her 
satisfaction upon recognizing a certain bird. 
She notices a clover blossom growing within 
reach and picks it to pull each honeyed cluster 
of petals into her mouth to taste that tiny 
sweetness.  It ends with her sensing some-
thing strange and unknown coming near.