Present Tense: Healing as we Speak

"Present Tense: Healing as We Speak," a text-based movement performance utilizing Process Work, was created for a three day event called "Expose, Express, Exchange'' in Richmond, Virginia. The event's founders believed performance, art and dialogue could create an opportunity for individual and community commitment to change perceived "social ills." Each evening's works, thematically unified, were followed by a moderated discussion that included the audience, a panel of community workers and the artists.

We created this piece as a challenge to our previous way of working together, to our own growth process, and to our community. We sought to apply Process Work to creativity and to explore the possibility of healing while performing. The event itself carried an implied Western view of "curing," i.e., relieving the symptom. However, the healing we would attempt to impart was based in our personal view of healing, which is moving toward wholeness. The tension between these paradigms became one of our underlying themes.

In this article, we discuss our development as creators of a piece reflecting our healing processes and the effect of performing and applying Process Work during the ritual/performance. We attempt here to impart a small portion of what evolved into a profound experience. Since we collaborated on the writing, we chose to use the first personal plural, "we," but occasionally needed the singular "I."

Why perform?

In the two years since our last performance together, we both had gone through numerous

changes in our personal and professional lives. Although we had never created work based solely on abstract or artful notions, we were now even less inclined to do so. We found that to commit to the project, the work had to be personally inspirational and equally relevant to the community.

Previously, reading and interpreting texts determined the shape of our performances. This time, we chose a theme first: healing, with an emphasis on investigating identity, boundaries and intimacy. This theme necessitated equal and reciprocal input. We believed that by investigating ourselves as individuals in relationship we would experience a shift in our perception of wholeness and give audience members a hopeful example for their own healing journeys. We intended not only to explore healing as an art, but to make the actual process of healing the performance.

We had recently discovered Process Work, and saw it as an extension of our usual method of working, which relies heavily on improvisation and the exploration of non-linearity in moving, speaking, writing, drawing and sounding. With Process Work's focus on encouraging the unknown, our direction shifted from how we appeared to the audience and our conscious control of the work to how much and how readily we disclosed ourselves moment by moment on stage. Instead of us serving the work, adopting roles of dancer, actor or reader, the work served us in our being and becoming, as we stepped outside the safe guise of roles into unrehearsed and more vulnerable selves.

To fit our theme and provide a structure, we chose two of Cheryl's poems which are directed

toward knowing and reforming the self. The poem "Coloring Senses" is a verbal ritual that conjures a fuller awareness of being in the moment. It attempts to arouse and decipher body signals. The other poem, "I Tear for You," was written in anguish for a friend. The poems appear at the end of this article. Present tense

Conceptualizing is easy; putting theory into action and embodying principles is quite another feat. We had recently completed a workshop and readings in Process Work, and developed an exercise that included process-oriented concepts along with elements from Vipassana meditation and Authentic Movement. We call this exercise "Presenting." In this exercise, we sat across from each other and took fifteen-minute turns "inventorying," that is, noticing and articulating sensations in our bodies and reporting them in the present tense; for instance, "I am hearing birds chirp" or "I am feeling a pain in my belly." As we scanned with each sense, we discovered echoes and resonances of the past as well as signs anticipating possible futures, manifested through tensions, gestures, word choices and movements. The exercise shifted our focus to being more mindfully present and revealed our preoccupations. Common language

Focusing on the nature of language, we explored the symbols accompanying the poems, the sounds and phrases of the words, and the differences in our interpretations. "Of Coloring Senses" is performed with posters displaying a question mark, equals sign, dividing sign, and an arrow. Through exploration we decided that our vocabulary would not only be vocal but include gesture, movement, and listening. We developed our language by recording gestures and associated meanings that came out of our Process Work exercises and study, and by repeating and sharing movements which emerged through working together.

For example, in one of our early exercises, while the right side of Kevyn's body remained still, her left arm began to rise above her head. The image of a fast motion film of a growing sunflower came, along with the associated meaning of reaching for life, even during dormancy. We assumed that when this gesture recurred in future sessions, we would know its meaning for us.

Developing our common language helped us see and hear each other as never before, and indicated our furthering trust of one another. Despite

years of being friends and creative partners, we had not yet risked deepening our relationship by exposing our individual mysteries.

We promoted intimacy by inventorying ourselves in each other's presence. As we articulated our sensations, our awareness of their meanings grew, as did the realization that we were able to divulge more of ourselves when supported by a loving witness. The gestures and meaning of this new vocabulary contained the strength of shared experience which was accessible to both of us. Connecting the poems

We challenged ourselves to connect the poems and to create a substantial organic "bridge" between them, a section of the performance which would be an actual healing process. We would not be performing about healing, thereby abstracting it and distancing ourselves safely outside the process. From a position outside the process, we could act and dissociate; inside the process, we would, by necessity, have to engage greater levels of ourselves.

Before continuing, however, we had to answer the question: Is healing performable and valid as art? Anthropologist Victor Turner, who has written extensively on ritual and theater, defines performance simply and profoundly as the completion of an act—any act. Entertainers (dancers, musicians, puppeteers, etc.) and shamans are similar in that they provoke specific, often pre-intentioned reactions from onlookers. All performances have a "reflexive" quality, that is, they enable us to see ourselves because these "structured units of experience," are specially framed in "liminal" spaces, where performers and audience pass through a threshold with an unclear difference between the profane and the secular. In liminal spaces, normative social structures are played within "sacred space-time" and new meaning emerges. "The difference between ordinary and...extraordinary life [is] merely a matter of framing" (Turner 1982). In our case, our performance began at the outset of the project and would culminate on stage. In fact, we found the writing of this article to extend the performance.

We had performed rituals before, but in circumstances with different staging and the more conventional distant relationship to the audience. Here, our objective was twofold: to heal ourselves and engage the audience directly in their own healing, thereby breaking down the usual performer/audience barrier.

Kevyn Burn and Cheryl Pallant

Definition of healing

In order to proceed, we needed to define what healing meant to us. We consider healing a restoration, recovery or recuperation of one's vital energies, with an emphasis on bringing forth what is hidden or suppressed. Notably, we don't think of health as the absence of pain; rather, well-being involves embracing a whole range of sensations, both those that are welcome and comforting and those that are not. Pain is as essential as ease. To let one's energies flow, it's important to acknowledge them all and not judge any one as better or worse than another.

We believed that to impact the healing process for audience members, we would need to become healers and have direct understanding of being healed. We focused on unfolding our true natures, risking intimacy and challenging the boundaries that separate us. Stephen Levine says that when a healer focuses on helping individuals directly experience their original nature, healing becomes a lens which focuses the potentiality of the moment (1982). Individual processes

As we prepared for the performance, we discovered new aspects of ourselves, which impacted the performance and our lives. Descriptions of some of our individual learning follow. Cheryl's individual process

Through the "presenting" exercise, which we later modified to include movement, and a seminar with Kate Jobe on Moving the Dreaming Body, I had new experiences with my visions, which were emotionally charged, numinous, and intriguing. At first these visions seemed separate from myself and my life, but they ultimately led to derivative movements and insights. In my writing, when mental images surface, they are immediately directed into a construct of language such as a metaphor or a scene. In short, they are limited to the realm of the page, and I experience them as separate from myself. Without the activity of writing, the energetic impact of these visual images hit me fully and directly. A perceptual shift occurred as I, like a lucid dreamer defying spatial and temporal restrictions, entered a concurrent reality previously unseen, a richly symbolic realm that influenced me emotionally, kinesthetically and proprioceptively.

For instance, in the course of one of our exercises, I kept seeing mountains. Although I didn't understand why they appeared, I took a few steps

toward them and was immediately transported to a mountain crest, surrounded by dense woods. We were working indoors, where the brick building, climate controlled room, walls and chairs all usually influence my posture, attitudes, and relationship to both animate and inanimate objects. Finding myself suddenly amid a natural environment, the city below within view, left me euphoric; my breath eased and deepened and my body warmed and expanded in the increased space of the outdoors. The euphoria eventually gave way to fright and caution when I spotted a leg-hold trap, which forces a trapped animal to die slowly and painfully or to chew off its trapped appendage to gain freedom.

This grisly vision and the memory of an earlier vision of a recently fed animal with blood dripping from its mouth helped me realize how I often temper my animal impulses, the primordial power that comes with being unreservedly spontaneous. I recognized the dangers inherent in blindly obeying social norms and civilized codes of behavior and the dangers, also, in disregarding them. If I never test the boundaries between the wild and the tame, the conscious and the unconscious, the objectionable and the acceptable, the creative and the reasoned, then I limit my potential, my abilities, and my understanding of self and others. I saw how overvaluing parts of myself to the exclusion or disparagement of other areas can lead to serious imbalances in personal and interpersonal functioning.

I began to test these boundaries with my weekly dancers' group. In an exercise which encouraged our animal natures, we switched rapidly from gazelle to dog to monkey and other creatures, exploring our animal sides without reserve. We experimented with joining a group, asserting dominance and fighting over food, mates and resting places. We grunted, barked, growled, ran, attacked, and hid. Not once did we resort to linear speech such as, "Hey, let's all yell."

Another event from that evening haunts me and raises questions. Usually, when I return home, my beloved cat greets me on the sidewalk or front porch. This time, I called and called and got no response. When in the morning he still hadn't appeared, I went to search and found what I least wanted, his body lifeless on the sidewalk, half a block away. Never before had he tried crossing this busy street—why did he choose to do so then? Were our actions connected in any way?

Kevyn's individual process

As I worked with Cheryl, I realized the exquisite vulnerability and powers I carry with me. The way we worked on this piece was completely different from previous projects. While verbalizing my beliefs and concepts, I found an urgent, emphatic and exciting quality. I felt my voice come from deep within me and noticed a change in its tone. This deep voice is like my passion and intensity. After I discovered my passionate voice, it became much less elusive and more easily utilized.

Initially I felt vulnerable as I repeatedly lost my ability to express myself in movement and to think. I entered an altered state in which I felt exposed, judged, childlike, and alone. My journey began w'th a physical identification with my parents. The right side of my body felt heavy and tired. I associated this feeling to my mother; her postures, physical presence, and the parts of myself which I identify with her. My left side felt lighter, taller and more erect; I felt this as my father in me. Intellectually I knew I was more than a composite of these two identities, these extremes, but in my emotions, I could not feel my "self."

As I opened to my feelings, I felt surprised by the strength and vibrancy of this identification. I felt comforted because my parents were so close to me and angry that I was not yet "finished" with my individuation. The duality I experienced was confusing and provoked insecurities.

When my self-criticism decreased, I could honor my parents' parts of me. This created an image of a peaceful, omnipotent, "creator of my own world," freed my lost play and humor, and left me feeling full, vibrant, and powerful. Only later did I realize that my sunflower left arm was a foreshadowing of the journey I would experience in creating and performing this piece.

My extremes, resistances, personal judgments and reinforced strength became compelling statements of my inner world and a world I wanted, yet feared, to expose in performance. With expose as an operative word, my growing awareness impelled me to take risks, and at the time of performance, I felt calm and focused. Relationship change

Due to the nature of "exposing, expressing, and exchanging" in our creative process, much of the work we did occurred in relationship. Sometimes we were both caught in our projections and judgments, but ultimately our awareness grew. Our growth was most evident in our willingness to honor qualities we perceived as negative and to commit to further exploration of these qualities with one another. We attempted to find meaning in our double signals, for instance, through a serious discussion about playfulness and the meaning of aggressive feelings.

We openly attempted to confront our aggression in relationship to each other, but kept getting tired, distracted and confused. Trying to lessen the burden of exploring the aggression, we labeled it "firmness" and addressed it through movement in a contact improvisation exercise. The exercise was designed to utilize the elements of our newly defined firmness, changing weight distribution, blocked energy and resistance to fully engaging. Albeit revealing, this non-addressing of the true issue led to the issue reoccurring in the performance.

Over time, our constant willingness to expose ourselves developed into a profound sense of trust and connection. Our relationship was stronger in the depth and openness of our sharing. Our views of ourselves and each other expanded to encompass a greater diversity of emotions found in our stories, images, conflicts and triumphs. The performance

The performance began with Cheryl, as intuitive poet, reading "Of Coloring Senses" while Kevyn, as reasoning clinician, sat rigidly upstage holding up the signs and occasionally repeating sounds.

The middle section was to be largely improvised. We planned to focus on the following three elements: channels of expression, the points at which we switched channels and a vocabulary of predetermined gestures. We would begin with the discomfort we anticipated and gradually acknowledge each other by crossing over an invisible line separating us. Although we expected to experience resistance and misunderstanding between us, we ultimately aimed at blurring our differences, letting go of a need to maintain boundaries, and finding more flexible, empowered selves motivated not out of fear of others and otherness, but inspired to act out of compassion. Once we more openly accepted each other, which we considered our "healing," we would read the second poem with shared ease.

Cheryl: What I found noteworthy about the performance was not so much what occurred as intended but its many surprises: the audience's

Kevyn Burn and Cheryl Pallant

intermittent laughter, discomfort and breathless quiet; the absence of my visions which had consistently played a prominent role earlier; my adoption of several of Kevyn's key mannerisms and my astonishment at her level of aggression directed toward me along with my discomfort and unwillingness to embrace it.

My anticipated uneasiness at being exposed was mostly absent. I repeatedly directly addressed the audience, voicing what I believed they were thinking and thus involving them in the performance. When I stepped away from the audience and nearer to Kevyn's unsettling turmoil, I walked repeatedly in circles like a calm, expectant father, waiting for the continuous, image-rich narrative that characterized so many of our previous exchanges. Instead periodic activity burst forth, as all the seams we'd been loosening finally split apart.

Kevyn: I was confused by the audience's laughter which emerged so quickly in the second scene of our piece. My emotional state at that time was pained immobility; I felt caught and deformed in my chair. The laughter was so incongruent with my current state and the words I heard Cheryl speak. But I was there for the process, and Cheryl and I are funny together, despite my abundant seriousness. We had specifically worked on the issues of play and humor. Here it was again!

The humor allowed us a safe venue for aggression, through playful kicks and skirmishes. Although it was fun, and the audience seemed genuinely delighted, I felt complex meaning behind the kick delivered with a smile. At first I felt an impulse to proceed with a demanding energy. I wanted to provoke a wider range of emotions which I felt simmering beneath the surface, wanted to push us into the truth of uncharted territory, away from the easy banter of our humor.

I felt we were missing an opportunity, but took my cue from Cheryl's seemingly aloof response to my intensity and consciously chose to follow the trend. In that moment I questioned myself, believing I was alone with the aggression. However, this was rapidly followed by a sense of Cheryl and the audience's collusion against this aggression, and my own acquiescence as I moved away from the verge of our collective unknown. Although I felt sure Cheryl and I were manifesting not only our own aggression, but that of the audience as community, I questioned my authority as the sole agent for serious exploration of the aggression we were only superficially acknowledging.

I still have questions about the honesty of these moments. The audience as field gave us voice, and, due to the nature of the performance, were our creative partners. In the feeling, movements, and gestures of our aggression, could I have been the sole experiencer? Was the humor the truth? Were we in simple play with me the stubborn, insolent child? Or, had I followed my initial impulse, would we have been able to divulge collective secrets, and generate a far more resonant healing by trusting the meaning and safety of our process?

In the last section of the performance, I became aware of my deep voice again. The voice was sure, emphatic, insistent. I felt my power in a new expression. This was more than a role: it persisted and changed me. I was no longer the person who had walked on stage moments before. I considered it synchronous that I had to test my strength within the hour. I confronted my need to assert myself, when, just following the performance, I was criticized for my power and independence. Community response

Despite the surprising course of the performance, the audience response was overwhelmingly positive and perceptive. While appreciating the humor we generated, many people talked to us of their own struggles with identity and intimacy. They were inspired by watching us generate selfhood and relationship during the performance. During the limited time of the panel discussion, audience members indicated their desires to similarly search within and reach out, despite the risk. Faces were soft, handshakes and hugs were lingering. Post-performance effects

Kevyn: Through many years of psychiatric nursing experience and in my self-study and spiritual practice, I have come to the belief that an honest expression of myself, with a sincere desire to be present with another person, can not only ease individual pain, but bring about healing in the larger community and world. When I am most aware of my presence with another and the sacred space between us, I see the manifest power of our exchange and the positive reverberation into exchange with others. These powerful moments do not necessarily come when I am in my therapist-nurse-administrator role, but when I am fully in my unique being.

I feel that Process Work, through validating the integrity of a focused, attentive exchange as a means to create subtle, but enlightened shifts, fits well with my belief. Process Work reinforces self-awareness and relationship, which can then be translated to worldwork, bringing about shifts on a collective level.

I carry the experience of this process and performance as a monitor of the fullness of my encounters with others. I am reminded of my desire to be honest while caring for myself and others, and of the responsibility of providing an example of leadership, even through performance.

Cheryl: During the panel discussion and over the next few days, I continually noticed people speaking hesitantly, quickly, with an uneven tone, and without vitality. Many complained and seemed resigned to the impossibility of change. Some remained tensely silent and still, a quiver in their faces or a half step forward suggesting they had something they wanted to say or do. If someone's eyes met mine it was brief; most averted my gaze altogether. I attribute these observations to the fact that the performance had. me literally facing everyone's expectations of myself. To proceed as Kevyn and I planned, I had to let go of my own deep, existential fears, both personally and socially. The result was a profound and lasting calm, as if I had meditated at length for weeks straight. For a few days afterward, no longer responding to situations in the same way, I frequently hesitated until I settled into the strength of my newly evolved self. Summary

Performance is a process of short duration with fleeting images and recollection. Rich with symbolic meaning, responses and interpretations can be vast, malleable, and controlled through design, construct, and direction. Although healing, in our definition, shares similarities with performance, it differs in that it is never predictable or constant.

Healing is always an individual mystery and profoundly personal. Unlike a performance, which may have a limited run, healing can be a lifelong process of unfolding to awareness and growth.

Our hybrid of performance/healing, with its symbiotic and dichotomous elements, has awed us. At once we were expert and novice, leader and follower, explorer and territory. Our personal journey became public, and we were left with far more questions than answers. We believe that we are to continue our commitment to this multifac-eted process, letting it influence both our work and our art, while mindful of the responsibility we bear to ourselves and community.

References

Levine, Stephen. Who Dies? An Investigation of Conscious Living and Conscious Dying. New York: Anchor Press-Doubleday, 1982.

Turner, Victor. From Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of Play. New York: PAJ Publications, 1982.

Kevyn Burn, BSN, RN, is Program Director of Crossroads Mental Health at Augusta Medical Center, a non-profit community hospital in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. A movement performer for many years, she is extending performance to singing in community and gospel choirs. Her current activities include applying Process Work to health care leadership, community mental health reform, advocacy, and coalition building.

Cheryl Pallant, MA, is an Adjunct Instructor in the English Department at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. She writes fiction, poetry, articles and reviews on performance art and dance, and often combines her texts with movement and ritual. She recently completed her latest novel and is writing a book on the transformative nature of play. Cheryl is also investigating Ph.D programs and continuing to make the Arts more accessible and viable.

Kevyn Burn and Cheryl Pallant

I Tear For You

for you form you firm yourself reform yourself return yourself you're long overdue

pay the fine

walk the line

take your time

beware of crime

and poets who rhyme without reason, with many scents lavender, rose rise out of the dirt surmise what is dirt realize that what they criticize

is so much poppycock

is so much rabbledrab and then go, grab, fostercare yourself adopt what's your due adulate when you perambulate congratulate when you fabricate what you know to be so what you furtively hold because you fear the cold scold the unyielding no that feeling so low

you've nowhere to go

no one to please

no time to ease what's increasingly become a ceaseless pine an unbending spine a nouvelle Frankenstein that know no holds, no control and won't patrol the diatribe the dive into dirt the decompose of the recompose the reappraisal of the neonastic potential of yourself the temple of yourself the tempo of yourself the breath that is you the wealth that is you now awakening now cast off debased, diffused deflect what they have inferred inter what they have deterred return to restore reform to reform now!

Of Coloring Senses

a sense of color

sensing color coloring senses sensibly sensitively

luring colors

alluring sensations

sensational

seasonal

reasonable

enabling perceptions

perceptible to the receptable

receivable to those waiting

openly plainly

continually open to planes

circum-headed nowhere in particular

No, where is particular

particularly where no is

No is where particles particulate

circumstantially

referentially

(a reference to particular stances)

Color coordination, insubordination inordinate possibilities possibi-culating

in unlimitable, inimitable bibibatable poses, postures, and structures deconstructing reconstructing construing every color sensatable.

the ™*e« ~**H tf" **W luJCfcfrtff «M*f

This drawing emerged as Kevyn communicated her concept oi Present Tense: Healing as We Speak to Cheryl.

Kevyn Burn