the something of nothing

how emptiness moves us

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Here’s an essay from the vault. There is nothing like January to get us thinking about emptiness. But, I have to believe there is so much something in the nothing.

There is nothing I love quite like wide open, empty space. It’s the dancer in me, the introvert, the dreamer. I have a soft spot for all of the studios that I have had the joy of working in, and here is just one of them. Triskelion Arts is now at a new location that I have never seen, creating new movement magic. But here’s a little love from the days of old—in this case, circa 2010.

May you find some open space—listen hard—and hear the things you need to hear.

This starts off as a love letter to a space. Then it wanders everywhere that emptiness invites us. Let’s go.

This is the beginning. The ode to a space—a beloved space where I spent many an hour recovering my body. Scouring the air for shards of something “good.” Carrying on conversations with ghosts. Enjoying the inside looking out. Dancing like it’s 1999.

Thank you, Triskelion Arts. Out of you, I squeezed a wedding gift dance, a cathartic solo and countless little ephemeral dance ditties. Even when I’m lying on the floor moving slowly, or because I’m lying on the floor moving slowly, I come back into myself. Supported by the empty space. On the floor, by myself, I’m a dancer—if only for an hour.

So much movement lives in an empty space. So much everything. I love this space. It gives me a clean, peaceful feeling. Even when nothing happens, it’s something. 

And somehow, looking at all this open space and possibility, my little brain drifts off, as it will, somewhere else. And I’m thinking about space itself. I mean the in-between. The empty, the waiting, the nothing. We might call it negative space, but there’s so much there to celebrate.

Enter the composer Arvo Pärt. Crazy synapses. There they go. I start thinking about all the sonic space in Pärt’s music. It can be sparse. It can be minimal with a capital M. But those carefully chosen notes suggest so much and allow your brain (synapses, synapses) to travel where it will.

Yes. It’s true. Many choreographers are drawn to his music. Fleets, hoards of dancers, hungry for the music. Perhaps to the point of overuse, but for good reason. There’s so much movement in there. The emptiness between the notes yells out, “Get up and make something heartbreaking and profound!” In that space arises the possibility that the dance can live next to the music, the two streaming side by side.

In a hazy vortex, I find Pärt discussing his piece “Fur Alina.” And almost more than the music itself, I am struck by the way he moves when he speaks about it, poised over piano keys. The rhythm of his pauses. He works his words in between the notes as afterthoughts. Concise affirmations. There’s so much space to think and feel in between each musical thought. His descriptive mini-lessons mix with his notes, delicately, barely touching almost nothing. Moving in and out of emptiness…suggesting…anything.

He talks of the breath of the moment before the piece begins. The hanging moment. He says, “I imagine the conductor having an upbeat when the whole thing starts. We can’t hear anything yet. And the people in the concert hall don’t know what’s coming. Then the conductor makes the upbeat. The upbeat, the moment when he raises his hand actually contains the formula of the entire work.”

I love the idea of that bit of nothing, that is really quite something, at the beginning of a piece. I think immediately of birth. I think of a dancer ready to go. Beckett’s inhale from Breath…short, full of expectation and then, perhaps ridiculously, despairingly, over. I see an Olympic diver’s ritual, hovering over the board. All muscle with so much movement couched in stillness. Even Napoleon Dynamite’s sighing decision to run. Silly, yes, but sad somehow to me. A letting go. You have to take yourself off balance to shift your feet before you can even begin to go somewhere.

“The conductor makes the upbeat…”

And now I’m skimming through the Youtube vortex. A title jumps out, “Björk interviews Arvo Pärt.” It’s not just the pair of fabulous umlauts that catch my attention. I’m leaning closer, watching Bjork tumble through her thoughts about Pärt. Even their language “barrier” speaks; each musician sends careful precision into the air (and true, this “barrier” is no barrier. Their collaborative intelligence—emotional and musical—cuts to the heart of each idea). They give deliberate weight to each thought…exchanging the essentials, slowly, delicately preying upon the right images.

Björk takes a breath (a hairline gasp), inhaling both sets of fingertips to her lips. And with that, her words (“inside your music”) take on the ethereal, wordless quality of her meaning.

I’m reminded of my own observations of people when they talk. I catch myself hearing and seeing the space between words. Often, I’m so busy watching how they say something that I don’t hear what they say. I’m sorry. I’m not listening. But I pick up an entirely different message—something less practical but more emotional, intuitive and bare behind the effort of words. To me, that’s the most important part, where I derive the most meaning. Maybe that’s why I have a hard time hearing what people actually say. I’m watching their bodies. Words are never enough. The body fills in what’s left.

All this started with an empty room. A little nothing stirs up something. That first breath can take you anywhere. You just have to take it.

Full Disclosure: I started writing this while in the head space of quiet January at Triskelion and the slow, attentive dreaminess of Arvo Pärt videos. Now I’m finishing this up to the heart-pumping tones of Depeche Mode live in concert. Fun little paradox my head space loves it. Oh wait…now a little Dolly Parton/Emmylou Harris/Linda Ronstadt. Love that, too.  Aaannnnd finishing up with a little De La Soul and Arcade Fire. But still conjuring the quiet. On the inside.