About this clown

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I often feel that we're all spinning slowly... like a mirror ball. Yes, we are all mirrors to each other. And so, it is the Light between us that I hope to help reveal and celebrate. /// J'ai souvent l'impression que nous sommes une boule disco qui tourne lentement. Nous sommes tous des miroirs pour les uns les autres. C'est donc la lumière qu'il y a entre nous que j'espère contribuer à souligner et à célébrer.

Saturday, March 24, 2012

Student Spring in Montréal

I'm feeling very torn.  I want to write in French, but I don't want to let you English readers down.  I guess I should start a new blog in French uh?

For now, I want the world to know that Montréal is experiencing a lot of socio-political heat.  Have you heard?  University students have been on strike for over five weeks now.

All the separate departments of different post-secondary institutions have gathered in their own general assemblies.  One by one, they have voted to join the movement.   This past Thursday, they were between 200 000 and 308 000 supporters (students and non-students) to take to the streets during the general strike!



Their cause?  The provincial government announced a raise in tuitions: 325$ per year for the next five years (for a total of 1,625$).  If you're reading this blog from Norway, or Germany, you might think this is appalling.  If you're in the US of A, you're probably wondering what the big fuss is about.

I spent almost 30,000 dollars on my tuition when I got my Masters degree in California.  Why did I do that!!!?  Well, there was no other ''Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness'' program to be found in Canada.  I decided to be wild...  bold and carefree.
And I was in love.

It's ironic that I should move back to Québec at this specific point in time.
Here, the tuition has been more or less ''frozen'' since 1968.  Sure, there were small increases here and there.  Still, between 1994 and 2007, students paid 1,668$ per year.  Then it got raised by 100$ per year over the span of five years, so that it is currently 2,168$.
With this new raise announced by the Liberal government, tuition fees will come up to 3,793$ a year (by 2016)

That's still less than half the price of what American undergraduates have to pay each year...  But hey, that's still 13,000 dollars for an undergraduate degree!



I just don't understand how we're supposed to start ''an adult life'' with such debt.  It doesn't make us excited to become active members of society, it holds us back, keeps us down, frightens us.  Some of us will take whatever job we can find just because we need to start making money quickly.  In these conditions, how many will push their sense of ethics aside?
We could build a much better society, we could make better choices, we could channel our energies into positive and sustainable endeavors if we weren't so caught up in the rat race!

Elsewhere in Canada people are commenting on what's been happening in Québec.  The media are portraying the students as ''spoiled brats'' who feel entitled to their privilege.  I must acknowledge that I've had the debate with myself too.  But that's before I did the math.  That's before I realized that we're no better than the Americans when we ask students to pay such a price in order to get access to the education we are told we need.

This is not about being spoiled.  This is about an entire generation trying to make itself heard by those in powers.  It's not just about tuitions either.  It's about coming together and pondering the choices we make as a society.  It's about the need to look at our definition of democracy.  It's about resource management.  It's about the future we want to see...

How far will students go on with this strike now that the government has officially presented the budget?  How long will their political involvement last?  Will they still care when the elections come around?  Will they vote in greater numbers?  Or are they forever disillusioned with this so-called liberal democracy?

The climate is warming up.  2012... how exciting to be living at this time!



Saturday, March 17, 2012

Butoh with Yumiko Yoshioka

Friday night sitting at the dinning table.  A new house.  A new life.
I haven't felt like writing much, as some of you might have noticed.  I needed, I wanted, to just be with what I'm going through.  Being, in the midst of the storm.  To see.


The beautiful thing is that these past five days have managed to tie me back to my core... in a way that I had deeply been needing.  I knew it would happen.  I had been waiting for this workshop for a while now: finally: a bit of Butoh. (Or as they write in French: butô.)

Studio 303, Montréal.  Twenty movers I had been excited to meet, for I figured they would share my love of Butoh, or at least, of one aspect of it.
We had the opportunity to spend 20h with world-renown teacher and choreographer, Yumiko Yoshioka, as part of her big tour.  How wonderful it must be to travel the world and teach this art form and this wisdom!

As she said, Butoh is not just a dance.  It's also a way of life.

Yumiko Yoshioka tells us that, for her, ''Butoh is dance of transformation.''  She said, ''It is a passageway, a medium.  It can be also be dance of darkness, of the unconscious.''
And that my friends... is why I am attracted with this art form-process...
It's that encounter with the in-between again, that space of transition... for it's at the very center of every breath, in the heart of the process, that I experience Life to her fullest...


When I dance butoh, I am in relationship with oneness.  I do not always feel at one, but I am searching for it, through consciousness and through my body... from inside AND outside, simultaneously, within both the physical and the imaginal environment, I try to listen and surrender.  I stop thinking and I move.  Naturally.

 Waves.  Waves.  Waves.
I thoroughly enjoyed Yumiko Yoshiota's Butoh.

''The essence of wave, is to transmit.''
Yes.  That's what I want to do.

''The yin and the yang are always within one another.  Life and Form chase each other...''

I'd be lying if I said I completely succeeded in forgetting about my [looking for work] situation... ''What do I want to do?  Where do I want to work?'' ... I've come to realize I've been throwing my energy in a million directions.  Work? Work?  I could do a million things!  I only need someone to give me a chance!



What I really need right now, is to stop and be for a little bit... in a yin kinda place.  There is no need to be all yang and proactive if I haven't given myself the time to listen... to what I really want to be doing.

Sure, I seem to be running out of money.  But I must accept, this is a big transition indeed.  Butoh is reminding me: the beauty is in the process.
(Caution: I've known this for a while and I might be a bit addicted to that state of becoming...)

Yumiko says: ''Pain is often the best teacher.  Love is the best healer.''
This week, I did EXACTLY what I LOVE.

A space I had found in Barcelona...
the last time I took half an hour to dance like this...
slowly...

P.P.S. For those that could be interested: Yumiko will be teaching in Québec city next week (I think I'm going for part of it!!) and then in Toronto...

P.P.S. For my part, I'll be teaching in a community center somewhere north of Montréal...  My first dance class to a group of 3-5 years old!!
:)