Microorganism and Macro-movement - Soil & Food Cultivation for a Dance Ecology

Performance Studies International conference presentation in 2022.

‘As a society we have forgotten that the farmer is a craftsman of the highest order, a kind of artist’ Wendell Berry

The season is changing. The air thickening and moisture levels tell the living creatures it is time to go in, regenerate energy and slow down. Outside, deciduous trees and shrubs are shedding their leaves and revealing their naked skeletons. Their decaying leaves on the ground have been worked by a formidable invisible cast of earthly creatures. The ones we truly depend upon. Microorganisms dancing and transforming decaying matter into new life. It is time to practise a new dance for seeds & soil. This is a poetic conversation about the nature in and around us. The relationships between our bodies and the earth. It is a feature of gratitude to the soil, seeds and a dancing garden. It is a task. The tools are soil, seeds, water and your body. The length of the task will depend on a number of elements we cannot control. It will involve care, patience, observation and acceptance of a potential failure. You will not be distant. Your close contact withMycobacterium vaccaein the soil will raise your serotonin levels and improve your immune system and mental health. We dance with the earth, observing the exact time when movement starts to emerge from the soil and spiral up towards the light. Open its first solar panels to absorb cosmic energy and transform it into propelling movement energy. You will share the bliss and excitement for life and rock and swirl in wild excitement. The desire to survive and thrive. You are dancing.

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