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Nora Thompson Responding

On Bodies

May 9, 2020

We begin with an introduction to the two bodies
Cinematic
They share something but look quite different
Then a scream and a sprint
A young black man running and an old asian woman screaming are very different in this world
They collide to tell us they are both suffering, that they are performers together, that they are preparing for the same thing
Alarm alarm alarm seems to be the message - come look at this fabric, this hose, this stuff stuff stuff
It's getting dark now, time to slow down, time to sing, time to feel the ground and go to sleep together
I feel pulled closer, skin on skin, I want to look closer and hold them too
It's dark now, time to review, time to look at ourselves again, time for you to see us again, time for us to keep reflecting
Sirens, orange and white and pavement and a scream

On Fish House

May 9, 2020

oh, oh, he is struggling, making it from water to sun, needing to dry
pulling himself up there is brightness and clarity and sharp lines of shirt on muscle under skin
a white bird waits, wonders why the man is moving with such hesitation
he is slow and gentle and weak? or tired?
but readies himself to dip back in, shining water light back on his face
he drips, he tells me - watch me drip, i dare you, i am unafraid of your gaze
I am leaving and you can follow, but I am following nothing but the drip of water on my arm and you better back up when i come
dirty water feels hot, the heat is that brown green

On Your Morning is My Night

May 18, 2020

onset of strings - dramatic and miserable and almost comical
people hanging over, new gravity granted by camera
can they see each other? 
are they peering down the drain to find a dance that used to exist?
one starts to show us that she exists in a space, in a room of rugs and wood panels and screens
but I only know which way is up by which way hair dangles

tragedy of Zoom
tragedy of talking on mute
tragedy of cameras seeing us all the time

of this is the way to be seen now

only with the trills of opera and the peek of a nipple

who is this for? I feel them watching themselves on screen, seeing the raggedy shapes and the trembling picture, seeing themselves being seen

On Attending

May 27, 2020

driving sounds like waves if you squint
dying looks like carrying and releasing if it's slow enough

gentleness exists among crumpled words and wide open eyes and parted lips
she is being attended to
and aided
this practice is one of tenderness and a careful shifting of hand glancing eyebrow

what's left? crumpled words i have to pull close to rub against my face
disappearing into bright white

On Thinking of You

June 11, 2020

you are mourning, so clearly
you are on your knees but i worry about you getting enough air, a vein bulging in your forehead
the red is blood now, is beautiful tragic thick blood
squirming, you have to feel the blood to know what the hell is happening, what the hell is still happening far away from you 
consume the blood, feel it inside of your
eyes come up to meet mine with a why why why why why 
before fully consumed by blood

On In the Woods

June 11, 2020

lushness surrounds
pale skin is revealed from a bundle of red
she sees the red breathes with it the red is alive too but she must feel in through the stomach
seeing it is no use
feeling it, and the sun on pale skin, is the way to feel the hurt 
how do you feel the hurt in the woods? close your eyes and let red bubble up
lingering, tired
until strength emerges in anger in a claw in a silent gag
close your eyes and descent into leaves  where you can mourn with the buried, cloaked in re
wind will keep shaking the woods as if nothing happened at all

On A Body in a Cemetery

October 3, 2020

I am in Green-Wood Cemetery, on my birthday, beside my parents. We are planted on a grassy slope among stone grave markers, eyes trained on Eiko--my mentor, employer, former professor, who I haven’t seen in six months. I haven’t seen her in six months, because of the pandemic, because so many people are dying. It feels right we meet again here, among monuments to the dead. 

She enters a verdant clearing created by a ring of tombstones, walking dutifully, slowly. The circle was there long before Eiko decided to perform there, of course, but it feels as if the dead are holding a seance for her, rounding themselves up to watch the one living being. Or maybe she is the medium, the one who can transcend the boundary. 

She carries “red,” what I know to be her late mother’s scarlet kimono that’s travelled with her to irradiated Fukushima, to Chile, to Wall Street. She brings so much life and death along with her.

Her carrying is repeated over and over. Carry red. Carry water. Carry dirt. But it is not greedy. She lays down red, pours water, spits out dirt. She is in exchange with her ring of dead collaborators, spreading the stuff of living and dying around. Dirt smudging on her white dress, water sinking into her skin and drenching slabs of stone. 

Despite the striking scene, I am prone to distraction. It is my birthday, and so I have listened to Stevie Wonder’s “Happy Birthday” several times that day, and it is circulating in my head, clashing with Eiko’s somber, mournful acts. My vision keeps jumping from her lean frame to the metallic teal balloon and yellow pinwheel staked purposefully beside two tombstones--they spin and bounce with the shifts of the wind, shrieking for attention, much like the persistently upbeat tune in my mind. And I can’t help but feel a distinct excitement in watching “live” performance for the first time in six months, acutely aware of all breathing beings around me. 

I recall a voicemail from a friend I listened to earlier that morning--she had recorded minutes of sweet musings for me, knowing we might not have time to talk on the phone. She is in upstate New York, looking around her:

“Today, here, it’s pre-rain, so the sky is not blue or white but somehow both. The trees are orange and yellow and green. They are just in that in-between point. I think it’s so perfect for you and your beauty of in-between-ness. I hope you appreciate your in-between-ness, even though it causes you stress, or makes you feel unsure or groundless. These trees are in between themselves. The sky is in between itself. It’s perfect.” 

I believe my friend that I am full of in-betweenness, a Libra, so of course. And I know there is much more foggy in-between-ness to be found right in front of me. I try to let my distraction, my selfish birthday egotism, bleed into my watching of Eiko. She is somehow getting in between my life-focused, groundless mood and the rooted heavy stones of the passed. I let her. 

Eiko has a way of finding the blurry spaces between death and life, smudging the binary that we use to keep the unknown at a distance. I have already seen her practice dying and dancing with dead friends--their poems, their overcoats. Here she spreads soil and sinks bare feet into the lawn fed by remains and wraps obelisks in cloths and wetness. With these ritual acts of service Eiko reminds me of the constant in-between-ness beyond myself.