Dance& Alchemy

We will write between image and word, wet and dry, light and shadow, sensing how language appears through what it omits — the negative space it’s bound to speaking. 

In this workshop, we explore the alchemical potential of a mixture of practices from the repertoires of Serena Lee and Fan Wu, including: qigong, taijiquan, narrative meditation, calligraphy, poetry, and somatic translation. 

We begin by grounding ourselves in space and in the presence of our bodies. 

We will read and counter-read Fenollosa’s “The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry” by pushing at the limits of alphabetical languages that are traditionally considered non-pictographic. 

We will follow Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, Du Fu, Ikkyu — and many others in the lineage of a supple phenomenology of attention — and compose using the density of the ordinary as an ever-replenishing raw material.