For much of January I was incommunicado, involved in several projects, rehearsing with DanceCircus when possible, yet trying to save my voice, and energy, for performances. Working with a dance company is not the same as giving a poetry reading. When I perform alone, I can vary my speed, pauses, inflections, and gestures, and no one cares. But for DanceCircus, I had to be consistent, fifteen minutes of poetry the same every time. Betty Salamun choreographed movement and designed costumes to my words, the dancers moved to my words, everything hung on the words! What would the dancers do if the words that came out of my mouth weren't the ones they were expecting? Luckily I didn't have to find out. I know, performances are like that, the lighting and sound people, the musician, poet, dancers, stage manager, we're interdependent, an art-based eco-system.
That kind of responsibility made last Saturday’s five minutes at the Woodland Pattern Marathon seem like a breeze. The annual fund-raising event, thirteen hours this year, featured over a hundred Wisconsin poets, each with five minutes to read. I was so fascinated by the quality and variety of the poetic voices that I listened for over five hours.
And now it’s January’s end, and I have another performance coming up, a food pantry benefit at the
Nineteenth Street Coffee House, 631 N 19th St., on Friday, February 2, at 8 PM, $4 donation plus two cans of food. If you want to donate to food pantries and hear Brenda Cardenas, Susan Firer, Karina Schafer, and me in return, here’s your chance.
