Wild Awe
‘We are being given the opportunity to stitch a new garment. One that fits all of humanity and nature.” (Sonya Renee Taylor 2020)
I am trying to summarize what happened because of a bursary to explore theatre and ecology, and I find words are somewhat inadequate. Would I be better to lie on the ground, howl at the moon, float in the sea, look up at the sky, and smell the greens of summer?
Yes, everything is better when I am the animal I am. Yet I have chosen a way of life as a theatre artist, and this means telling stories, presenting, representing and helping to create worlds even for a few moments. Stories are made to be shared, and sharing has been at the core of this work, reading, listening, writing, moving, looking, making images, talking. I have had the privilege of mentorship and guidance where I have encountered theories of awe, traditional ecological knowledge, and various artistic methodologies and worked at embodying experiences of nature through word and body. Perhaps all of this can be best expressed through my human experience of wolf!
About two weeks ago, on a mat in a dusty warehouse, I was invited to ‘make room for my animal’ to ‘really create space for my wolf’.
This invitation manifested through work and guidance, four of us learned through the gentle teaching of Gabrielle Moleta how to move as animal in a workshop called Transformation and Imaginative Improvisation. I had tentatively chosen a wolf, I did not believe I was strong enough to be a wolf, I am recovering from an accident, and I have always felt awkward, or more accurately vulnerable when it comes to my presenting movement. However, this was not a presentation, this was me. We worked on weight and tempo, and when I gave over to it, when I let myself create space for the wolf, it was truly extraordinary. I had the thigh of a large grey wolf, big, muscular, strong, and proud. What I felt in my injured leg and the sheer size of it was empowering and amazing.
Over the next few days, I came in and out of this, sometimes becoming frustrated if I ‘lost the wolf’ or if the wolf changed as it did, becoming leaner and faster. I overcame my fear of not being able to run with her, for this was a female wolf, eager, ready and full of energy. On our last day, we each found a space outside to work in our animal for a few moments. I went to the forest, and stood between some trees, with my eyes closed listening. I heard the wind through the trees, and felt I knew physically and mentally the landscape before me. I felt the wind through my ‘fur’, the power in observing and seeing through wolf eyes, the openness of my chest and neck. I had a fleeting image of a female politician about to run a campaign against all odds, this is not something I searched for, it came and went with the wolf. There was freedom, bravery, possibility. Afterwards we did some movements inside for each other, and one of the other artists who I know well, said ‘it is the most Maria I have ever seen you.’
This is and is not about me. It is about space, about feeling a true connection to the spaces, and beings of our world. There are so many battles of space in this world; of ownership, citizenship, who belongs where and for what. We do not have to take over space, but live in it; yes live in it with all our fellow inhabitants.
I cannot summarize this work because I will never be ‘done’ with it, as long as I am alive on this planet, I would like to be alive on this planet and continue to appreciate what it offers us, I will mess up but I will try, and I endeavour to stay open and make space for wolf.
Thank you to Lian Bell, Chantal Bilodeau, Gabrielle Moleta, the staff at An Tobar Mull, Scotand, Interface Inagh, Jojo Hynes, Daniel Guinnane, Raphael Adams, Midie Corcoran, my family, everyone who particpated in the survey People ad and the Arts Council of Ireland.
