As masked women in the circle, we wear our secrets and our feathers. Bird-wing women. Masks represent ways we hide our feelings. We dance. Spontaneously a masked woman enters the circle, slowly or spinning or high stepping. At the moment of uncovering she removes her mask to reveal her reflective face. As woman after woman enters the spotlight of the centre of the circle dancing and strips her mask, we cheer. Vulnerable without what hides us, sweat, and crease, and laughter, we: flash glitter dancing glyphs; we: body poetry.





The Reflective Face, 2009, 13"x16"; 33cmx41cm;
India inks, oil pastels, acrylic & dried leaves on archival paper (on right, earlier version; on left, finished, with leaves dried nearly to veins, gloss, and more paint added -click on images to see larger versions)

I didn't like the finished painting, so have played with it in Photoshop. The original is varnished, very high gloss.

A poetry in motion. I played with negatives. It reminds me of ice and snow, of liberation from constraint. Of imaging between being and non-being. Of the mother. Of the sorrow of the mother earth. Of disappearing into and emerging from. Of the continuous cacophony of the dance of life. Of the disjointed, an awkward grace. The film loses some of its quality in the uploaded video: the semi-opague layers appear more like faded images than the transparencies they are. Yet you let go of the white leaf and let it float out to the sea. I wanted to add a poem, and perhaps that's next. The flowers are from photographs I took last year of mandalas of fresh flowers in the street outside an Indian restaurant in honour of a Hindu festival. The increasing presence of the flowers behind the screen of the dance is a reminder of what is ever-present, profundita natura, the profundity of nature at its most beautiful, fragile, transitory, in the flower. I leave you with a screen of flowers, like a prayer.


Hi beautiful friends, Sharing 'White, a Butoh-inspired dance.'.. film clip from late last Summer, and then all last night editing (editing video I'm discovering is like that:-) ...layering... images, sounds, yet not wanting to disturb the vulnerability, perhaps strangeness, of this 'silent film'... Butoh can express the painful and beautiful paradoxes of life in an intimacy that is almost unbearable to watch, I don't know if this film has that, but it's in the intent.

Feedback is always wonderful as I stumble down the path of this art form.

If 'White' opens something out in you, even in resistance, or in a sense of discomfort, then that is the Butoh influence, and then I'll know your reaction is like mine. For I don't know who that woman is, something else takes hold, another energy flows through.

Many thanks for taking the time to look at this. Many thanks for the blessing you are in my life,

hugs, Brenda xo


direct link to the video at YouTube: White, a Butoh-inspired dance.