Joy

We held our seminar about our South African residency on Thursday, and it went pretty well, I think.  Despite an unexpected snowfall and a few consequent last minute cancellations (part-timers ), it was standing room only.  We really enjoyed delivering the seminar and the audience seemed to as well – nobody walked out at least (actually I’m being a bit too humble, we had lots of ‘inspiring’ and ‘amazing’-type comments).  I’m going to try and post a video of the whole thing over the weekend – all being well.  It’s an hour long, though, so be warned!

We mentioned joy a lot, as it is so inherent in our work – as well as looking at the issues, thoughts and stories of the people we work with, we are always keen to have moments of joy in our work.  For us, joy is what art is all about – the joy of discovery, the joy of thinking about things differently, the joy in making the work and on and on – joy is omniportant.  We tend to choose time-based approaches to what we do, interventions, performances, interactions because joy only happens in the moment – it can only be experienced right here, right now, not in the future, and not in the past, it’s a celebration of life, of just being here (this applies to all other artforms, we just like the instant gratification of being in it).   Too often we get caught up in the systems we have created to make sense of the world, religion, politics, social systems, heirarchies, those systems give us a sense of safety, because there’s nothing scarier than letting go of all that.  Just being in the moment, where you are right now, experiencing what’s real, what’s authentic. We always ask ourselves the question, what’s really going on here, interrogating the moment, to try and tease out the authenticity of a situation, to find the joy within it.

It makes life much more bearable -trust us.

So take some time to find your moments of joy today, try and experience reality for a moment and forget those systems and constructs you normally distract yourself with.  Reality can be scary – but don’t be scared,  just feel it – you’ll feel better, promise.