During the session, we bridged the gap that exists between the dance world and the music world by making our dancer (Brenda Bufalino) an equal part of our ensemble. She was incorporated into the collective group for her sounds, her rhythms, her tones, her time, and her music – not for her visual presence which historically has so often been the reason for bringing musicians and dancers together. Here we come together as equals. No one is, per se, the accompanist for someone else, or some small 20-minute addition to the show in order to bring about some variety to the program. My hope for the future is that we’ll hear and see more of this way of thinking and collaborating. We all win when we do and we lose when we don’t.
Another thing that was bridged during this session was the connection between the healing arts and the performing arts. The music of Vickie Dodd, up to this point of time, has primarily been focused in the healing arts. She has been a body worker for the last 15 years. I had visited Vickie Dodd a year or so ago, prior to this session because I had heard her of her work and my body was hurting. I was in need of some body work. The work she did on me that day was incredible, but the music that came from this woman’s voice while she was working on me, was like nothing I had ever heard before.
It was so cosmic, so powerful that I never forgot it. I knew that there would be a time and a place for us to come together to do as Vickie calls it. „Sound ourselves and everything else.”
The healing arts and the performing arts belong together as they were in the past, when they are joined together you truly have a tool that can be used for transformation. Again, my hope for the future is that we will see the return of this relationship between the healing arts and the performing arts.
Another thing I’d like to say about this session that was very moving for me, and I believe for everyone else involved, even if they don’t know it yet, is the fact that we had both men and women come together to create this music. So often it’s been the boys with the boys and the girls with the girls. It’s so clear to me and self-evident when I listen to this music and there’s both male and female reality in it, and the music had a special richness because of it. This is yet another gap we’ve bridged during this session, and again my hope for the future is we’ll see a whole lot more of this because we desperately need it.
Joe Fonda
Release: 17/12/2023
