Grow No Excuses
[ ABOUT “GROW NO EXCUSES’ ]
Throughout our everyday lives, we can often be entrenched with excuses we not only give ourselves, but to others about our actions, inactions, thoughts, or words spoken. “Grow No Excuses” is a score based improvisational work prompted from journaling and reflections surrounding the excuses we give to justify our behaviors. The direction and flow of the work is informed by music and audio recordings that are intentionally shuffled to remove the performer from the banality and monotony that can occur not only when creating a piece, but can also occur in an average day. The movement vocabulary is simultaneously consequential and conversational in finding ways to acknowledge, name, and reflect on our excuses to move towards a place of healing and growth.
This score is one iteration of the research and writing from this work.
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[ SCORE DETAILS ]
Acknowledge the spaces you were in. Acknowledge the spaces you are in. Acknowledge the spaces you want to be in.
As you enter your movement space, utilize your breath, and take inventory of the spaces you personally occupy, not just literally and physically, but emotionally and socially.
Scan from the top of your head to the base of your feet. What excuses are you physically holding on to? Let them go.
Take as much or as little time you need to address your physical body.
Begin to gently, kindly, and softly move the portions of the body you are scanning in accumulation, not in an isolationist manner.
Stuck, Unstuck, Stuck, Unstuck
For a duration of your choosing, allow your body to oscillate between movement and stillness at unpredictable times. Catching yourself off of your literal balance.
Excuse (N.), Excuse (V.)
Excuse (n.) - “a reason or explanation put forward to defend or justify or offence.”
Excuse (v.) - “to attempt to lessen the blame attaching to (a fault or offence); seek to defend or justify. To release (someone) from a duty or requirement.”
Read through both definitions and through continual meditative movement, ask yourself what excuses you give your self as well as the excuses you make for others no matter how big or small they may be.
Go, Go, Go, Go, Go
For a duration of your choosing, continually dig deep and move without stopping. Don’t allow yourself a moment of relaxation throughout the duration of the time you’re moving. Don’t let up.
Find the pattern. Stop it. Shake it up.
As you continue your movement practice, identity where you are falling into old patterns of movement and thought, then give yourself a moment to pause and change them.
Make changes within the micro portions of your being, all the way down into your cellular programming.
In the final portion of your movement practice, allow yourself time for slow, continual movement to feel and address spaces that have already made changes, as well as attend to parts of your body that have not.
Notice the gentle waves of your bodily fluids, the firm yet malleability of your bones, and the tactileness of your skin.
No matter the size, what excuses have you given today?
Transitioning to stillness or micro movement, think deeply and honestly about the excuses you have given today, as well as any that may have arisen in your movement practice.
When only having yourself to reflect, there is nothing to gain by not being completely honest and open with yourself.
What did you find?
Before you leave your movement practice, take a moment to be still and reflect on any and all thoughts, feelings, and emotions that may have come up for you.
Acknowledge that any level of change takes time and compassion.
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[ ABOUT BREE ]
Breeann Birr de Oliveira is a Detroit-based mover and creator who prioritizes body-positive experiences and chance explorations. She graduated from Wayne State University with a B.S. in Dance and a minor in Art History. Breeann works as a freelance creator under BMBO Creations with a specialization in photography, graphic design, and videography for performing artists. She is currently a company dancer with Among Women, a member of Collective Sweat Detroit’s artistic leadership, developing her interview based podcast “Dance Lives in Detroit,” and collaborating on filming a screen dance and documentary with ConteXture Dance Detroit about community healing through embodied movement.