Chaconne #11 – Meditation Group, Nyack NY

A very gratifying experience for me, and the listeners as well, I believe.  There were about a dozen people who had prepared for the performance through Yoga and guided Meditation.

Performance was good…my work done a week or so ago on the ending (mentioned previously) really has held and shaped it well.  I think I want to work through the first and second sections with a very defined rhythmic groove  and see if it focuses the form a bit better.  I suspect that as I have been exploring freedom in the variations I may be losing power from focussing the flow.

A great way to end a day that started with the Dress Rehearsal of Berlioz’ Les Troyens – all 5.5 hours of it!

 

 

 

 

1 thought on “Chaconne #11 – Meditation Group, Nyack NY”

  1. Our riverfront room was lit only by a spray of candlelight. A large votive was placed in the center representing the ritual fire. Here was the Stillpoint. My students had spent sixty minutes engaging in lyrical, fluid movement patterns that progressively brought them into a deeper state of “awakedness”, attunement, and meditative openness. At the end of the movement hour, their bodies formed “rays of moonlight” around the center fire, as they lay on their yoga mats, feet toward the fire, their physical comfort supported with bolsters, blankets, and eye pads.

    I led Shem into the room in silence. He took his place inside the Stillpoint, quietly lifted his bow, and began playing/living the “Chaconne”. The notes of the music wafted overhead, but the echoes of Bach’s heart vibrated in my bones. I felt entered by the music. The immediacy and intimacy dangled me on the edge between ecstasy and exquisite agony. Breathing into my own heart helped me to stay with it. Eyes closed, the portal to my limbic brain opened. I was not judging the music. I was inside the music.

    After a while, it seemed like three or four violinists were playing alongside Shem, and yet, when I forced my heavy lids to open for a moment, a solo player on a solo violin stood before me. I remembered learning that Pagannini had been accused of working alongside the devil when he played. It suddenly did not feel ludicrous. Only here we were in the realm that clearly belonged to angelic entities.

    When the Chaconne ended, we sat in a circle and shared responses. It was extraordinary to hear how each woman had been touched deeply by the music, by the violin, by the physical proximity of musician to listener/collaborator, by Bach himself.

    Judith Rose, Founder of Vital Movement™.

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