ATS® in Chile

There is something undeniably magic about the bond of ATS®. 

After 276 days and 15 countries plus 10 odd years in the FCBD® studio in S.F I am still awed by the way this brings people together. I've never seen anything like it, the silent ties that will always be wrapped around your heart, once a dance sister, always a dance sister, or a sworn enemy, it could go either way.

The ATS® scene in Santiago, Chile is amazingly strong. I can say the strongest and most advanced troupe that I've seen so far.

The group itself is lead by Victoria Vasquez, the group is called Banjara and they have a school in the coolest (as in artsy not cold) part of Santiago with classes almost everyday of the week. In addition to that Victoria also teaches ATS® in prison once a week. I'm fascinated by ATS® being taught in prison and really wanted to go but access was denied.

We just filmed the group dancing in Santiago yesterday and we have a busy couple of workshops coming up this weekend in Santiago, next weekend in Conception and Valdivia, Chile. Thank you ATS®ers for giving me a home, for at least a little while.

The land of leftovers

Uyuni is a land full of leftovers, every piece of forgotten and conflict resides here. As a child when it was time to clean my room I would always stuff the odds and ends under my bed and then my father would come in with his garden rake and pull them out. A single pile of the forgotten, and what to do with it, where to put it.

That's Uyuni to me, great salt flats that act like snow, mountains and mountains and volcanos, freezing nights and days, a little bit of night sky hidden behind a mass of stars, rock formations that can't decide if they're coming or going, and creatures stuck together by a child's imagination roaming the landscape. 

FYI I want to live here: 

Sucre to Uyuini

I spent some time in a pretty little colonial town in Bolivia called Sucre, it's famous for dinosaur footprints and that's about all.
The buses in Bolivia are about on the same level as the chicken buses of Central America, I have to say though I enjoyed their ingenuity of transporting my bag from check in to actual bus.



The ride was long, 9am-6pm and bumpy, there were no toilets just breaks along the way where you could chose your piece of flat land for a pee, or try and hold it till you got to your destination.

When we were within seeing distance of my destination, Uyuni my bladder rejoiced until I saw this:


What is this but a good old fashion road block, a tiny line of stones that the bus "couldn't" cross, so what was there to do, everybody out, packs on and walking it is. Here's what I have to say:

"I do not try to dance better than anyone else. I only try to dance better than myself."
- Mikhail Baryshnikov

Adventure or exile

The question I get the most is about loneliness.

Why am I alone?
How am I able to stay away so long?
Do I get lonely?

The answer is that there are days I feel like an adventurer, and days I feel like an exile.

There are days I look at myself in the mirror and ask, do you really know what the fuck you are doing?
And I don't, but that's never stopped me before.

I think about what I'm sacrificing;  moments with my best fiends, gaps that are widening, bonds breaking, I'm not there to hug them through their heartbreaks or cry them through their victories.

Is this worth it?
This half cocked idea of world ATS® that will keep me roaming for several years?

I don't have that answer, and I don't need to have it.

Because I see things like this:

and work with amazing ATS® dancers like this:

The trip is going really well, I'm not planning on stopping, I'm determined to finish, but it's human to question what is the cost, of course the flip side is to ask what is my gain.

When I ask myself that question the only answer I get is the warming of my heart as the beat quickens and usually that's answer enough.

But when I am lonely and lost and my heart isn't sure of its way I play the time machine game. I sit on my death bed and look back for the "fuck yeahs" and I know my path is clear.

Or I just look at these and it makes it all alright again.

Thank you to my friends, even though a world away I can still feel you squeezing me, I love you more than any words could possible describe.