WITCHDANCING:
About Witchdancing:
Inspired by the work of Alkistis Dimech, Tatsumi Hijikata, Kazuo Ohno, Anna Halprin, and Keith Hennessy: Witchdancing is a a Butoh-based movement ritual practice developed from Michael Morris’ practice, and an ongoing exploration in both witchcraft and Butoh. This practice asks: what if a dance is also a spell with which we conjure our bodies and the worlds in which they live? In Witchdancing, we move through a continuous series of images, qualities, and states, engaging in a metamorphosis of the body. The movement is improvisational and requires no previous dance experience. The practice will be supported by an original soundscore by Moxy Martinez.
“What if a dance is also a spell with which we conjure our bodies and the worlds in which they live?”
-Michael J. Morris
WITCHCRAFT:
About Witchcraft:
You may be wondering, “What is witchcraft?” Perhaps you have dazzling or dark Hollywood associations with the word, ranging from Bewitched to Harry Potter to Blair Witch to Charmed, The Craft, or American Horror Story: Coven. The craft that I practice has very little relationship to these representations of supernatural fantasy, spectacle, or horror. For me, witchcraft is a practice of meaningful, intentional living that recognizes and nurtures our sacred connections to a living world. It is a collection of practices and knowledge traditions that expand my awareness of myself and my relationship to the more-than-human world, engaging the shifting cycles and patterns of the earth and sky as a way of aligning my life with the world to which I belong. It is healing in-and-through intimate relationships with ourselves, human and more-than-human others, ancestors, and Earth.
“Witchcraft is a practice of meaningful, intentional living that recognizes and nurtures our sacred connections to a living world.”
Witchcraft has also become a kind of “carrier bag” of practices with which I shift consciousness and make my life meaningful, including spells and rituals, astrology, tarot, communing with different plants and stones, breathing techniques, teachings from core shamanism, teachings from the yoga tradition, and teachings from cultural practices of intentional living like Feng Shui. All of these practices fold into the ways that I make magic, cultivating connection, meaning, and well-being in my life; the witch-crafting is connecting and composing these different practices and traditions, and being composed and transformed by them.
“To be a witch is to be someone who is paying attention, someone who removes the blindfold in order to witness and commune with the sacred all around us. All of this holds true for me.”
Over time, I have also realized how deeply akin witchcraft is to my work as an artist, choreographer, and performer. These are all practices of creating meaningful experiences for ourselves and others, and while they might function in different ways and in different contexts, I approach my witchcraft as a creative, aesthetic experience with which to generate meaning—not unlike artmaking.
Detailed information on Michael’s page: Witchcraft
