I have been studying this work for the past thirteen years with them and consider it the root of everything I do. It is the way I fine-tune my attention to hold more, to expand my capacity to hold more grief, more news, more information, more joy.

In the studio, we practiced saying yes—not passively, but actively—yes to complexity, to contradiction, to the spontaneous emergent moment. Improvisation at this level becomes a form of listening so attuned that it can’t help but ripple outward. Each choice in the circle is made in relation, with and against, toward and beyond. It is a way of being with others that refuses domination or collapse. It’s a way of working that asks: how do we stay present, and move, when nothing is fixed?

This is the same question I hold as I read the news from the Freedom Flotilla, from multiple genocides, from the ports where blockade meets resistance. How do we stay with the world and move with it—not as spectators, but as participants? The skills built in the dance studio—presence, responsiveness, collective trust—are not separate from what the world demands now. They are practice for it. Improvisation not just as art, but an ethic: all eyes on deck today - the ocean is not just water — you sail into a current of international law and public imagination. Our collective insistence pushing the work forward.

Each wave a potential witness.

Cody Cook Parrott

Liz Koch • Core Awareness, Revised Edition: Enhancing Yoga, Pilates, Exercise, and Dance