Last weekend's rehearsal focused on the themes of shape, line, and negative space. After several improvised experiments on these themes, I led the performers in an instinctive writing exercise. Their prompt for a 5-minute stream-of-consciousness write was "Discuss how shape, line, and negative space relate to Iaido." Afterwards, we had a lengthy discussion where we shared what we had written and any thoughts that came to us during or after the exercise.

In response to that discussion, I prompted this experiment. We are all improvising freely, the martial artists using movement vocabulary from Iaido--minus the sword--as inspiration, and myself improvising with them. One by one, we take it in turns to leave the space and return to our writing, reading it aloud for the group to hear and move to. Each piece was read through twice (Mine and the first half of Josh's went by before I remembered to turn on the camera.)

The martial artists are, in speaking order: Joshua Stafford, Luke Chiang, and Dan Keding.