They had names. The first movement was called “the seed”. The second was called “the air”. The third was called “the sun”. The forth was called “the soil”. The fifth was called “the harvest”. The sixth was called “the Radix Speciosa”. The seventh was called “the planets”.

When I was eleven I started feeling that something was off with the names and the progression of the movements. The fifth and the sixth movements were practically exactly the same, then why they were called different? And why the sixth movement had a special name? That made me think that the movements were not always like this. We were told that this sequence had been practiced exactly the same since the beginning of time, or at least the beginning of the Idente traditions which, even though we knew corresponded to the period in which the cities had been abandoned, it was said to have been born millennia ago. It was a clear inconsistency, because everybody knew that Duga had been funded by Duga, the offspring of Mirlo and Alondra, not much more than a Century ago. Although we were told that the Idente traditions existed before them, how was it possible that they were thousands of years old? Also, Liuben always tried to educate Aguda and I in the history of Duga and Mirlo and Alondra. Aguda and I knew that Mirlo and Alondra had not been born in the idente traditions like us. But even Liuben didn’t know much about the idente traditions, apart from some scaterred memories of the Las Identes del Pico de la Miel, that started in the Xxth Century. Something felt off.

Since a very young age it was outstanding to me that what was more powerful from the movements were not the movements themselves, but the transtitions between them, and what was moved by the spirals they created around and in our bodies. It was the spirals what were banned from being felt from the inside by the rod. But what was that?

When in the mine, we had to learn how to differentiate the iron ore from the normal stone by touch. There was artificial light in the galleries, but it was not enough to be sure. We were told that the iron ore was magnetic, and that we could feel that through our bodies. It took just a few weeks until the foreperson realized that I could detect the veins very easily. They assigned me that task. The foreperson would lead me in the galleries in the search for the veins. During those days I started remembering some of the feelings of the transitions in the choreography. It was not intentional. When I touched the veins with my hands I noticed the infinite symbol being carved inside my belly, beneath the intestines. This was one of the physical sensations that I felt specially during the first movement. I started recreating the first movement again and again during breaks. I wanted to linger in the first movement as long as I could so I could feel accumulation towards the first transition. The forepeople did pay a lot of attention to me when I did this. But they never asked what I was doing. They just looked at me from afar in the gallery, and normally disappeared shortly after. I thought it was because they didn’t care about my madness as long as I did the work. Only many years later I understood why.

Breaks lasted half an hour. In this time I would repeat the first movement at least hundreds of times. I started realizing that there was a lot of complexity to this movement. The hands could move inwards (they usually did), but they could also move outwards. It was easy to get lost if you were not aware of that. When going inwards, the hands would draw a vertical infinite symbol in the air, and the wrist would turn backwards and forward. Each of the fingers would fold and unfold in progression, which transmitted a sensation of warming up to the neck and back in just a few repetitions. The movement of the hands started in front of the sex and then shifted to go little by little around the hips, until it reached the coccyx and sacrum in the back, where the hands would make the vertical infinite symbol again. When moving outwards, it was not possible to complete the circle around the hips. The movement outwards would lead to make infinite infinite symbols around the wrists. It lacked sphericity. It turned into a fractal. I didn’t know what a fractal was back then, but I felt it didn’t work to keep the first movement in shape, or to accumulate what I thought I was accumulating, which was a suitable transition towards the second movement.

There was something about the veins of the mine. The infinite symbol being drawn by the iron whenever I touched it with my hands in the mine. But it was not just that. I felt the magnetism between the stone and my body, of course, but I also felt the form of the whole vein inside the walls of the gallery. I visualized it very easily. I would tell the forepeople, and they would make plans following my guidance. It worked. However, I never told them that it was not just that I saw the forms and the traces of the veins. It was also that I felt the veins in me. I felt the iron boiling in me, and when they applied the water explosions in the veins to create new galleries I felt the explosions inside my body to the point that I felt I was dying every time. That it was my veins that were exploding, and that my blood and iron would just pour through my pores. But that never happened. I realized that I was empathetic with the material. I could hear the material cry. I could hear the material in pain. I could listen to its laments. There was a song to it, the song of iron. A song that I later composed.

 

In Earth we cry

In Earth we mourn

Iron veins carve blood into Tojé

Red soil, crystal waters

a wave of hubbub

is yet to come

 

I say hearing, but it was more a touching. It felt like when the mysterious unknown woman in the cave touched me. Like a thrust, a blast, a burst. A reverberation. I felt that my body was a bell. Later I also learnt that some of the trembling of the soil that we could feel everyday came from the bells in the city, but back then I didn’t know what it was. Liuben told me that it was too regular to be a rumbling of the Earth, that it was probably people made. But we didn’t know how.

Any case when I did the first movement for half an hour accumulating the energy collected around my hips, then I would start pushing it forward to the second movement. And it was in this moment in which I realized of the force that came from the circle around the hips in the transition to move it forward. I realized that it had a texture to it, and a density, that changed depending on my breathing and the connexion with the Earth through my soles and legs. If the air came in and out in a more non-intentional and deep way, the wave accumulated in my hands would flow towards the second movement without any need to give my body any order to do so.

It is very important to stress out that in Duga the seven movements were done separately. Finishing the first and coming to a pause before starting the second and so on. I was always very reluctant to that. Even though there was this moment of appeasement, I always felt some sparkles still remaining in my fingertips. Although I had completely forgotten about them between thirteen and then, in the mine I had the opportunity to let the sparkles grow.

The transition from the first movement to the second movement had the goal of transforming the circular energy around the sex and hips in an elliptical diagonal force from the horizon to the Earth through the heart. In the beginning, the movement started going up gradually in the frontal part of the body, while in the back part of the body the sensation of collecting of the first movement turned in a sensation of giving and pushing backwards. When adjusting the breathing to the ellipsis, then the hands would start to raise up and the connexion through the body would shift from the sex and the place beneath the intestines to the heart, touching the solar plexus. I also didn’t know any of this back then, but I could feel it clearly.

The transition to the third movement was more difficult, because it left you with the sensation of loosing something. The third movement is a relation of the body with the sky, so it is necessary to cut the connexion with the ground during the transition. I guess it feels like when an alligator is deprived from its tail. You know it will grow again, but at first it feels like you don’t know how to move anymore. As if your body had changed and turned shorter. When the fingers start reaching out to the sky, however, the sensation changes because you start feeling that the body does not end in the head anymore. I think that this movement actually moves the force through the brain, the whole structure of it, including the cultural brain and the reptile brain. Underneath, the third movement continues to collect the energy from the solar plexus in a double horizontal and vertical infinite through the wrists, and this force is released to the sky above the head, also starting to collect force from the sky back to the body. This is a very stimulant sensation, that brings in a quality of transparent energy that I would say feels way lighter than the energy created around the sex and the heart.

Transitioning to the fourth movement then feels like a pouring of the transparent energy you have collected from the sky to deep in the soil. The transparent melts with the Earth mud underneath and all the soft non-solid layers of matter under our feet. In this transition the double infinite of the hands is translated in the laterals of the legs, outwards when going down, inwards of the legs when going up, and the end of the movement comes back to the hips, but to both sides of them. Both the third and the fourth, but mostly the fourth movement implicate the idea of the sides of the body. The hands in the fourth movement are the closest to the skin and they do trace the legs and their sinuosity around. I like specially the fourth movement because as everybody knows I have always been specially obsessed with my legs. When I think of my legs from an energetic point of view I visualize the power of the longest bones of the body. Because I had to walk and bike through two continents I have an admiration towards my legs that goes far beyond their aesthetic appearance. Also, it was the legs what were broken when I was captive and healed in the cave. When I remember that moment in my life, in which I could not make use of my legs, and I remember the state of vulnerability that put me into, and I remember the experiences that came after, and I remember the weight of my hips back then and the uselessness of my reaching out in that moment, then I understand the immense power of my legs, that I have turned into a cult now. The fourth movement is no doubt the one with which I identify the most with, although I understand this is just an individual experience. Now I can see how different people feel more compelled by some movements than others, although right now the movements themselves are ceasing to be central to the doctrines.

I said before that the fifth and the sixth movement are actually exactly the same, although in the idente traditions in Duga they were considered two different movements for reasons I still don’t understand very well. I realized of this when I started doing the transition between the fourth movement to the fifth movement. I was very strictly methodic about this during the mine period. Even though I don’t know how long did I spend with each of the movements, I’m sure it was at least more than six weeks with each of them. I told myself I would not advance towards the following movement until I had completely understood the transition.

The transition between the fourth and the fifth movement is the hardest. The fourth movement is a movement towards the Earth. When you linger in there for a while it is difficult to think in coming back. The proximity with the Earth is a very fulfilling place. Also the blood is accumulated in the head so then it is difficult for the vestibular system to be placed back on the shoulders towards the sky. It is a very dizzying transition. During my practice I learnt to do it so progressively that I wouldn’t feel dizzy at all, but that means that it is probably the longest movement. Then the sensation starts being that of collecting the energy from the Earth and giving it away to the sky through the whole organs structure. This also characterizes the movements from the fifth one onwards. They don’t seem to be longer related to specific organs, but to affect all of them. Or maybe they are specifically aimed towards the vestibular system and nothing else.

I understand that there is not such thing as a design of the movements. Most likely they were just a relic of a tradition much broader than themselves. At least this is what I have been made to believe through my own practice. The fifth movement delivers the energy accumulated in the previous movements to the sky, and recollects energy from the sky again, delivering it to the Earth. Both the fifth and the sixth movement are channeling movements in which the body doesn’t retain anything. The sensation of channel is very powerful. It actually produces an extreme energizing sensation in which the traces of the previous movements start to be visible around the body: the one that encircles the sex; the one that trespasses the heart; the one that softens the brain; the one that roots the legs, and so on. It is very easy to get lost with the circles of the wrists. Over the years of practice I have come to the conclusion that there are different possibilities for them, but when I was in the mine I sticked to one possibility, the one that followed the structure of the previous movements. Hands open inwards when reaching the sky, double circling around the ribcage, hands outwards on the leg’s sides, inwards in the inner part of the legs, only one circle on the ribcage before reaching to the sky. I got to be so precise that any disturbance in the directions of the wrists would cause me a great deal of dissatisfaction and frustration. I would stop and repeat it over and over again until I didn’t have to think in the directions. I had to be with the fifth movement longer than with the others. Maybe it took three months. I told Liuben not to told me. I didn’t want to keep track of time in a rational way.

Here comes the question if the fifth and sixth movement are or are not the same. For respect of the traditions, I have always said that they are two different movements. I don’t think the fifth and the sixth movement are any different structurally, but I do think it is true that there’s a difference to the two of them. It is about the direction of the energy. In the fifth movement we have the direction of the energy coming from the Earth to the sky. It is very difficult to keep that in shape the whole time. The structure of the movement clearly collects something from the sky back and it goes to the soil again. So even if the fifth movement is called “the harvest” there’s also an aerial quality to it. In the sixth movement there’s no such thing as a direction. All the opposite, the sensation that grows in the “Radix Speciosa” is that of absense of direction, which is ironic given that the sixth movement performs the liberation of directionality in the channeling of the energy of the five previous movements. But what I have felt as a dancer of the sixth movement has been a sensation of pause. The whole body folds into a sensation of viscosity, a mass that is unfolding out from directionality. There is no dizziness anymore, just an adjusting of the rooting of the legs and the closeness of the sky. The sensation of pause comes with a sensation of growth, of ceasing of reaching towards. It feels like what was reached towards to is now part of the body.

I don’t know why this movement is called the “Radix Speciosa”. I know because Liuben told me that this was a title given to Mirlo at the Identes del Pico de la Miel. My guess is that Mirlo configured this movement, although at the same time given that it is exactly the same as the fifth one formally, it does not make sense that the name comes after the inventor of the movement. Actually the movement feels like a logical progression from the fifth movement, it is just the result of lingering in it for enough time to get rid of the sensation of directionality. This remains a mystery to me. Most likely there’s not a real reason to it. Who knows how Duga interpreted their parents movements and why, and how there were collected by the women’s assembly doctrines in Setubal. There’s no way to know and maybe it doesn’t matter anymore. As I said before the movements themselves are now decaying in the doctrines as we learn more and more about the possibilities they open up both in movement and in touch communication.

Yet there was the seventh and last movement, “the planets”, which is the dearest to my heart. I must confess that although I identify deeply with the fourth movement, “the soil”, “the planets” is the one that gives me the biggest joy. The transition between the sixth and the seventh movement is also very difficult because there’s also a sensation of loss. Dizziness can come back easily when leaving the vertical channeling. “The planets” is also a channeling and a reaching towards, but to the sides of the body. It is a channeling towards the horizon. I would say that the seventh movement moves the energy of the lungs. In the end what has remained the same throughout the movements is the breathing. The breathing is probably the real target of all the movements. The seventh movement performs a readjustment of the breathing, a resetting of the lungs in the upright position of the body, but not only. By reaching towards the sides of the body the seventh movement reaches out to the horizon. It is a movement about the relation of the human body with our environment. The sky and the soil are beyond us, but the seventh movement draws the possibility of relating. It was the seventh movement that gave me the key to transit from movement to touch. It was in the relationship with Aythor that he realized that my movements were not just movements to be danced, but also a means of communication that we could use. I had learnt this in the cave, however, but I could not make that link until many years later, after Aythor’s death. The seventh movement is about death itself, actually. In repetition, the seventh movement brings about the possibility of stopping breathing that has been forgotten during the performance of the six previous movements. There’s a shrinking of the organs vessel, and then a recuperation of its elasticity, the force of human life. It was the force of life what connected the seventh movement with the possibility of reaching out and then arriving to another body. All the movements touch life. Life was manifested in the veins of the iron in the mine. The seventh movement in the mine reminded me of my lack of freedom. It was when I reached to the seventh movement that I started to go out from the spider web of the cave, and I realized that I was actually captive again in the mine. Until then, I had only been obsessed. I had been completely melt with the iron. The seventh movement separated me from the cave and created a space for longing. I longed for the company of Aguda the most. I wondered about Duga and I hoped that the traditions were still performed despite the effort I had done to get rid of them. Who knows what have happened to Duga ever since. I suppose the village has fallen in the hands of some reign like ours. I just hope that Aguda has managed to keep the traditions intact.

 

When I finished to study the transitions between the movements I started performing sequences of the movements, in a process of reassembling. First the first and the second, then the second and the third, then the third and the fourth, then the fourth and the fifth, then the fifth and the sixth, then the sixth and the seventh. Then the three first movements, then from the second to the fourth, from the third to the fifth, from the fourth to the sixth, from the fifth to the seventh. Then from the first to the fourth, the second to the fifth, the third to the sixth, the fourth to the seventh. Then from the first to the fifth, the second to the sixth, and the third to the seventh. Then from the first to the sixth, and the second to the seventh. Then the whole series. Then I started the same process but inverse, from the seventh to the sixth, the sixth to the fifth, and the whole series of inverse sequenced repetition. There was also a lot to comment on inversion, that I will leave for another moment.

The day I finished the inverse whole sequence I was released from the mine and taken to the white cell in the palace. More, and more, and more captivity. Only moments of a sensation of freedom, these could be counted only happening in the dancing. And, ironically, in the cave.