Do you know your body?
Have you felt your blood glide through arteries? What’s it like to have air tickle your nostril hairs? How do your fingers feel resting on a plastic keyboard? How do your fingertips feel when rubbing someone’s neck? Do you feel like a squeezed balloon if someone sits on your belly?
How well do you know yourself?
We’re living in a peculiar moment, being hyperaware of our bodies’ specifications while being increasingly detached from the experience of possessing one. At least, that’s how it feels. And if that’s “true,” Lion’s Jaw is a potential corrective, a way to feel–at least for a few days–what it is to be a human.
At its core, Lion’s Jaw is a dance and performance art festival. It was founded out of the desire to carve out space in Boston for artists, to get them moving and creating and sweating together. In its third iteration, it has evolved into a revolutionary force, a disruption to the estrangement between self and body. It is subversive in nature: it celebrates the body as art. Art reveals and rattles, and little is more provocative than intimacy, not only with oneself, but with other human beings.
It is a rigorous festival, five days of intensive dance and movement workshops. But it is inclusive, and all experience levels are welcome. There are free events, open to the public, if you’re hesitant to dive completely in. But, if it makes you feel better, I’ll be going, and I have negative talent when it comes to dancing. It terrifies me.
Lion’s Jaw will be held at Green Street Studios in Cambridge, from October 3-8. Get your tickets and stretch your limbs. Let’s get to know ourselves.