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Joanna Mendl Shaw:The Equuas Projects and more · The Horsehuman Connection Matrix

• 0:00
  This is Ishi Abel with the Horse Human Connection Matrix.
• 0:03
  I am without a theme song for a little bit longer so my intro will sound a little different.
• 0:08
  Today I have with me Joanne Mandelshaw, who is doing some amazing work with Dancing with Horses and teaching physical listening among some other things we may talk about today.
• 0:23
  Welcome, Joanne.
• 0:25
  Thank you.
• 0:25
  Thank you for having me.
• 0:28
  Tell me about the Equus Project.
• 0:32
  So the Equus Project is a dance company.
• 0:36
  I formally formed the 501c3 in 2004, but began the research for the work in 1997 it is a company of professional dancers, all of whom have put serious time into their horsemanship ground skills training.
• 0:57
  We don't ride, we do work with riders, and a lot of our projects have been done with pretty amazing riders.
• 1:05
  Everything from the 9 to 14 year olds at the barn that we train at, to very advanced dressage riders.
• 1:16
  in the Northeast.
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  We've done projects in 16 states throughout the country.
• 1:21
  We've worked in Sweden.
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  I've taught some of this material in Scotland in Switzerland and always hungry for new opportunities.
• 1:33
  That sounds just amazing.
• 1:35
  So I didn't realize that you'd been kind of formulating this for such a long time.
• 1:40
  What inspired you?
• 1:42
  Well I moved back to New York in 1991.
• 1:47
  And I had attended Mount Holyoke College, which is a women's college in Massachusetts.
• 1:54
  That had, when I went there, and still has a very active equestrian program, a big, beautiful barn competing students.
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  You can bring your horse and have it there with you.
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  And when I moved back to New York, friends of mine were chairing the dance department and they invited me to come and do a big site specific performance piece for the 20th anniversary of the five college dance program, which is Amherst.
• 2:23
  Umass, Smith, Mount Holyoke, and Hampshire.
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  Thought it would be inter they were very adventurous choreographers themselves, who had done lots of site specific work, and I wanted to do something on the campus, and so I asked them if I could put together a piece with horses and dancers.
• 2:47
  And we went up to the barn, excuse me, and we asked C.
• 2:54
  J.
• 2:54
  Law, who ran the equestrian program there, and she said, sure, why not?
• 3:01
  And we remain in contact to this day, and she's been sort of delighted with what we've done.
• 3:09
  I've done with this work.
• 3:11
  The first pieces I did, I did, I ended up doing three pieces at Mount Holyoke.
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  One was with the dressage team, so it was eight riders and eight dancers, and we did the central green at Mount Holyoke and The big warning curve.
• 3:28
  And then we did a big piece on the Mandel Hillside for 50 movers all in white and one dancer with a white horse, a ridden white horse.
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  So it was really more of an art installation.
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  And we did a piece for the indoor arena.
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  That we call body on body.
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  And that was the piece that I learned the most doing.
• 3:51
  I worked with five dancers and three riders who actually had their horses at Mount Holyoke.
• 3:58
  I have to tell you, I'm not a horse person.
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  I didn't ride as a kid.
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  I knew nothing.
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  And it was just sheer curiosity.
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  I had been a slalom skier.
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  I love moving through space.
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  I was an athlete.
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  And what I discovered was that the dancers understood something about how to embody an energetic state and they would work on the inside shoulder of the ridden horse and the riders would say, what are you guys doing?
• 4:31
  Cause my horse has got his ear on you and you're leading.
• 4:37
  And I thought, I think dancers have a kind of physical intelligence that isn't talked about in our training, but it's a huge part of what we know what we learn from years of dance training.
• 4:56
  Right.
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  It's not.
• 4:58
  emphasized.
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  I've taught in five different conservatories.
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  Most of my faculty positions were with wonderfully accomplished dancers in Seattle and then in New York City.
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  I'm continuously fascinated and impressed with the physical intelligence that we as lifetime movers have.
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  And yet that training is really not part of.
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  Any discourse in a dancer's training think from my own experience and learning, there's a way.
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  One of the things I love about being in a dance class is being with other beings.
• 5:41
  That are moving through space rhythmically together.
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  Like I just get such a kick out of that.
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  I get so much joy out of looking in the mirror and seeing that I am moving in unison with other people to rhythm.
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  And I know that that's how horses connect.
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  I've had a horse trainer who taught me to focus on the rhythm as a way of connecting energetically with the horse.
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  So what you're saying makes perfect sense to me that dancers inherently have that experience that every single day.
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  And so do horses.
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  So.
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  It seems like a very logical connection point.
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  I think to be honest, I think what I'm not positive that the horses are connecting to the rhythm and I'll talk more about that.
• 6:25
  I think what horses do is immense amount of weight sensing.
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  They sense energetic weight and dancers sense weight.
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  They sense it through their touch.
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  They sense it kinetically.
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  They sense it spatially.
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  And I think that's what horses do.
• 6:41
  Okay.
• 6:42
  They pick it up through the kind of flow and weight sensing in your body and having taught a lot of equestrians some of this physical listening.
• 6:53
  When you have someone who's just learning ground skills and their gesture in their posture are not integrated.
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  They're not actually working with real.
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  weight because they might be fearful or they're thinking very hard.
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  The horse has a harder time reading them.
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  And I yeah, I don't think it's about the rhythm.
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  I think it's about the weight.
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  I'm saying this as someone who's you know, I'm, I'm trained in Laban movement analysis and it, it, And I've also worked with very briefly with this brilliant neuroscientist, Ani Patel, who's now at Tufts.
• 7:36
  And he and David Litchman, who's a wonderful natural horsemanship trainer, and I David devised this experiment to see if the horses were picking up on the rhythm and the tempo of music.
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  And unfortunately, I think that the, the experiment was faulty.
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  Because he devised an experiment where he had music playing in the arena, and then the rider had different music in her headphones, and the horse, I think that the controls there are faulty.
• 8:10
  Yeah, because the horse is going to pick up on the riders body language.
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  Horses pick up on all kinds of things.
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  And from my work with horses, I know if the work, if the connection is deep, they'll focus on what I'm focused on.
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  So if you're focused on weight and gravity, they'll also focus on that.
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  So I don't think it's one or the other.
• 8:35
  I think it's probably both and that they default to your focus.
• 8:41
  Yeah, in my mind, horses are the superior beings there.
• 8:45
  They're smarter than we are in a lot of ways, but that's just my opinion.
• 8:48
  Who did you say the neuroscientist was Annie Patel, Annie Patel a and I, he was the seminal scientist.
• 8:56
  He was looking at music in the brain, was looking at snowball this cockatoo.
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  And he's looking at the fact that Birds have language, and the language acquisition is based on how the brain processes many different things, not the least of it is weight sensing and sound.
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  And I mean, he came away from the experiment, he wrote an article afterwards, and he and I communicated, and we did not think that there was conclusive evidence.
• 9:28
  The horse brain is actually picking up on the music itself, but they are definitely picking up on the weight that the human is manifesting, and the groundedness and yeah, weight sensing which is sort of integral to what in this Laban work is called a rhythm state, which is about weight and time.
• 9:51
  What was the word you just said?
• 9:53
  The log, the law bond movement analysis.
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  Is L.
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  A.
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  B.
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  A.
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  N.
• 10:01
  is a form of of movement analysis.
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  It's it's it's quite western centric, but it has a way of organizing how we look at movement and detaching it from our personal preferences.
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  And you're looking at the body and how the body, you know, this is a rotator joint, and this is flexion and you're looking at effort, which is.
• 10:24
  divided into a spatial affinity, weight affinity, time affinity, and flow.
• 10:31
  And you're looking at space.
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  And he did a whole lot with what's called space harmony, which is just fascinating, the architecture of space.
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  And then he looked at the notion of shaping, which is sort of combining all those.
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  Elements together.
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  And I can talk about it a little bit more.
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  I had never heard of it.
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  So I was really curious.
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  You study so many things.
• 10:56
  Oh my gosh.
• 10:57
  Well the love on movement analysis came into my dance life.
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  In my thirties one of my Co company members in the Bill Evans Dance Company in Seattle was one of the seminal researchers in Laban.
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  And if you look it up, he was Quite famous and developed a very intricate system that included what's called love on notation, which now that we have such active video documentation is not that necessary, but it was written on a vertical staff and it was.
• 11:33
  A way of notating movement which in itself, in my opinion, it has some shortcomings because you're always looking through your own personal movement lens, right?
• 11:44
  Right.
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  You know, so my affinity, I'm very spatial.
• 11:47
  I see space.
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  I send space.
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  That's what I'm going to see first.
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  You know, some people are more affine with weight.
• 11:55
  Right.
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  Our lenses, our, our experiences, what we've studied, who we are, all of that's going to affect your perspective.
• 12:03
  Let me ask you a little bit more about the Equus Project.
• 12:05
  you started in 2004, had ideas of it several years before that, and When was your first, so I guess things I want to ask are like, when was your first performance?
• 12:17
  And you you've talked about it evolving a little bit.
• 12:21
  And when I go to look, I can't find video except for the one.
• 12:28
  If you look on Vimeo, there's a lot on Vimeo.
• 12:32
  So people can go and find performances that are recorded that you've done.
• 12:37
  I wish I had done that.
• 12:38
  I would have looked.
• 12:38
  Oh, I'm sorry.
• 12:39
  No, that's all right.
• 12:40
  Have done Well over eight huge performance projects together.
• 12:46
  And then I went to a dancer that I had met in New York named Gina Paililo.
• 12:53
  And this was a dancer who was also a terrific athlete and loved the notion of Being vulnerable in performance, which I think is something about horses, you have to be willing to not know what comes next.
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  If you really want to dance with them.
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  I mean, if you want to dominate them, that's another thing.
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  Right.
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  So our first performances were in 1998.
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  And I did several of them and I'm appalled at how little I knew, but I just wanted to jump in.
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  And then in 2004, we got our 501c3 nonprofit status.
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  And at that point, starting even in 2002 3, we were invited by the Flynn Performing Arts Center in Burlington to do this huge project in Burlington, Vermont.
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  And I had met a group of very advanced dressage writers up there.
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  And we created a, an enormous piece with 14 dancers and nine horses and eight riders for the Shelburne Museum using their live carousel.
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  And we had children in the piece.
• 14:08
  Oh, wow.
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  Everything was seen through the eyes of our equestrian director's nine year old daughter and she stands in front of this carousel and she brings it to life and as it starts to rotate the dancers appear riding these animals and she meets all of them and they devise this gestural language together and then she introduces them each to a ridden horse and then it progresses as much like the nutcracker, you know, they're There are different events that show off different aspects of how you can dance with a ridden horse, a solo with a horse, and a duet, and big groups.
• 14:47
  And the first clinic I ever went to was in Pensacola, Florida, and it was A fourth level advanced natural horsemanship clinic, and they're in this huge arena, all with their horses at liberty.
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  And I went, this is amazing.
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  There was such a sense of these horses having so much fun.
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  And that began my journey first with David, and then he introduced us to the Pirellis.
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  And.
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  We through the Pirellis met an amazing natural horsemanship trainer named Karen Rolfe, who does dressage naturally, and just got introduced into the horse world through this Amazing work that helped me as a non horse person to understand a lot about how equines think.
• 15:45
  And of course, then we eventually bumped into people who have feelings about natural horsemanship and I began to develop a point of view about what I really wanted to do with horses.
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  Which was not dominate them and I realized that this is a very privileged point of view because I don't own horses.
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  I don't have to feed them every day.
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  I don't have to take them into turnout.
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  I'm not responsible for my income being tied to horses.
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  And I have the enormous luxury of saying, I just want to explore the voice of each of these animals, and I definitely appreciate that that's a very privileged thing to say.
• 16:35
  And yeah, so eventually.
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  We learned a lot of natural horsemanship, enough to learn how much there was yet to learn.
• 16:47
  Several lifetimes, I've heard, I've heard said many times.
• 16:50
  You have this other project that is physical listening did your work with horses influence that, or is that just from dance, or is that an accumulated?
• 16:58
  What happened was we don't own horses.
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  We In the studio where there are no horses, where there are no horses, so we're working with each other, and I'll, I'll explain what the catalyst was for this.
• 17:12
  In 2004 we had a commission from Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, and it was the first time we were going to choreograph a piece with the riderless horse.
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  We did it with a Bach Prelude and there were two round pens, and in one was the owner of this Arabian Hamlet, and in the end, Hamlet, and in the other was a male and female dancer.
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  And it was totally parallel choreography.
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  Mm-hmm And we began working with this trainer and, and her horse.
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  And every Monday we would drive two hours each way to begin choreographing with Madri and Hamlet, and we worked inside this gigantic.
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  slightly heated arena.
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  It was freezing cold.
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  We would climb into our car to stay warm.
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  And our, David actually flew from Sacramento to train us.
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  Katja came from New York to take a look at what we were doing.
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  And it was beautiful.
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  I mean, it was just a beautiful piece.
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  And about the fifth rehearsal, we put the music on.
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  And, and I should say at the climax of this prelude, we had Blake and Hamlet running three circles.
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  And then, as you well know, if you put your eyes on a horse's haunches, they'll turn towards you.
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  And then she just asked the horse to gently back up and then come towards her.
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  And then she released her energy.
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  knowing full well that he would drop his head and exhale and probably have a lovely moment.
• 18:53
  So just for accuracy, those horses might be trained that way or maybe east coast horses do that, but all of my training and reading and working with my horse is eyes or belly button to the rear drives them forward.
• 19:11
  And it's a prey instinct.
• 19:13
  So If you put the eyes at a certain point on their haunches, it will drive them forward.
• 19:19
  But if you put it on the hip bone, they will move away from the pressure and because they're quadrupeds.
• 19:27
  they'll actually very often face you.
• 19:30
  And I, I have tried this with horses that are not trained to do this.
• 19:35
  And so gaining a sense of how you can help the horse move with you is certainly part of natural horsemanship training, but they actually do that with the in the herd.
• 19:47
  I mean, I've seen horses put pressure on another horse's haunches, and the horse will spin around.
• 19:54
  At any rate, there's certainly lots of micro, there's certainly lots and lots of micro movements that, that is, that is certain.
• 20:01
  And there's certainly horses will pick up on a person's micro movements.
• 20:06
  And if you don't do things exactly the same way, or, or once you train them, that this movement means that.
• 20:14
  Then they'll be there every time with it.
• 20:17
  So yeah, it's very, it's a very interesting mix with so many variables when you're being present, and you're interacting with them that way because there's the training, there's the instinct, there's the herd language, there's the multicultural aspect of human culture and horse culture coming together.
• 20:40
  It's, it's extremely intricate and fascinating.
• 20:44
  I mean, moving through space with all of those variables, but you, you were saying about being in the studio together.
• 20:51
  So I just wanted to finish this story.
• 20:53
  So we put the music on and Hamlet took one look at Madri and ran three circles, faced her, took one step backwards and then exhale.
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  And I thought, oh dear, what have we done?
• 21:09
  And I called David and he said, Joe, you're not rehearsing in order, are you?
• 21:14
  And I said, well, yeah, we're rehearsing the piece.
• 21:17
  And he said, the circus never rehearses in order because the horses will memorize the sequence and then skip to the end to be done sooner.
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  And I thought, I have to completely retrain my dancers.
• 21:34
  We have to learn how to learn things completely differently.
• 21:39
  We have to learn a different way of functioning.
• 21:42
  You can't be in memory time.
• 21:45
  You have to be in real time.
• 21:47
  And you cannot rehearse things over and over again.
• 21:51
  Because the horse will get bored.
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  They'll learn things.
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  They learn faster than we do.
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  They respond to pattern.
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  And so the physical listening work evolved directly out of the horsemanship.
• 22:05
  And we began to develop a really expansive practice that continues to evolve in the studio.
• 22:17
  And then during COVID, I wrote this.
• 22:20
  Much too long book that has all of it in it, and they're about in this book.
• 22:31
  There are about 50 somatic exercises that are designed very specifically to help people expand a certain sensory ability, for instance, working in backspace.
• 22:45
  You know, which I think is very important with horses.
• 22:48
  You need to know where they are.
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  You have them on a lead line.
• 22:52
  If you're not paying attention, they'll just test you and drift to the other side.
• 22:57
  That awareness of alpha negotiation and how they are negotiating to find out if you're a good leader are, is, is a constant.
• 23:09
  And can you construct choreography that's sort of based on that notion?
• 23:14
  Can you create, we devised this one Beautiful improvisation called The Creature Duet.
• 23:21
  And we would make a round enclosure, like a round pen, and then send one person in with a constellation of behaviors that was loosely based on maybe it's the horse they just worked on.
• 23:33
  An introvert, but a curious introvert.
• 23:36
  That spooks easily.
• 23:37
  And then someone else goes into the round pen as themselves.
• 23:42
  And they really have to figure out by trial and error and physical engagement, no talking, and a lot of observing how to connect with that moving creature.
• 23:56
  And what we tried to get dancers to do is really own what we call blink time, which is horses process things differently than humans.
• 24:08
  And unless they're in fear mode, they're not going to respond right away.
• 24:12
  You can watch their brain processing and Dance is very adverse to blink time, you know, five, six, seven, eight, and then you're always moving.
• 24:23
  And so to get dancers to understand.
• 24:28
  You can be on stage and own the beauty of blink time that you can be on stage and it'll never be the same twice.
• 24:36
  You have to pay attention all the time.
• 24:40
  I've always had the thought that ecstatic dance or pure improv and getting good at pure improvisational dance would make every dancer on stage a better dancer.
• 24:55
  Because once you have the discipline of all of the movements and the language, you know, of each Each move, each sentence, but the fluidity, I mean, you can have fluidity in choreography, but fluidity in what you were calling real time that comes out of improvisation, puts you absolutely present.
• 25:21
  And, and when you're talking about that that blink time or pause time or being present so that there's not this thought process of what comes next or working from the pattern that you've done again and again and again with repetition.
• 25:36
  It's those moments that.
• 25:39
  You know, as the, the meager little dancer that, that, you know, exposure to dance that I've had in my life at a very novice kind of level.
• 25:47
  But I recognize that feeling in that space as so similar to the work I've done with horses in relationship or horse ship.
• 25:58
  That's a phrase that I've coined.
• 26:00
  I don't want horsemanship.
• 26:01
  I don't want horse woman ship.
• 26:02
  I want.
• 26:04
  I want a relationship with a horse where either one of us can lead where there's complete trust back and forth where the dominance isn't necessary unless it's for safety travel or health, you know, in those cases, I will institute A benevolent leadership that insists on compliance.
• 26:25
  But other than that, I don't want to interact with my horses like they're slaves.
• 26:28
  I want, I want those precious moments of being purely present and being welcomed into their slower culture.
• 26:36
  It's those it's those moments and being able to, to, to.
• 26:41
  help people get into that space that is really hard.
• 26:46
  And the horses have taught me a lot about that.
• 26:49
  And I'm guessing that they've taught you a bit too.
• 26:52
  And my suspicion is that the physical listening comes from being really present the micro movements, and being in the space where You're turning off some of the thinking.
• 27:07
  Is that right?
• 27:09
  Yeah.
• 27:09
  I think that the, the thing about ecstatic dance that I think is different and, and you've already addressed this is when you're in a state of ecstatic dance, you're working with that flow, but your focus is mostly on yourself.
• 27:27
  And the thing about physical listening is you're always in relationship.
• 27:33
  You're in relationship to the, to the space to an end and mostly to another sentient being.
• 27:40
  And to me you know, I, I've had this conversation with people who do contact improvisation as well as ecstatic dance.
• 27:49
  And I think there's a lot of emphasis on what my experience is, but as you know being a horse person, that, that the state that you want to be in.
• 28:02
  I think with this animal is in a state of communication and trust and give and take.
• 28:08
  And I do think that improvisation is a, is a really important skill and it's you and I just mentioned, I think a little bit, this course that we're a friend of a colleague of mine is teaching at Stanford for physicians.
• 28:25
  And a big emphasis is on how do you relate to another person?
• 28:31
  How do you use physical listening to be a better communicator with your patient?
• 28:36
  In addition to self care, the emphasis on the interactiveness of it, the physical listening part.
• 28:46
  It's not just listening to yourself.
• 28:48
  That's of course important, but it's listening to that other sentient being that seems so important and there's a, there's to me an important level of compassion.
• 29:01
  Unfortunately, this world is struggling with these days.
• 29:05
  And that's the part that feels.
• 29:09
  Yeah, that feels different about this work from the kind of improvisation that someone does when they're just working on their own personal fluidity.
• 29:25
  Yeah.
• 29:25
  Again, with the lens, you know, everybody's experiences are so different and I'm sure different containers for improv and ecstatic dance, you know, the ones I visited differ quite a bit.
• 29:37
  as well.
• 29:38
  So but I do hear what you're saying about like sort of an internal thing versus a partnership thing.
• 29:45
  Yeah, I, I've had experiences where I'm in partnership with different people during different parts of the dance and there is that compassion and that respect and that exploration.
• 29:58
  It's interesting.
• 29:59
  So, It's your friend that's teaching the class on physical listening, or is that you that's teaching the class?
• 30:06
  We both, we both are.
• 30:08
  She is a former dancer who ended up as a chemistry major at Harvard and then went to NYU Medical School and is now at Stanford as a resident in pediatrics.
• 30:22
  And during the pandemic, we began designing this course, and I taught a couple workshops at NYU.
• 30:30
  And then when she went to Stanford, she asked me to come out and teach last winter this course.
• 30:36
  And this year, I'm only going to go out once a month.
• 30:40
  And I've worked with Nina and her assistant, who's also a former dancer, and a pre med grad of Stanford, and they'll be teaching the course.
• 30:51
  But what we discovered, and this relates to something that you said earlier, is that four of the people, we had 12 people in class last winter, four of them were former dancers, and one of them was a martial arts artist and a violinist.
• 31:10
  They were all very familiar with improv.
• 31:14
  What we realized is the, the skills involved, the flow that you're talking about, that sense of allowing your brain and body to talk to each other is not something that many people trust.
• 31:29
  They have it, but they're not using it as adults.
• 31:32
  I think that our education system in this country tends to favor left brain learners, and it has a kind of 2 dimensionality to it, where the, the kind of playful porous learning.
• 31:48
  Is not something reinforced in young children, and in a way it sort of gets taught out of us.
• 31:57
  I listened to your interview with Sarah, and I think that for for other able learners.
• 32:04
  There is more of a fluidity, but it's not something that is praised or recognized in the way our schools are set up and the way learning takes place.
• 32:17
  And for five years we did a project in far south Chicago and worked with school for gifted kids.
• 32:25
  And the principal was So interested in what we did with physical listening, and we taught 3rd through 5th grade for 2 weeks a year.
• 32:34
  And then at the end of every week, we would take all the kids to a horse farm and have them experience how physical listening manifests in another species.
• 32:47
  That sounds fascinating.
• 32:50
  Yeah.
• 32:50
  Lucky, lucky kids.
• 32:51
  Wow.
• 32:54
  So much really wonderful stuff that you have done and put together and what an extraordinary life you've had as a dancer and choreographer and teacher.
• 33:04
  And there was another project I saw on your website where in another country, you worked with some autistic children on a dance project.
• 33:13
  Do you want to tell me a little bit about that?
• 33:15
  So in 20, 2012, David Litchman introduced me to a Pirelli Natural Horsemanship horse owner, but a theater director in Sweden.
• 33:29
  And her students were all on the spectrum, and she worked with them for a long swath of their lives, starting when they were eight, seven and eight years old, all the way up through into their twenties, and she created a theater company called Clinton culture was in southern Sweden.
• 33:51
  And she started creating performance works with them.
• 33:55
  And her great goal was to hire a choreographer who actually worked with horses.
• 34:04
  And David had come to her community and said, Well, I actually know somebody that does this.
• 34:12
  So I became connected to her, and she invited me to come to southern Sweden to create a performance piece, deep in a forest.
• 34:24
  At the site of this stone ruin with horses and with her company of young adults with autism.
• 34:31
  So I brought four dancers and we created a full evening length performance piece called Hastants Pahovdala and Hovdala, it was the name of the castle the family that owned this land.
• 34:48
  It sounds magical.
• 34:50
  It sounds absolutely magical.
• 34:51
  And there's a documentary about it.
• 34:54
  So you know, this, I went to Sweden in April to meet her and I thought this is going to make an amazing film.
• 35:02
  And so I took a documentary filmmaker with me and we made a full length documentary about the creation of this work called Hastan's Pahudala.
• 35:12
  What do you want to do next?
• 35:15
  I'm really interested in embodied intelligence.
• 35:19
  And to that end I'm launching this think tank and, and I've invited a collection of people to look at it.
• 35:26
  A lot of them are dancers.
• 35:28
  Some of them are, are horse people.
• 35:30
  There's an acupuncturist who's a horse trainer.
• 35:33
  To I'm trying to gently nudge it out of our dance centric point of view, because I think that I want to understand this for a more sort of pan human.
• 35:46
  So we're going to do once a month, five hour sessions where we go into a studio and brainstorm the physical listening process from each of their perspectives.
• 35:57
  There's a dance educator at Columbia Teachers College.
• 36:00
  There's of dance colleague of mine who's also an equestrian sort of a collection of people starting more from the dance centric point of view and then hopefully doing it again.
• 36:12
  With a more varied I'd love to put together one with scientists who research physical intelligence.
• 36:21
  Yeah, I think that there's, I mean, I don't know if the goal there is a therapeutic availability of what gets touched on in some of this work for people, but I think that that is really, really rich along with the dance is one of the primitive culture activities that enhances brain health.
• 36:42
  It's kind of a little kick that I've been on and something that really fascinates me to research.
• 36:47
  And it sounds akin to what you're talking about.
• 36:52
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 36:53
  So when you say you go out and dance with your horses, what do you, what do you do with them?
• 36:57
  I just wanted to try it yesterday.
• 36:59
  I've been so inspired and I didn't have any visuals, so I didn't know.
• 37:03
  And I thought, okay, well, what does dancing with horses look like to me?
• 37:07
  You know, it's not the Grand Prix and it's not riding and it's not, you know, it's not vaulting.
• 37:14
  It's a way that I connect with them.
• 37:16
  So, I was combining what I'm learning about Liberty work with me dancing.
• 37:22
  And of course my, my little coin belt from belly dance, you know, had my, my young Mustang snorting at me.
• 37:28
  And I use some of the, you know, horsemanship principles of like, if I'm going to come over in the field and take up this space, you're going to move.
• 37:35
  And I'm going to do that three times.
• 37:36
  And then you're going to start following me.
• 37:38
  It's a version of join up.
• 37:40
  So I guess, I'm just thinking as I'm talking, I guess I put music on and did a mild version of join up in the orchard with the horses.
• 37:51
  And I tried to film some of it.
• 37:52
  It's just kind of funny.
• 37:54
  And the, the goats were watching and the dog was playing with me dancing.
• 37:58
  And it's just a sweet little time out there, you know, connecting to nature and my, my critters.
• 38:04
  That's cool.
• 38:06
  How many horses do you have?
• 38:08
  I have three and I have three goats and I have two dogs.
• 38:13
  So this has been really wonderful.
• 38:15
  Joanne, thank you for making time to visit.
• 38:17
  Is there anything else you'd like to talk about?
• 38:21
  Hmm.
• 38:25
  Well, I'm interested in, in, in how we connect to these animals.
• 38:31
  And at least in my horsemanship training, working with rhythm, depending on the personality of the horse can be effective or can cause.
• 38:47
  Stress for them.
• 38:49
  Let, let me explain a little bit.
• 38:51
  I have this trainer that I worked with for three years.
• 38:54
  I was so fortunate to get to work with her and I wish she would be full time with horses, but she's actually a human therapist and, but she's knows more about horses than any three horse people I have ever met and she's very intuitive also.
• 39:11
  So she taught me how to work my horses.
• 39:14
  in a round pen, using, being grounded, some of my body language, my chakras, moving energy up and down my chakras, and focusing on their rhythm.
• 39:27
  So as an example, I've got a horse trotting, a young horse trotting, who has not calmed down a lot yet.
• 39:35
  When he realized he could be heart to heart connected, like heart math connected to me, at a trot, He was just so filled with joy because he'd been so anxious up until that point.
• 39:50
  So then if I move my energy from my chest down to my feet, and I think in my brain, a walk rhythm rather than a trot rhythm, he'll respond to that.
• 40:04
  Nice.
• 40:05
  So it's like the aids become internal by moving energy in myself.
• 40:11
  The horse is paying attention by.
• 40:15
  And it.
• 40:16
  There's also physical outside aids because I'm not, you know, 100 percent practiced at it.
• 40:24
  But it's possible to communicate with horses with the front of your head by putting an image in the front of your head and having them read it.
• 40:31
  I mean, first you have to have a relationship.
• 40:33
  You have to have trust.
• 40:35
  They have to want to know what you're thinking.
• 40:38
  And they have to be willing to talk to you.
• 40:40
  I mean, horses have been ignored.
• 40:43
  Most horses are ignored, you know?
• 40:44
  And like, I use this example all the time.
• 40:47
  If you kidnap somebody and they keep asking questions and you don't talk to them, they're going to quit asking questions.
• 40:56
  Horses are like that.
• 40:57
  Horse, everything a horse does, every move a horse makes around a human, to me, is them asking a question.
• 41:06
  Can I come out of the stall?
• 41:08
  Am I done eating?
• 41:09
  Are you, are you gonna keep working me?
• 41:12
  Is this what you mean?
• 41:14
  You want me to stop here?
• 41:17
  They're asking questions all the time.
• 41:19
  And so when you look at it through that lens, instead of the dominant lens of, even though natural horsemanship is gentle, it's completely manipulative and it's completely dominant.
• 41:31
  There's no room for the horse to have a choice, the natural horsemanship that I know.
• 41:37
  Now people may be using the term natural horsemanship, you know, to mean many different things.
• 41:45
  Right.
• 41:47
  Oops.
• 41:49
  Sorry.
• 41:50
  No, that's okay.
• 41:51
  I don't know what you're saying.
• 41:52
  Sorry for but does that answer the question a little bit about some of the rhythm?
• 41:57
  Yeah.
• 41:57
  Yeah.
• 41:58
  You know I know you take issue with the work word natural horsemanship, but there are many, many different versions of it.
• 42:06
  And.
• 42:07
  We, we, we have definitely encountered trainers who say, unless you understand how to be a good leader, you're never going to have the conversation.
• 42:20
  And, you know, that's a little intimidating.
• 42:23
  So, and.
• 42:24
  So let me talk a little bit to that because there's some accuracy.
• 42:28
  I use natural horsemanship.
• 42:30
  I've read the Pirelli book.
• 42:32
  I have used, you know, Pirelli moves to help with my horses, but going deeper, I think a lot of times they are misinterpreted and misused by people who don't fully understand them.
• 42:46
  And I think we need to admit that it is manipulation and yeah, there is a leadership factor, but the trust.
• 42:55
  is more important.
• 42:55
  Like when I go and do young Ian type coaching work with my horses and clients, I'm not leading.
• 43:04
  I'm not the leader.
• 43:06
  One of my horses is the leader.
• 43:08
  Sometimes the leadership trades off, you know, natural horsemanship has focused on the leadership aspect of herd dynamics.
• 43:15
  There are many aspects of herd dynamics that are now being looked at more closely and studied more closely.
• 43:21
  It's not all about, it's not all about the dominance and the leadership.
• 43:24
  There's plenty of interactions happening out there among horses that are not the leaders.
• 43:29
  Let's look at those.
• 43:31
  Let's take that for clues.
• 43:35
  So it is, my perspective is extremely different and I don't, I don't think natural horsemanship doesn't have a place.
• 43:43
  I just want people to understand that absolute dominance.
• 43:47
  is outdated as far as I'm concerned.
• 43:52
  I don't know if you lost me there.
• 43:53
  I'm moving again.
• 43:55
  Okay.
• 43:56
  I did get the gist.
• 43:58
  And I, I actually, I, I wouldn't be presumptuous enough to say it's outdated or not, but I'm and I'm not saying you're being presumptuous, but I consider myself a very grateful visitor.
• 44:12
  The horse world, you horses.
• 44:14
  So I would, I could not make that statement.
• 44:18
  But I do believe that the way that we're working with these animals.
• 44:24
  is very different.
• 44:26
  It's, we are, I am interested in the animal choreographing us, which means that the dancer is in a round pen trying to be as receptive as possible and asking, what would you like to do together?
• 44:45
  Yes.
• 44:46
  Now, the truth is, you took that horse out of the pasture, you put a halter on them and a lead line, and you brought them into a round pen.
• 44:56
  Right.
• 44:56
  So there's dominance right there.
• 44:58
  Right.
• 44:59
  It is very hard to do this work in a pasture, we certainly have, but they have a lot of work to do.
• 45:05
  an enormous range of other things to pay attention to, not the least of which is edible grass.
• 45:12
  And right.
• 45:14
  So when a horse comes in off 200 acres to be with you and they have a choice to be anywhere that says something.
• 45:21
  Absolutely.
• 45:22
  One of the things we work with is what happens next.
• 45:26
  So you have their curiosity, which we are always very grateful for.
• 45:34
  And then what do you do with that?
• 45:36
  And to me, in physical listening, at least choreographically, that is a very big question.
• 45:42
  That is the question.
• 45:44
  One of the things that we experienced when we were at Colorado State, working with this amazing Ph.
• 45:51
  D.
• 45:51
  candidate and faculty person who works with wild mustangs, and she said, her theory is that, So often in natural horsemanship, you're asking for two eyes and two ears.
• 46:02
  And her theory is that a lot of the time, at least her experience with these wild mustangs, is that's a state of fear.
• 46:11
  Yeah, the two eyes and two ears and nothing.
• 46:14
  No one can learn anything in a state of fear.
• 46:17
  Exactly.
• 46:18
  Some of my podcasts with horse trainers talk about that exactly.
• 46:22
  And the brain state and brain waves that you are, or they are in and the brain chemicals being released when they are at a state of optimal learning.
• 46:32
  Versus fear versus not interested.
• 46:36
  And I've never heard that about two eyes and two ears.
• 46:38
  I've always heard one eye and one ear.
• 46:41
  So, anyhow, this is her statement.
• 46:44
  She, she was fantastic.
• 46:46
  And, you know, you asked me what I'd like to do next.
• 46:50
  I want to keep pursuing this question of, As a dancer, how do you allow another sentient being to actually make that dance with you?
• 47:01
  And can you at the same time be tracking on some sort of a theatrical trajectory where something changes?
• 47:09
  It may be very possible that if you ask the horse, they would say, I like to watch you dance.
• 47:17
  And I like to dance sometimes, but I don't know if we can dance together or if I want to like, or knock yourself out.
• 47:25
  I'll watch.
• 47:27
  That could be, that could be the answer.
• 47:30
  I do remember being in a round pen with a four year old.
• 47:33
  And I had this coat in my, this linen coat, and I was just experimenting.
• 47:40
  I knew less than I know now.
• 47:43
  And I dropped the coat and then I dropped down and the horse dropped his head and he sniffed the coat.
• 47:51
  And then I picked the coat up very gently and just put a little bit of rhythmic pressure behind the tail.
• 47:57
  And he took off and started to walk and then trot and he would trot around the And then out of curiosity, he would stand and face me.
• 48:06
  So I took the coat again and I dropped it and he did exactly the same thing.
• 48:11
  And we did that pattern three times and fourth time, he picked the coat up in his teeth.
• 48:18
  And he trotted around the arena.
• 48:20
  That's what I'm looking for.
• 48:22
  I'm looking for that moment where the animal is improvising with you.
• 48:28
  And then I was so surprised and delighted.
• 48:32
  I didn't know what to do next.
• 48:35
  Right.
• 48:36
  And so part of the physical.
• 48:40
  I've lost you again.
• 48:41
  It sounds like you're saying part of the physical listening.
• 48:45
  Sorry.
• 48:45
  Is it that no, I got, we got to the point where where you said, that's what you want to explore more is when they're interacting with you and Liberty work, Liberty work does that can do that.
• 48:57
  And Liberty work can be not in the round pan.
• 49:00
  That's not Liberty work.
• 49:01
  Liberty work is in the pasture.
• 49:03
  Well, you know, you're talking to someone who's a choreographer.
• 49:06
  So one of the skills that.
• 49:09
  I'm interested in working on is how to train at the moment a dancer to shape something that happens with the horse.
• 49:19
  That's interesting for you, a horse person to watch.
• 49:25
  That will get you, maybe not you personally, but other people who love these animals to see something they might never have seen before.
• 49:35
  Yes, and that's why I wanted to interview you because that is really important.
• 49:41
  And I'm going to ask the question now, are you part of the quiet revolution in the horse world?
• 49:47
  I don't know what that is.
• 49:49
  I just got your email, but I don't know what.
• 49:51
  Okay.
• 49:51
  I thought we had talked a little bit about that.
• 49:53
  So the quiet revolution in the horse world is the reason I started the podcast is to start a movement against absolute dominance and to see that shift happen.
• 50:07
  Yeah, I'm right with you.
• 50:09
  All right.
• 50:10
  That's what I wanted to know.
• 50:11
  I, you know, I did want to say in all fairness to Linda Pirelli.
• 50:16
  That was what she loved about watching us do this work.
• 50:19
  She said, you know, something that I don't fully understand.
• 50:25
  And I think she was willing to admit, you know, I continue to be friends with her and now she needs to make a living on her own separate from Pat.
• 50:35
  And, I see the dominance coming back in and I recognize that it's possible that her clientele are women who want to be feel safe.
• 50:50
  Yeah.
• 50:50
  And, and so I, I totally respect that.
• 50:54
  And I also understand that what we're trying to do is.
• 51:01
  more similar to what you're talking about in this quiet revelation.
• 51:04
  Right.
• 51:05
  So it's establishing enough trust and allowing the horse people trusting their horses to take them on a ride.
• 51:13
  And I hope Linda gets to listen to this episode and others.
• 51:16
  My most popular episode is co created rides and I think that's what people want.
• 51:23
  I think that's what horse people are after.
• 51:26
  Monty Roberts wrote about it in Life Lessons with a Ranch Horse.
• 51:29
  It's listening to your horse.
• 51:32
  That's, that's what people want.
• 51:34
  I don't know why they don't do it, but they're getting there.
• 51:37
  We're getting there.
• 51:37
  Well, I, you know, one of the things that we're working on next is a theater piece where we really look at our human predatory nature.
• 51:47
  Our need to dominate our need to our short term thinking, you know the fact that we would send troops into Afghanistan and after a year.
• 51:59
  And everything they accomplish you just put a whole new group of people in.
• 52:03
  There's no carry through.
• 52:05
  There's no desire to really understand the indigenous people there.
• 52:12
  I think it's one of our human failings is that we're impatient.
• 52:17
  Our lifespan is relatively short and we want to make things happen.
• 52:22
  And so one of the things that we're looking at in this next piece we're making is how does this play out for women who are trying to have more of a presence in this world?
• 52:34
  How does this play out for human beings?
• 52:38
  How does this contribute to?
• 52:41
  Well, inadvertent cruelty, how do autistic people see this like autistic people have some traits that are going to give us a really different window to some of those things you're talking about.
• 52:54
  And I think that that's a big part of.
• 52:59
  Of shifting and human consciousness too.
• 53:01
  I, I feel like as an autistic person, I have, and this relates to the co created rides.
• 53:08
  I have a window into dismantling the illusion of separateness that exceeds what normal people have.
• 53:20
  I lost you again.
• 53:23
  Right.
• 53:25
  Yeah, I know.
• 53:26
  I'm continuing to wander through my apartment and plugging into different outlets.
• 53:32
  Yeah, I'm, I'm actually interested that you interviewed Rupert.
• 53:37
  Isaacson.
• 53:38
  Yeah.
• 53:39
  He's wonderful.
• 53:40
  He's just a wonderful person.
• 53:42
  Yeah.
• 53:43
  Okay.
• 53:44
  Well, I'm thinking it's about time to wrap up.
• 53:47
  Are you feeling like we're complete for now?
• 53:50
  Sure.
• 53:51
  Absolutely.
• 53:52
  Thank you so much for this time.
• 53:54
  Thank you again, Joanne.
• 53:55
  It's nice to get to chat with you more.
• 53:57
  Okay.
• 53:58
  Take care.
• 53:59
  Bye bye.