PRAYING POSITIONS/METAMORPHOSIS

15 min | Solo | Min Stage: 3x3 m | Alternative spaces welcome. 

Change and evolution. In all of life, since the beginning of time. We often fear change, as it can be experienced as a painful or difficult process on a personal level.

With this solo we are trying to understand, befriend and repair our own bodies. We are listening to it, following traces of pain, un-doing tension accumulated over time. Looking at the act of prayer in the body, prayer as an animal instinct perhaps, or as a way of honestly releasing tension and expressing the passing of life and change through the body.

Created over the course of a couple of years, the choreography resulted in an interactive score that can be made available to anyone via written instructions or as a workshop. Original music by The Sei.

(Music and dance score to released by Paragon Records March 2025.)

MOVEMENT SCORE

Praying Positions/Metamorphosis

Choreographer: Maria Nilsson Waller 

Music: The Sei 

General guidelines for performing, in privacy or with others.  

This is a map to help you tune into your body and bring it into collaboration with your imagination.  For professional dancers or first timers, and everyone in between.  This is an invitation to take Praying Positions/Metamorphosis through your own body and imagination. 

• Everything is connected, and always moving, you are in constant change. Every new movement is born from the previous one.
• Be present in the space, and in your body. Listen and feel for every signal in yourself.  Give yourself permission to improvise, remember, there is no wrong move, just listening.  Breathe. Each time you do the score is a new journey. Pay attention to the flow of the moment while following the score as you remember it. 

• Play with slow-motion/speed
• Wait for true timing - dare to pause, to yield to the movement.
• Let any pain you might have guide you. 

• When performing in front of an audience, if you can, include the energy of the audience in your body. Let them be part of your “prayers”.

THE PRAYING POSITIONS / METAMORPHOSIS SCORE

When the music starts, walk in to your performance space. This dance happens in one spot, no large space necessary. 

>BE A MOUNTAIN: Wait for a true impulse; your own right timing to start the dance. 

Slow down and listen.  Feet together and palms meeting above your head.  When you’re ready, fold and allow yourself to fall slowly forward

Imagine being or standing in a 

>SLOW MOTION WATERFALL: As your body bends forward, imagine water flow down over your heart until you land like a drop of water in the ocean. (Forward bend, hands on the floor.)

>BLUEBELLS: Feel water travelling through your feet and up your legs, from the surrounding ground. As it moves up you legs let your knees be softly bent and gently meet. Now roll up with the rising of the water.

Breathe in and take the form of Botticelli’s Venus; your right hand in front of your heart/chest and your left hand over your womb/sacral. Lift your shoulders up gently and softly make space inside your body.

Breathe out and let your right hand grow out from your chest; swing forward/out, then back, releasing your right foot into a fifth position. Let your hand, top of head and entire spine, curve over into the shape of a bowing bluebell. Now dance like a bluebell, full of natural and wild beauty.  (Finish this section facing to the back.)

>WAVES OF EMOTION: Let any pain or stiffness you feel guide you - see if you can use the movement to stretch, loosen up or release the pain.  Breathe into the painful areas, try not to resist. Create your own repeating loops of movement in your body. Fill your body with feeling, let emotions influence the tone and shape of the body. (Finish this section facing to the front.)

Emotions and states that might be present: Euphoria/disco | Grief/lost lover | Bleeding heart/woman | Anger/mothers rage | Fear/child reaching out. | Give/receive. | Pray for the earth.

(Music section 2: You will hear the music shift at about 7:00 mins)

> ANIMAL PARADE: Continue the looping waves of repetition (play with levels, size and tempo.)  Without loosing the groove, and always in the same spot, let the shapes of the body change. Welcome any animal poses/positions here; let your body become an animal parade. Pay attention to genealogy, evolution and metamorphosis: cross-fade any changes in the body.  Let the body rotate as it move through the animal parade. 

(Music section 3: You will hear the music shift at about 11:00 mins)

 > PRAYING POSITIONS: Introduce moments of calmness and stillness - the animal’s faces turn towards the sky; reflecting and contemplating.  Imagine the pieta, surrounded by a diverse range of Fauna, all moving in wild reverence as they look up. Seek movements that embodies the spreading of wings, crucifixion, and opening your heart. Stretch beyond your perceived limits.  

Look for your ending. The music will fade away at around 14:50. Come to stillness.