Gratitude to Hantie Prins

Gratitude is an art form in itself. From the nineteen eighties I performed in homes where I needed to bring gratitude. I suffer when I do not succeed in delivering gratitude, to arrive where it belongs. A disciplined freedom helps me to find ever better embodiments of gratitude. This has been my praxis on a regular basis.

On 9th March 2018 I gifted my singing teacher and philosopher-mentor for her ardent endeavours to draw on the creation of my voice. This, with the complex proprioceptive attention to my body. This is the best singing instruction a philosopher-dancer of my age could ask for. The two of us practice a martial art of anatomy and philosophy which asks for a meditative focus to release one muscle in the neck, next to another, one which should be sustained for sheer strength of will-force.

Hantie Prins has a life story that spans early musical talent with single motherhood, an international career, teaching, mentoring and writing. Her method of teaching suits a student who can no longer afford a soft approach at the expense of the formation of 'the condition', the original form, the preparation, the vessel from which the soul has to emerge. As much as her instructions are severe, her joy when a placed tone elevates the space, is unambiguous.

Learning to sing, the fibers of transformative ageing are perceptibly shocked into an image, a demonstration that certain ontological qualities can only come alive when the forces of the third age enable a singer to sing as if it is the last breath. It is an exercise of the subtle that does not allow for any desires for renewal to enter the era of true inner freedom. At best, singing offers a sense of a true acquaintance with what has not yet been, and must be.

The art of sobbing, as practiced from birth, the intense and relentless heat of sorrow, soar against the inspirational military hymns of Russia. Lisa Gerrard, with her vocal integrity and mythical interiority is an old memory in my own voice, which I dealt out in various versions in previous performances since 1983. But it is only now, now that the persona falls, that I can afford the teacher who will not stop to have her desire met. Yet, it is for her whom I can offer a broken tone, a struggling register, an exasperation while I harbor immense gratitude that in this far-off land there are those who perfect us in times when we stand at the edge of the land we love with our fullest being.