The following interview was for the May 27 __Poetry Lab featuring Alia Swersky. Usually the program features an interview live in front of the audience, but Alia suggested doing it through voice memo.
—Eric M. Acosta
Thursday, May 14
well I’m not sure I heard what the question was but I think it’s something around how
movement or the body is its own form
of communication text or its own form of
poetry its own form of prose its own form of
narrative its own
form of story -- is that the question ?
is the question : how am i communicating through my art form of movement ? what am i
trying to communicate ?
maybe i need a question to follow up what you were saying
Thursday, May 14
so in the last sentence you used the word fractal and then I had this thought about language and definitions of words and what we think they mean versus what some version of the word
is told to us what it’s meant
I had to go look up fractals
and then there’s what you look up, what
definitions come up, and what you choose to see
at the top of the search page it’s all AI overview -- is that the definition that I want to participate in ?
then you scroll down and you can go to wikipedia or webster or reddit. I can watch a youtube video. I can go to cambridge english dictionary. I can go to dictionary.com and then I can just scroll and never land anywhere because that’s
kind of how my brain is -- it doesn’t ever want to land
it wants to land but it can’t always land -- so if a fractal is -- now I’m reading this overview -- "is a never ending pattern that looks similar
no matter how close you zoom in"
what is a fractal mind? a never ending pattern that looks similar no matter how closely you
zoom in
"fractals are created by repeating a similar pattern over and over and they are common in trees
and snowflakes"
but every snowflake is different
-- magnifications --
so now I’m obsessed with this word and this
might inform my process
it’s not an unfamiliar word but something about it in this moment feels unfamiliar
there is something about repetition of process that makes me think of what has been the continuity of my creative process and what has had changes or diversions or
been magnified into
something else through its repetition
I would say a through line is to use the body as my main resource -- as a generative source, a generative resource for material and to trust that the body has its
own communication agenda
that is different than my conceptual agenda outside of my body that is also inside my body
because my brain is inside my body
there’s also like the before cancer time and the after cancer time of my life -- call it BC
so much has changed about me. I’m not even the same person. There are also processes that are similar but are just not accessible in the same way because I’m having to relearn myself
my brain has really changed or maybe it hasn’t changed but its more apparent to me what
it always has been
I have so many questions about making anything and why I would still continue that gets into a self pity process so we’re not going to go there
I think the consistency in communication is to wait for my body to move and see what it has to say and listen to that and follow it and then maybe it’s layered with other meanings or maybe the meaning is present and its informing me right now
I feel like because I feel so changed and different in my body I am trying to work with my
limitations and not be very interesting
and try to accept that and research what in my self feels like an embodied state that allows
a feeling of presence --
presence-ing ing ing
ongoing verbing
in that it will come and go but can I keep
trying to find that
Friday May 15
Sinking down into the body as a body
or something like that
versus the body as a dancer -- verbing vs noun
that was a good one -- good message -- good whatever you call it
why is it called {goodbye beauty}
we're constantly changing and being marked by -- reconstituted
life changes us -- life events change us
we're inside nature and so we're changing
and being changed
even this idea of presence or
presence-ing is effected by constant disruptions
it feels like a very vain title and it is -- it is
i'm a child of the 80s in a very white america, my self worth as a female identified little girl is -- my self worth has only been about my beauty
i mean not only, but that has been the messaging of my life
you are nothing without your beauty -- you have nothing to offer as soon as your beauty is gone or maybe you've never had it you are
irrelevant -- you have nothing to contribute you can't do something worthwhile without being perceived as
beautiful
in someways it’s a very vain self indulgent title -- kind of cringe -- seriously cringe -- as an older white woman it’s even more cringe to even go there -- it's just cringe
the purpose of the italics is highlighting the
beauty
saying goodbye to the beauty of any moment again
we're not in a noun here, we're in a
continuation
it's a letting go always : letting leaves fall,
letting things change
goodbye beauty goodbye beautiful tree goodbye to the magnolias that were bloomed and now they're something else
beauty as in design
as in god
as in I see you
I see you beauty -- like that --
I see you beauty
the depth perhaps is inside the investigation of what is now in this body
and with all the questions : why continue ? why make anything ? why share it ? i don't
know -- it's just what I've done
the goodbye feels like this thing I just need to say
goodbye to being a dancer and being an artist
especially as I'm more limited and I can't really dance
I could really go on and on in these voice memos. Once I start talking there's something that's sort of satisfying and totally freeing -- this sort of talking to nobody but talking to you talking but talking to my phone running stream of consciousness. It's kind of safe to speak to something when you
don't see someone's reaction to you in real time because i'm not being effected by how I think someone's thinking about me
Tuesday, May 18
so I think I mentioned in one of my rambling voice messages when you first asked about the title that I maybe said maybe I didn’t -- that beauty can have so many meanings and
one of them is like god
if you want to use that word
and maybe we don’t but if we did
or something divine or something beyond this
like human material existence
so beauty as in like you know when you’re just beauty
as in love -- as in infinite love -- as in I see beyond your flesh -- beyond one sense of your beauty
I see you beauty
beauty I see you
and Cira -- my daughter -- she is like that to me
like the second she was born I was like "where the fuck did you come from?"
it didn’t feel like she came from me which is a very different experience then I had when my son was born
I love them both the same and very differently or equally you know what I mean
I love them and its different kinds of love
because there’s so many different kinds of love --
Thursday, May 21
I just relistend to the last voice mail memo I left about Cirah and I wonder what I was going
to say when I got cut off
I was talking about her -- I think when she was bron when she came out I don't know she was so calm and so deeply beautiful from like somewhere other -- I don't know -- I just couldn't believe she was in my arms and I got to be with her and she was there and
where did she come from
there's this photo of her when she was first
born and there's like a wisdom in her.
I know parents say that but I don't know she just had something about her. She still does
the goodbye beauty going back to the goodbye beauty goodbye beauty
i have to say goodbye to cirah every week because she goes to be with her dad and her other family and it's extremely painful
it's like saying goodbye to god
not that i think of her as a god but when i think of her, that is the beauty, as if a relationship
to something like god
you are trying to find continuity with that.
I don't want to put that pressure on her -- I don't think I do
she's also my kid. i want to be with her all the time to have that consistency as a parent/child relationship but also as this sort of deeply
spiritual connection
when she leaves and I say goodbye to her it's like a letting go -- it's a death that I experience every week
cirah levine skye -- she is beauty
there's a letting go in raising children because you're saying goodbye to different parts of them -- their infantness and toddler and all these
different stages they go through
there's this score I use called "stay with" which is staying with something long enough that you
see it transform
to stay with a relationship in which like 'wow, now you've become this' and I loved you then and I loved you now as a different version of you
I love that deep knowing that deep knowing that's changing you kind of know then you have to say goodbye to this beauty the beautiful
moments
i don't know how you make a piece about any of this -- the title is so loaded -- it's so potent with so much meaning that I
don't think I can convey through my body
especially as i say goodbye to my beauty and my body functioning
right now im in the studio and i can't really move because everything hurts
I'm trying to be with what is because i have these things i want to practice but they don't feel good
it feels good to lie here and talk and try to
trust
it's a lot of pressure to make something even if it's -- i don't know -- i know it doesn't really matter but it matters and I always do these shows that are one time
shows -- that is sort of a theme of my last many years of performing -- it's very strange
Friday, May 22
Let’s just keep saying beauty
Beautiful beauty
I don’t know how long this will go on and I
just want to say there’s no obligation to respond
There's a lot going on in a life in a day
And respond if it calls to you and there can be a lot of space in between
And it can have it’s own ending and we don’t
know
And that’s part of it
I feel like this is the piece
Like I don’t know what’s going to happen on
wednesday, what I’m going to do, but this is my favorite part, I do have to say
It would have been a different conversation if
we had just met for coffee
So that’s interesting
I’m also a child of divorced parents and I think that really fucked me up too
Although my parents have maintained a really beautiful connection for both me and my sister or I don’t know or just for themselves i don’t
know who for -- for god? just joking
i am curious – how -- what is evolving or what is becoming of your
relationship to this word that we’re talking
about beauty or beauty as in god
like is there something in your life that feels like it fits into that ? or moments that you find it? is that even the right language for you ?
i had a moment today where it’s like i mean i
think I’m trying to find that in my body as a
mover all the time where it’s beyond my own
self beyond my own ego beyond my own I
should probably do this because I’m a performer and
blah blah blah all this stupid talk
It's so fleeting but I actually had a practice this morning with these people out here and I feel
like I arrived for a moment. I was outside and it was sunny and I felt this innocence of joy
which is pretty rare for me. It felt like summer
nostalgia but I wasn’t seeking past I was very
present -- presence-ing -- present-ing -- in the moment and my body. I wasn’t having
to make so many decisions -- just let it be