Duets

Practicing care work and being together when I feel like I might eat everything

Hello Beloveds,

I’m thinking about Duets. Two weeks ago at the Viewpoints jam I facilitate with London Bauman, we were experimenting a lot with duets. Sometimes two improvisers and London playing music, sometimes one improviser accompanied by London, the two of them making a duet also. After some larger group improvisations the week before, London and I thought to tune the focus of the jam toward our relationship with the music by limiting the number of players in the space. I didn’t fully articulate this at the top and after a string of duets someone asked, “Why are we doing so many duets??”

My first answer was, “Because I love duets.”

(I suppose that’s obvious after dedicating this entire year to making them. And now nearing the end of 2025, deciding to continue with weekly duets into the new year.)

After my declaration of love I explained our intention behind the small group numbers. The group discussion turned to how duets can feel tricky inside a Viewpoints improvisation. A larger group can help to soften the focus, turn your attention toward group event and the Viewpoints themselves, whereas when you’re improvising with a single partner you tend to magnetize toward them. The improvisation takes on a lot of eye contact and direct focus. Suddenly you’re only playing off each other, forgetting about the Viewpoints, it’s all bits and competitions and Relationship and Story. The possibilities narrow.

But that’s why I love duet! The volume get’s turned up on this one relationship and all my habits and fears come out to play. I can’t fade into the background, I can’t pull all the focus, it’s both of us. Our relationship becomes the thing. The challenge is to be with the other person and myself, understand our dynamic and partner the viewpoints. It’s not about denying the potency of whatever is between us, but about playing inside of it while also staying in touch with myself, the room, the audience, the music.

duets

Which is what I’m trying to do outside the studio too, of course. Be with you, and me, and the group. Balance listening to myself and the other person — do both at the same time!

Here’s what’s alive for me right now in relationships: Some deep down fundamental part of me is pretty sure I’m a bad person. That the only thing keeping me from fucking everyone up and eating the whole earth is consistent, ✨rigorous✨ control. This part of me thinks that in order for me to get what I want, everyone else will have to compromise, or get hurt. I think that if I ease up on the control, the desire monster will go into a frenzy of eating and destroying and doing whatever it wants like some cosmic black-hole-werewolf-hurricane.

My belief in the desire monster is stronger than I’d like to admit. The energy I devote to keeping it wrapped up inside, more than I am comfortable with. I am very interested in practicing belief in other things, other ways I am that might be true. I practice in the morning at my desk, looking out at the trees (trees take exactly what they need and give as much as they can). I practice in group therapy and with my coevolution through friendship circle. We say what we need, what we’re feeling. We put words to the desire monster mythologies. And I practice with duets.

A few weeks ago I danced with Paul Fredrickson. As we were checking in, Paul told me he’d been struggling with new and very persistent tinnitus for eight days. First thing upon waking he was greeted by this ringing sound and it didn’t stop all day until he fell asleep. For over a week. He said he was scared because it may never stop and he didn’t know how or when he would learn to cope. And the sound was making it hard to focus and be present, even in that moment.

The first thing we did after checking in was look up tinnitus relief music and play it over the speakers. We surfed through melodic beeping, ambient drones, white noise and rushing water until we found a collection of tracks that provided Paul some relief. Those four tracks became the soundtrack of our duet. We played them on repeat for the entire three hours we were in the studio and continued to play them underneath the performance. Then we asked ourselves what kind of light would feel good and developed choreography around the small colorful lights we enjoyed washing over pain-points.

the slow, pain-dance Paul and I developed was a way of making and healing simultaneously.

By the time folks came to watch what we had made I could no longer decipher what was taking care of each other and what was art. The whole dance was exactly what we both needed. Specifically enabling our ability to make — as with the tinnitus music — and exercising and soothing certain parts of our souls that needed help. At the end of the duet I lit Paul with a pale blue light while he danced with mesmerizing abandon.¹ I saw this freedom in him I hadn’t ever seen before and it made me cry. We made the most beautiful thing because we started with what we needed. We asked directly for what would help and we did what we could for each other. There wasn’t any compromise. The magical thing was that what Paul really needed was healing for me too. Our care fed the piece and was good for us and the people who came to see it.²

I’m pretty sure I’ll befriend the desire monster eventually. We go through cycles of pain and appreciation. They are as epic as they are terrifying. Duets help. Making things together, taking care of each other and being cared for, not being able to tell the difference. Relationships are Everything.

More on this soon.

All my love,

Isabel

Upcoming

• 52 Duets - Every Saturday (pretty much) 5:30pm at 2259 NW Raleigh St. Next duet is December 6th with London Bauman. This week, no duet! I’ll be at Secret Seed with Sofía instead.

• Secret Seed Improv Salon - I’ll be performing song and storytelling with Sofía Marks as a part of this evening of improvised performance. More info here.

• Live-Music Viewpoints - Open Viewpoints lab featuring live music by London Bauman and facilitated by me. Donations appreciated, no one turned away. Next one: December 10th.

• Song Channeling - A chorus for our grief. Every last Sunday of the month, 5-7pm at the PETE Studio. Next gathering is November 30th.

1. I wish I had a video of this but the light was too low to capture it.

2. Much of this exploration into care as a central making practice is informed by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha and their books, The Future is Disabled: Prophecies, Love Notes and Mourning Songs and Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice.