Absence

Ashley Johnson: “Central to Amelia and her work is the idea that there is no stagnation, that it cannot stop. I think this is the reason there's no book; we've little to hold on to, really. Amelia left a body of work that must be passed on orally. We are the container." 

The exercises have to be practiced hundreds and hundreds of times.  Practiced by bodies – or they'll be forgotten. And they have to be practiced together; one person can’t hold that amount of work entirely on their own.

With a book or video or some other form of documentation, we’d be able to say well, I am really busy today, I’ll leave Basic Back Maintenance for six months. If I forget I can always look it up. But we can’t. We just have notes and fragments. She has actually ensured that we continue our daily practice, and continue to meet as a community to learn from each other.”

Madeleine Lepage: “I visited Amelia in the hospital when she had just received a grant to write her book and was diagnosed shortly after with a terminal illness. Here she was in her wheelchair and she had a glow about her, she was moving her hands in opening movements and she said:

"It's good that it's not on paper yet, because we aren't ready. It's just the beginning, we are just starting to understand the body in motion and how to release it and how to heal it. These young ones will carry on because it's so new.”

You know I thought this was so beautiful."

Davida Monk: “Amelia passed too soon for us. But many great artists and thinkers have passed in a shorter lifetime, so it’s not a question of how long a person is here, but the quality of the work that is passed on, and its' continuance, which is dependent upon all of us. It’s evident from this Gathering that the continuance is well in play.”

Ashley Johnson: “Our bodies hold the essence of her work. Seeing people who studied with Amelia in very different ways, sometimes for a very long time, sometimes just a week, years ago or recently. When we watch them move and we work on them, you can feel Amelia inside of them. An amazing thing to leave people.”

Traci Foster: “When I cook with someone, she’s there. In our moments of hanging out and kibbitzing, she'd always remind me that to cook the stew, I didn’t have to strain whatever part of my body I was straining just then!”  

Shannon Carson: “Coming to terms with her absence brings the realization that I'm no longer able to rely on her help, and a responsibility to self. I’ve had some of my strongest experiences with the work. I recall her touch, sometimes have felt her presence, her voice in certain situations.”

Kathy Morgan: “I move so much better. Since she passed, I wonder if perhaps Amelia helps me! I used to run into problems with pain when Amelia was around – yet since she’s passed I've had very little. All I seem to need is myself.”

Shannon Carson: “The freedom, the precision with which she communicated the work through drawing and instruction, and the conundrum created by the fact that the work constantly grew and was changing. The precision constantly shifted.”