A Fish in Search of Water
A philosophical film documentary about yoga, nature and the art of attention.
Video Clips from the film.
Quotes: Dona Holleman
We never look with eyes of innocence, we always look through our hopes, fears, thoughts and experiences. These form a wall in front of our eyes; a troubling like the ripples on a lake that distort our reflection of reality. Seldom do we look into the eyes of our fellow men and women, and when we do, we find ourselves stopped by this wall; but on a rare occasion we may meet someone and look into the eyes and to our surprise do not find ourselves stopped, but rather invited to enter into endless rolling fields and routes, vistas of innocent beauty.
People always want to go through someone else, they do not want the responsibility of having a one-to-one relationship with life, so there is always that angle. We go through the priest, through the scientist, the psychiatrist, the psychologist, the yoga teacher, the guru. We always go to other people to ask about life. Personally I think life does not make corners, it travels in a straight line. You can only go in a direct way to life, and each human being has all the tools, all the possibilities to plug directly into life, into the universe. The moment you go through something else you are creating an angle.
Quotes: Diana Eichner, director of the documentary film A fish in search of water
I met Dona for the first time in 1997 in Berkeley, California. I was beginning a four-year teacher-training course with her, and I was eager to learn as much yoga as I could absorb. The weeklong course gave me enough information to work on my own for a whole year, but there was an extra element in the teaching that I had not expected: her use of images. She preferred the visual teaching to the verbal, and she used powerful imagery to communicate her ideas. Instead of explaining a yoga pose in a thousand words, she would say: Watch here! She would do the pose, and then she would expect the class to go ahead and do the same thing.
I quickly realized that to be able to learn from Dona I had to stop taking notes like a maniac and just watch her do her thing. I even started to believe her when she said that if I observed attentively, the pose would jump from her body into my body through the eyes.
The technical aspect of the yoga poses was not all Dona wanted to communicate. Her teaching was about the way we perceive the world that is around us. The pose was the easy part; what was more difficult was letting go of ones ideas and preconceptions and opening oneself to a new kind of experience. One which is not limited to yoga poses practiced indoors. It is the experience of perceiving everything with attention: from animals and nature to films and TV.
I think it is important not to make this a yoga film. I have been reading Dona's books, and everything about the asanas is there. I mean, everything. I know a book and a film it is not the same thing because in film you can watch her movements: the visual teaching, not only words. But I don't think this should be the central part of our film, but a part among others. The books are there, so we should try to go beyond them, into the realm of her ideas, which is what really excites me because that is where the rebel Dona comes to life, and I think that is what can be appealing and interesting to an audience.
Quotes: Katherine Rabinowitz, producer of the documentary film A fish in search of water
Working on this film is a particular privilege for me because it's another way of working with Dona; one that I hope will bring her light and depth to others who may not know her, or about yoga. I think our collective wish is that the film should open possibilities of inner growth to others, to see themselves in new ways, as it has already for us.
A fish in search water is a film about Dona Holleman. Dona as a person who does a certain practice, as a philosopher and as a teacher, but not primarily as a yoga teacher. Because Dona herself never limits her experience to yoga. Why a film about Dona Holleman? I think Dona is a real western teacher. She teaches yoga, but she is not a person who considers that to learn about yoga or to find a spiritual path one has to go to India.
In this yoga craze and new age craze that is now happening in Europe and America, many people get lost because they think they have to adopt a foreign culture in order to learn something about their bodies and minds. Dona brings the teaching back home. She herself went to India, but her teaching is a mix of east- west, you find yoga, and you find animals, and tango, flamenco, etc. This approach is a refreshing one, because it takes the serious and reverential attitude away, it reminds us the teaching is all around us: in our own bodies, in the movies we watch, the books we read. It is not only in ashrams but in our day-to-day western existence. It is a living and changing subject matter, not a fixed one. And that is what we can capture in film: how Dona makes no distinction between her life and her ideas. They are one. She speaks what she does, and she does not preach.
A fish in search of water is about how a conscious approach to life creates a more intensely meaningful human experience. This can occur by opening oneself to perceptions outside our everyday systems of interpretation. A person of great awareness who walks the invisible path between the physical world and the spirit can be a catalyst for that opening. Dona Holleman is such a person, a consummate yoga teacher and an incisive student of life. She communicates her experience in a way that is as fresh as it is immediate.
Dona questions what we take for granted. Her provocative teaching dynamic illuminates false beliefs that tie us to fixed systems of thought. She does not prescribe a new system, but prefers to point out that what we think of as reality is only one way of perceiving, and that there are other possibilities, if we care to find them. In Dona Holleman's view, perception is a choice that each one of us makes every day, consciously or unconsciously.
This film project sets out to create a film equivalent of Dona's ideas, the conceptual framework and perceptual paradigms that underlie her approach to yoga and to life. The film is about how these practices can affect our lives, help us to become more empowered. It will interpret them in a way that is accessible to the West. Ultimately, the goal of the film is to allow the audience to perceive the world in a new way and to understand yoga in a new context.
Donas mastery of yoga asana is an important part of who she is and what she does every day. Many of her concepts focus on yoga practice, and she uses them to confront students to see how much further they can go. However, she doesnt want to talk only about yoga or to be labeled a yogi, identifications that limit our view of her, and ourselves. Such conceptual limitations are precisely what Dona challenges in her teaching.
She uses images from nature to grasp the innate quality of things, how energy is transformed, how animals move, how plants grow organically down into the earth and up to the sky, how everything breathes and moves from the breath. As we hike, we discuss the essential practice of attention to nature and the world, illustrating Dona's relationship to nature and animals. Canoeing on String Lake, Grand Teton National Park is doing something for its own sake without expectations. The canoe ride becomes as important as yoga asanas. Dona shows how she brings her awareness of movement into any activity.
Potential audience:
The film will be edited for submission to film festivals and broadcast television as a documentary on yoga and life. Yoga in this context creates a dialogue, an interface with the mind, body and soul. Dona goes far beyond classical yoga into a metaphysical inquiry. It is brought to life through the depth of her practice in a powerful visual experience.
A fish in search of water will be of substantial interest to the growing community of yoga practitioners and teachers, where Dona is well known, and to the broader human potential movement of people interested in enriching their own life experience.
Personnel:
| - Director: | Diana Eichner |
| - Executive Producer: | Kate Rabinowitz |
| - Producers: | Josh Ferrazzano |
| Daniel Frydman | |
| - Director of Photography: | Anette Uziel |
| Juan Pablo Chapela | |
| - Camera Assistant: | Juan Pablo Chapela |
| Dave Bowers | |
| - Art Director: | Toni Montez |
| - Gaffer: | Dave Bowers |
| - Sound: | Dave Bowers |
| Josh Ferrazzano | |
| - Caterer: | Daniel Frydman |
| - Production Assistants: | Chris O'Connel |
| Karina Eichner | |
| - Makeup: | Brandy |
| - Editor: | Josh Ferrazzano |
