Street Lab Premieres “Open to Rasa” A Remembrance & Reflection
May 2025
By Mikey Tong
OPEN. The acronym that Moving Rasa connects with continues to imprint on my heart mind. Orienting, Preparing, Engaging, and Nurturing (OPEN) on repeat to feel familiarity in new experiences.
I had no idea what to expect when Orienting to the Streetlab event. Andrew gave me a time and place, and once I arrived the community was helping to set up tables in a blocked off street in East Harlem. Now, I rarely spend time in East Harlem. I am a visitor to NYC and Bedstuy Brooklyn has been my home base. But community was clearly important here. People were helping each other set up with smiles and moments of slowness to share a laugh.
To Prepare for the community, Andrew led me through the Moving Rasa’s card facilitation. My understanding is that the essential intent of it is OPEN connection through consent and embodied imagination. Cards scaffolded this through questions and movement prompts like “where do you feel at home?” And “move with your hands gesturally.” Tables and chairs mapped how close or far the questions were from us. Andrew shared, “Sometimes we don’t know where we stand with an important question.”
The posture of my heart mind was opening through Andrew’s demonstration. This pulled together neuroarchitecture I have been simmering with through meditation and east Asian medicine: Metta, or loving kindness; the Wu Xing, or the five elemental phases that map the function of the body and world; and Right Speech, or communicating what I mean. And consent was not a binary overt yes or no, but the more nuanced yes no maybe that shows up in the subtle ways we communicate.
Community members were tentative in Engaging. Rightfully so since we were asking to be open to potential deep conversations in this public space. But we shaped our facilitation to be shorter. And we offered at first just listening to what people had to say. My ribs were hurting from a previous movement facilitation, so I stuck mostly to gestural seated movements that the community could do with me. And that turned out to be just right for my facilitations. Looking over to Andrew, he was dancing all around the table, through construction poles, lying on the floor, it was great! I felt gratitude for how our different movement practices opened up different ways of relating to depth.
Engaging was tender. Andrew and I explored the essence of how a community member feels about an important question, unobstructed by what they think they should feel or other thought distractions. There were tears, often. But always after, heart to heart holding through hugs or smiles.
Nurturing brought us back into the conscious orbit of the public space. Nice and easy. But something was different. The world felt lighter.
Children brought their parents. Parents brought their children. Andrew’s partner and friends came. It was home, and something I dearly wish to continue.