I am learning to appreciate choreography more. That’s not to say I didn’t before, I’ve been obsessed for a while now. I guess I am appreciating it in a different way, how it can do something for others, thinking about ways to bring people into my fantasies and emotionality without ever transferring that burden. Choreography has become a practice in which community is at the centre, looking at ways of which we can come together to share experiences.
“Can care exist as a way of being, a way of peacefully moving, a way of listening with others?”
Movements fo Care, Katherine Hall
I came into this process with National Dance Company Wales carrying the grief of losing my uncle mere days before. As a result of this I came into this process particularly touched by his kindness and this shaped my thinking about what we need more of. When we speak the truth there is nothing to hide behind, it is just as it is. Truth. I can not talk about how I am feeling but I can describe it through this medium, I can convey it as an experience.
“I cannot avoid trying to understand your experience, because although I do not experience your experience, which is invisible to me (and non-tasteable, non-touchable, non-smellable, and inaudible), yet I experience you as experiencing.”
The Politics of Experience and The Bird of Paradise, R.D.Laing
I have referenced Cai Guo-Qiang’s Ninth Wave. An installation piece in 3 sections Remembrance, Elegy & Consolation. A structural concern I have is how do I create narrative or an equilibrium that isn’t necessarily “beginning, middle (climax), end”.
Other things I am concerned about: How do we move to question not solve? What is the perception of time we are offering with our bodies? We allow this notion to guide our sense of rhythm and flow. Allow it to live through us by the necessity to succumb to the stimuli. How do we create movement that is substantial? As in movement that is not fleeting (aimless). How do we navigate through a fantasy world? What is the grammar? How do we tell a story? Not stories essentially but maybe moments that are inherently recognisable.
“Our sensing behaviors are edited from a genetic palette—how our eyes detect light from dark, our ears locate the source of sound, our bodies move to explore by touch, our nose positions itself to smell—and we move to satisfy our curiosity about the world. Throughout our lives we draw from this pallette to compose a repertoire of responses to constantly shifting internal and external environments. These patterns underly our choices and shape our opinions and appetite for movement. They give body to our imagination.”
Before Your Eye, Lisa Nelson
Remembrance (extract above) as a ceremony, a procession if you like as a means of setting the grammar of the work. What are the rules of this imagined place? What does it feel, look, smell & sound like. This is not a beginning but instead the point of which we meet. It is the place for which every thing else that happens after unravels from, in fact you could see glimpses of the whole work from this place alone. We use the same score, the same movement language, sections and fragments of solos, duets & trios within this procession that will be presented much clearer later in the work. Maybe the more times you watch it the more these moments become apparent. I do this as to set the parameters of which our actions live within.
Elegy is our poetry in action, this is not a place we have come to indulge in how great we are but instead to relinquish every thing else, to be present and active in each moment as if we are perishing. We dance and we move out of requirement to be honest and curious. This curiosity is always fleeting and eventually becomes moments of expression that we recognise as the occurrence of an experience. The score is structured in a way that allows an accumulation of physical semiotics “falling, losing, flying, a beautiful death, a moment, to catch a butterfly”. This is how we convey a state of being. Soft textures displaced by a sense of defeat, fight and hope.
Consolation is our resolution. I prefer this notion as a way of restoration and play. A way of finding comfort, this is the place where we find liberty and hope. Eventually.
Choreographic Journal: 11th November 2020
The idea that we as performers are transcending this reality into another, it becomes a way of being, a way of functioning within this place.
This is a space in which we facilitate a new perspective in relationship to our environment. How do we utilise our sincerity and imagination to truly be in this imagined space, it is a space where the rules aren’t defined, it is a space where the only thing that has meaning is our bodies and what we choose to do with them. This place, this space is everything and nothing all at the same time. It is a space we require to “holiday from everyday reality” it is a space that is safe and has no greater consequence to the rest of the world.
Every thing we do is for the sake of togetherness without compromising ourselves, we each play our part in this biodiversity. Uniqueness doesn’t have to be a selfish act.
“In this case, novelty is not considered to arise randomly; rather, it is generated as a result of a large and structured network. We contextualize these results in terms of adjacent possible theory and as a new way to understand collective intelligence. We argue that excessive information and material flow can become a source of innovation.
To this end, an emergent phenomenon is defined as the macroscopic layers of patterns and structures that appear as a result of cooperative phenomena between autonomously behaving elements. A group of elements creates a self-organizing structure, which governs the individual micro rules and creates a new macro structure. Therefore, consecutive micro–macro recurrent self-organization is defined as an emergent phenomenon.”
Life as an Emergent Phenomenon: Studies from a Large-Scale Boid Simulation and Web Data
Takashi Ikegami, Yoh-ichi Mototake, Shintaro Kobori, Mizuki Oka and Yasuhiro Hashimoto
The microscopic (the score) creates the architecture for the macroscopic landscapes. The score creates imagery that guides us when we use it to dance. The score is created to structure this place or reality we wish to depict, without being the same we can find commonality elsewhere. This is where the idea and representation of togetherness comes to life. The score is the thing we all share. The score is created from images that live in our minds as learnt through practice, I the choreographer set the agenda and everything born out of that we carve it into the work.
We warp time and space with our bodies. We convey otherworldliness through the manipulation of space and time.
I could talk for a life time about the eclectic nature of this idea but eventually I will come off track and lose the objective of writing this. The Politics of Experience is an idea in how empathy towards the abstract can be used as an experience.
I look forward to continuing this research.
With thanks for support I have already received from National Dance Company Wales, Wainsgate Chapel, Chisenhale Dance Space & Leeds Playhouse. Even more so thank you to the dancers for your time, energy & genius.