A defintion

Improvisation: bodies manifesting and dissolving dynamic temporal-spatial structures according to aesthetic and physical potentialities and proclivities in a planar arena.

Theater vs. Gallery or What vs. Where

If a dance piece is different in a theater than in a gallery, white box vs. black box, how would it change in a movie theater?
in an elementary school theater?
a high school theater?
a college theater?
the art gallery next to the black box theater at the college?
at a theater at a university, a university without a dance major?
in the theater of a university?
in the theater of a PAC 10 university?
in the foyer of that theater?
in the bathroom off the foyer of the theater of the PAC 10 university that doesn't have a dance major?
in a bus stop near that university?
the bathroom at that bus stop?
the bus that just left the bus stop?
the bathroom on that bus?
the Wendy's that bus stops at 3 hours later?
in the parking lot of the gas station?
next to pump number 3?
next to pump number 7 that Henry in a red and green plaid shirt is using to fill his Toyota Tundra's tank?

OK, forget all that.  Let's go back to a traditional performance space.

A sprung bamboo floor on a 15x10 meter rectangle of concrete with radiant heating.  The concrete is 20 cm thick.  Surrounding the dance floor is gravel.  This floor is in a room that has 5 other such floors and each one is surrounded similarly by gravel.  This room has windows on the north and south sides and has an arched roof. The walls are white; the gravel grey; the ceiling silver.  The east and west sides have brown sliding door 4 meters long and 2 meters tall.  Each door has a cement landing and benches.

Maybe this isn't a traditional performance space, but my dream studio.

OK, back to this piece...hmm...how about this - We, in the performance world, shall never make a new piece ever again, but agree upon 1 piece that we will all repeat in different contexts.  Never again will we have to worry about what we will do.  The only question is where we will do it.

P.S.
There are an infinite number of contexts (as there are pieces).
I rather make the pieces than the contexts.

More definitions

Dance is the theater of the object.

Theater is the dance of the subject.

The Essay That Describes Itself

This is the first sentence.  This is the second sentence.  This is the third sentence.  This is the fourth sentence.  This is the fifth sentence.  This is the sixth sentence.  This is the seventh sentence.  This is the eighth sentence.

This is the ninth sentence.  This is the tenth sentence.  This is the eleventh sentence.  This is the twelfth sentence.  This is the thirteenth sentence.  This is the fourteenth sentence.  This is the fifteenth sentence.  This is the sixteenth sentence.

This is the seventeenth sentence.  This is the eighteenth sentence.  This is the nineteenth sentence.  This is the twentieth sentence.  This is the twenty-first sentence.  This is the twenty-second sentence.  This is the twenty-third sentence.  This is the twenty-fourth sentence.

This is the twenty-fifth sentence and the first one of this paragraph.  This is the twenty-sixth sentence.  This is the twenty-seventh sentence.  This is the twenty-eighth sentence.  This is the twenty-ninth sentence.  This is the thirtieth sentence.  This is the thirty-first sentence.  This is the thirty-second sentence.

This is the thirty-third sentence and the first one of this, the fifth paragraph.  This is the thirty-fourth sentence.  This is the thirty-fifth sentence.  This is the thirty-sixth sentence.  This is the thirty-seventh sentence.  This is the thirty-eighth sentence.  This is the thirty-ninth sentence.  This is the fortieth sentence.

This is the forty-first sentence.  This is the forty-second sentence.  This is the forty-third sentence and contains the largest prime number yet in this essay.  This is the forty-fourth sentence.  This is the forty-fifth sentence.  This is the forty-sixth sentence.  This is the forty-seventh sentence.  This is the forty-eighth sentence.

This is the forty-ninth sentence.  This is the fiftieth sentence.  This is the fifty-first sentence.  This is the fifty-second sentence.  This is the fifty-third sentence.  This is the fifty-fourth sentence.  This is the fifty-fifth sentence.  This, the eight and final sentence of this paragraph, is the fifty-sixth sentence.

This is the fifty-seventh sentence.  This is the fifty-eighth sentence.  This is the fifty-ninth sentence.  This is the sixtieth sentence.  This is the sixty-first sentence.  This is the sixty-second sentence.  This is the sixty-third sentence.  This is the sixty-fourth sentence.

This is the sixty-fifth sentence.  This is the sixty-sixth sentence and the second of this paragraph.  This is the sixty-seventh sentence.  This is the sixty-ninth sentence.  This is the seventieth sentence.  This is the seventy-first sentence.  This is the seventy-second sentence and the final one of this paragraph.

This is the seventy-third sentence.  This is the seventy-fourth sentence.  This is the seventy-fifth sentence.  This is the seventy sixth sentence.  This is the seventy-eighth sentence.  This is the seventy-ninth sentence, which will be followed by the eightieth sentence.  This is the eightieth sentence.

This is the first sentence of the eleventh paragraph.  This is the second sentence of the eleventh paragraph.  This is the third sentence of the eleventh paragraph.  This is the fourth sentence of the eleventh paragraph.  This is the fifth sentence of the eleventh paragraph.  This is the sixth sentence of the eleventh paragraph.  This is the seventh sentence of the eleventh paragraph.  This is the eighth sentence of the eleventh paragraph and therefore the eighty eighth sentence.

This is the eighty-ninth sentence.  This is the ninetieth sentence.  This is the ninety first sentence.  This is the ninety-second sentence.  This is the ninety-third sentence.  This is the ninety-fourth sentence.  This is the ninety-fifth sentence.  This is the ninety-sixth sentence and if the author were to use the classic two thirds one third ratio point to have the climax, it would be here.

This is the ninety-seventh sentence.  This is the ninety-eighth sentence.  This is the ninety-ninth sentence.  This is the one-hundredth sentence.  This is the first sentence when proper grammar dictates that numerals can be used according to the Chicago Manual of Style and therefore the 101th sentence.  This is the 102th sentence.  This is the 103rd sentence.  This is the 104th sentence.

This is the 105^th sentence.  This is the 106^th sentence. This is the 107^th sentence. This is the 108^th sentence. This is the 109^th sentence. This is the 110^th sentence. This is the 111^th sentence. This is the eighth sentence of this paragraph, the 112^th sentence, and if you have been paying attention you would know that each paragraph so far has had eight sentences and therefore this paragraph is the 14^th paragraph.

This is the 15^th paragraph.  This is the 15^th paragraph.  This is the 15^th paragraph. 

This is the 15^th paragraph.  This is the 15^th paragraph.  This is the 15^th paragraph. 

This is the 15^th paragraph.  This is still the 15^th paragraph.

This, however, is the 16^th paragraph.  This is the second sentence of the 16^th paragraph.  This is still the 16^th paragraph.  This sentence, too, is part of the 16^th paragraph.  As is this one.  And this one, too.  This sentence, also, has the pleasure of being part of the 16^th paragraph.  This sentence is also part of the 16^th paragraph.  As is this one, the final sentence of the 16^th paragraph.

This is the first sentence of this paragraph.  This is the 130^th sentence of this essay.  This is the third sentence of the 17^th paragraph of this essay. Numerically, this sentence marks the halfway point of this paragraph.  This is the fifth sentence of this paragraph.  This sentence marks three quarters of the way through this paragraph.  This is the seventh sentence of this, the 17^th paragraph.  This is the last sentence of this paragraph.

This is the antepreantepenultimate sentence of this paragraph.  This is the preantepenultimate sentence of this paragraph.  This is the antepenultimate sentence of this paragraph.  This is the penultimate sentence of this paragraph. This is the ultimate sentence of this paragraph which is the final paragraph of this essay, the Essay on Nothing.

Logic determined beforehand

A piece is choreographed if the logic is determined before the piece begins.

Personnel vs. Content

I was just at the Texas Dance Improvisation Festival this past weekend.  Thoroughly enjoyed myself.

Sitting in on a class taught by a friend and fellow Lower Lefter, Leslie Scates, I listened to the discussion at the end of class.  One of the participants brought up the question of personnel vs. idea during the exercise of Number Score.

Usually, during Number Score, the content happening in the work/performance space changes when the personnel/dancers change.

This need not be.

How to train Number Score to focus on shifting personnel but maintaining the content?

Does Number Score inadvertently simultaneously train Jump Cuts?

How to train Number Score and not drop material?

Maybe beforehand determine what the material/content will be...

must investigate (though, I have always had trouble with Number Score.  Not that I think it is a pointless exercise.  I see its value, but I have (almost) never enjoyed it)

Another definition

Art is that which provides no comfort, gain, or reward to its creator.

European English

Due to whatever reasons (that I do not wish to go into), English is the dominant language of communication within the arts in Europe.  Maybe this is only true for dance and performance.  I have more exposure to that world than the worlds of painting, sculpture, etc. (I do not want to say visual art as dance, too, is a visual art).

The English used in the dance art world is slowly evolving to become another dialect.  It is neither the bastard English of the United States or the proper Queen's English of the United Kingdom.  It is becoming its own thing developed by the collective use of non-native speakers and ex-pats.

I became aware, or perhaps more aware, of European English after seeing a performance at HAU 3 in Berlin this past May.  The piece was Pulling Strings by Eva Meyer-Keller.  It is quite an intricate piece, a feat of organization.  Quotidian objects are raised, lowered, and activated, sometimes to comical effects.  My favorite moment was the spinning push-broom.  But I digress.

What caught my mind(eye) was the title - Pulling Strings.  Yes, that is literally what she and her collaborator did.  They pulled strings to activate the objects.  But the phrase pulling strings has a nefarious, manipulative aspect to it.  The phrase conjures up back room political machinations.  I did not see how the piece connected to such an idea.  The description on her website gave no indication that the piece was related to the manipulative meaning of the phrase.  As far as I could tell, Keller was not dealing with that meaning of the phrase, just the literal one.

The use of the phrase pulling strings, in a way, has become pure meaning, a literal phrase.  Does this mean, then, that people who do know that meaning or use of the phrase are saddled with extra context, context or meaning that has nothing to do with the piece?

Another student, who is French, in the SODA program did a piece in which she used several phrases with the word white and several kinds of animals - white rabbit, white horse.  I can't think of other ones at the moment.  She was unaware of the white rabbit of Alice in Wonderland or in the Jefferson Airplane song(also the same rabbit), White Rabbit.  Whenever I hear the phrase white horse I think of that great song by Laid Back, White Horse.  They're Danish, by the way.

My larger question is when a language is used by a non-native speaker how aware of the idioms and cultural context of that language should s/he be?  Can the artist ignore all that and use the language as a context-free tool for expression?  I would think that in a scene that is obsessed with context and dramaturgy, artists would have a greater concern for the use of language.

Or has all context been removed from English in continental Europe?

corporate welfare

read all about it

Formulas for Poetry

the next time you hear people describe something as poetic, ask them if they don't really mean formulaic

the lists below are from Wikipedia


A
▪ Action (literature)
▪ Anacreontics
▪ Antilabe
▪ Antistrophe
▪ Arlabecca
B
▪ Ballad
▪ Balliol rhyme
▪ Balwo
▪ Blank verse
▪ Blason
▪ Bosinada
▪ Bouts-Rimés
▪ Bref double
C
▪ Canto
▪ Carmen (verse)
▪ Chant royal
▪ Cinquain
▪ Clerihew
▪ Cobla (Occitan literary term)
▪ Copla (meter)
▪ Couplet
▪ Cumulative song
▪ Cumulative tale
D
▪ Décima
▪ Dinggedicht
▪ Dodoitsu
E
▪ Elegiac
▪ Elegiac couplet
▪ Elegy
▪ Envoi
▪ Epode
F
▪ Fixed verse
▪ Free verse
G
▪ Ghazal
▪ Gogyōshi
H
▪ Hainteny
▪ Heroic couplet
▪ Heroic verse
▪ Hudibrastic
▪ Humdrum and Harum-Scarum
K
▪ Kantan Chamorrita
L
▪ Lục bát
M
▪ Monostich
N
▪ Nonnet
O
▪ Octonary
▪ Ode
▪ Olonkho
▪ Oríkì
P
▪ Palinode
▪ Pantoum
▪ Pantun
▪ Paradelle
▪ Pathya Vat
▪ Pentina
▪ Poetic closure
▪ Poetic Meter and Poetic Form
Q
▪ Quaternion (poetry)
▪ Quatorzain
▪ Quintain (poetry)
▪ Quinzaine
R
▪ Ragale
▪ Recueillement
▪ Rhyme royal
▪ Roundel (poetry)
S
▪ Saturnian (poetry)
▪ Sestet
▪ Sevenling
▪ Sijo
▪ Silva (Spanish strophe)
▪ Sisindiran
▪ Skolion
▪ Slavic antithesis
▪ Song thất lục bát
▪ Stanza
▪ Stichic
▪ Stichomythia
▪ Strophe
▪ Syair
▪ Synchysis
T
▪ Tanaga
▪ Tanka (poetry)
▪ Tanka in English
▪ Tanka prose
▪ Terzanelle
▪ Thai poetry
▪ Thanbauk (poetic form)
▪ Tristich
▪ Tweede Asem
U
▪ Uta monogatari
V
▪ Villanelle
▪ Virelai nouveau
Y
▪ Yadu (poetry)

And if this isn't enough there are even more, and more, and more, and more...

Presence vs. Awareness

Presence.

What is it?

There are many workshops that deal with presence.  Practicing it, creating different kinds of presence.

But there is only one kind of presence - either you are in the room or you are not.  It’s digital,a binary.  Either the food is in your belly or it is not.  Either the whisky is in your glass or it is not.  Either you’re pregnant or you’re not.

If we are to look at the etymology of the word (and a little part of me dies when I do this), we see that presence comes from Latin praesentia - “a being before”.  The origins of the word have nothing to do with awareness.  Before...in front of...location...place...space...either you are before someone or not.

Does this mean that practicing presence is an exercise in punctuality?  You are either in the studio or not.  Punctuality is something that many dancers could practice.  Oh, the irony...we of time based art have a hard time showing up at the correct time.

What people really mean when they say presence is awareness.  When people say that someone is not very present, they mean that someone’s awareness is on something other than what they themselves are focused on.  Differing awarenesses.

Seeing dancers who are not very “present” on stage... well, that’s impossible.  If they weren’t present, you couldn’t see them.  They appear “not present” because their awareness is elsewhere.  Frequently inexperienced dancers seem “not present”.  Their awareness is probably taken up by nervousness, or anticipation of messing up the choreography.  Their awareness is of the moment they are in, but their awareness of that moment is of a different variable than what the viewer is aware of.  The nervous dancer is aware of his or her panic about the upcoming moments, getting that lift right, or freaked out in an open improvisation because s/he is “stuck” center stage in a ball facing the floor.  It seemed like a brilliant choice 2 minutes ago...what do I do now?

The “unpresent” dancers, though, have not disappeared.  They are just focused on something else than the viewer is.

Injuries can also come from lack of “presence”.  This, though, is a result of a difference in awareness.  Imagine a contact jam.  Person X is very present in (or aware of) his sensations - the weight on his torso, the sweat of his partner, the exertion of his muscles etc.  He is so caught up in his sensory perceptions, that his awareness doesn’t see the heel headed towards his face.

BAM!

Heel meets face.  Ouch.  If he really weren’t present, then he would have not been hit.  If his awareness were outwards, he might have been able to avoid the incoming heel.  His awareness could have changed his presence to another location and avoided the calcaneal(is that a word?) collision.

presence, awareness, presence, awareness...

By conflating the two terms, and I would say that people favor presence, giving it greater value, we are favoring the mind over the body.

Maybe this is a Cartesian remnant, a vestigial thought held over from the Enlightenment - I think therefore I am - favoring the mind over the body.

Dramaturgs

Do chefs use dramaturgs?
Do sculptors dramaturgs?
Do conductors use dramaturgs?
Do pastry chefs use dramaturgs?
Do painters use dramaturgs?
Do fashion designers use dramaturgs?
Do baristas use dramaturgs?
Do composers use dramaturgs?
Do oenologists use dramaturgs?
Do perfumers use dramaturgs?
Do bartenders use dramaturgs?

Did Miles Davis use dramaturgs?

Did Michelangelo use dramaturgs?

Did Agnes Miller use dramaturgs?

Did Beethoven use dramaturgs?

Choreo vs. Impro

Choreography is knowing the other's response to your actions.

Improvisation is not knowing the other's response to your actions

TanzNacht Berlin 2012

TanzNacht Berlin 2012

Insignificant Others

(Learning To Look Sideways)

An Kaler

What I read in the program: Together separately. Separately together.  How can one perceive and analyse a collectively experienced, present moment?  Three performers share a moment on stage.  They go through a series of positions that let them become the bearers of ambiguous, almost static yet variable images.  Connections develop between them which cause the moment to gently but clearly shift and their relationships to constantly charge and discharge.  Through a series of interrupted yet connected sequences and situations a space is created in which performer and spectator share the potentiality of what comes next.

What I saw: a generic contemporary dance.  They started standing in silence.  They shifted slowly as the computer generated music with cracks, whistles and pops grew louder and louder.

Another reason I say generic is the type of movement.  Though quite articulate and adept at it, the dancers didn’t offer much in terms of kinespheric originality as they stayed with the elbow initiated limp wrist movement that is quite fashionable.

Spatially, the dancers tended to be upstage and face away from the audience.  Quite a lot of time was spent far stage left in the unlit section of the performance space.  Was this a somatic spatial response to the audience or intentionally done to contrast the two moments when the three dancers were center stage?

One thing I like to watch when I watch ice-skating is when the skaters fall.  Not out of a desire for schadenfreude, but I like to see how they react to an unscripted moment. I am guessing that Insignificant Others is improvised or scored with landmarks and therefore mostly unscripted.  A moment that I perceived as very unscripted was when one of the dancers, mid thrash, bonked against one of the lighting supports.  Two other very unscripted moments involved two dancers almost colliding.  Did these near collisions happen because the dancers were so involved in their own processes that they became unaware of the others on stage?  Maybe this is the insignificant others bit. Ahh…and the (learning to look sideways) is that they aren’t directly relating to each other, but mostly responding to each other’s movement as opposed to other Viewpoints.  But then they do take similar shapes when standing in front of the hanging rectangles.

Compositionally this piece was coherent.  The movement ebbed and flowed.  The music got louder, quieter, and came in occasional bursts.  The lighting shifted and repeated.  There were three dancers and three rectangles.  So in that sense the piece held together.

But what didn’t work for me was the use of space by the dancers.  I didn’t see a compositional choice (except in the two times of stillness center stage) but nerves and adrenaline causing the dancers to shrink back and away from the audience.  Also, the piece was too long.  Maybe I am too American and my sitzfleisch is not so developed.  But I think it is more that I am a dancer.  After seeing people flailing about articulately for 20 minutes, my mirror neurons are full and I want to get up and join in.

Some notes –

“How can one perceive and analyse a collectively experienced, present moment?” – Is this a rhetorical question?  How about Viewpoints, Laban, amount of sweat, sound, sight, video, photography, Ensemble Thinking, touch, pressure und so weiter?

“…which performer and spectator share the potentiality of what comes next.” – a fancy way of saying the piece is improvised

“They go through a series of positions that let them become the bearers of ambiguous, almost static yet variable images.  Connections develop between them which cause the moment to gently but clearly shift and their relationships to constantly charge and discharge.” – Another reason I say that this piece is “of the genus”.  Can’t this be said about almost any piece?  Especially the ambiguous part?

***********************

Propositon(s)

Laurent Chétouane

What I read in the program: The French director Laurent Chétouane has developed a unique language for dance.  The six choreographies, developed over the course of the last few years, speak for themselves.  Each new encounter with a dancer challenged and enriched the vocabulary of the work.  For the TANZNACHT BERLIN 2012, five of the seven dancers who worked with Chétouane during this period lend their bodies to this language and give insights into their understanding and interpretation of the collaborative works, the shared ideas and the time they spent during rehearsals.

What I saw: Six dancers, not five. One Idea of line or semi circle giving focus to a solo.  I remember one multilevel tableau instead of a line giving focus.  Mostly the solos began and the ensemble would recognize that and create a Hot Spot for the solo. (Some might recognize the Ensemble Thinking vocabulary I am using.)  Every dancer in the group had a solo before dancers went for another solo.  The two dancers in purple had the most solos and the male dancer with long hair in green had, sadly, the fewest.  Maybe he’s the new guy. 

Also saw an odd mandibular action, mostly with the two dancers in purple.  Everyone had their mouths open, and some occasionally moved their mandibles.  Several times the soloists would break out in a funny grin, causing a tittering in the audience.  These smiles were reminiscent of smiles I have seen during group faculty improvisations at festivals when everyone knows it’s headed downhill.  Maybe this use of smiles was a distillation of that phenomenon and commentary on improvisations headed south.

What kept this piece from being generic was that it stuck with the same score for the entire time and kept running through the permutations of soloist and ensemble.  Group improvisations frequently churn through so many scores, ideas, and movement themes (I have been in many of those!) and it was nice to see one that stuck to its guns, or gun, as the case maybe.  But if they were going to stick with one score, they could have been a bit more adventurous in their investigation of it and expression with it.

This piece, too, was coherent – people running through the permutations of a score.  No rabbits popping out of hats, or balloons appearing from pockets or other such non-sequitur surprises.  Though, the mandible jiggle, like the three rectangles in Kaler’s piece, why?

A note – the last soloist before they repeated at one point had her left leg out to the side and rotated it to an arabesque as she rotated right.  A beautiful moment!

**********

My issue with both pieces, was not so much the performances themselves, but how they were framed.  The descriptions could fit most any piece out there.  Kaler’s was “ambiguous”, dealing with the “present moment” and “what comes next”.  Chétoune’s was about collaboration, sharing ideas, and time spent rehearsing.

If the framing doesn’t elucidate how these pieces are more than just iterations of our current genre of dance, then the pieces do not become anything more than an aesthetic experience.  Either you like it or you don’t.  Maybe that is what the creators are after – contemporary dance as entertainment.

Good-bye Kitty

Pussy Riot

i try soups

Suitor spy strips you, purist soy! 

Spits your sirup toys.

Pits yours, Tipsy Sour.

I roust spy; Spry I oust!

Yo, strip us!

Yo, strip us!

Yo, strip us!

Out, sir spy.

Somatic - Compositional

Now – Future

Need – Want

Have to React – Want to React

Body – Space

Kinesphere – Spatial

Sensing Self –Sensing Space

Reaction to Self – Reaction to Other

For Self – For Other

Solo – Group

Self – Other

I – We

Compensating – Creating

Reacting to Change – Creating Change

Following - Leading

Habitual – Non-habitual

Unconscious – Conscious

Automatic – Forced

Exothermic – Endothermic

Anatomical – Cerebral

Poetic – Formulaic

Inner – Outer

Process – Product

Observational – Generative

Subject – Object

Instinctual – Cognitive

Fast - Slow

Evolving – Abrupt

a list of binaries generated during my third semester of my MA SODA at the HZT in Berlin