Comments on: Crowded Room

By: kristian

kristian — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 11:48:38 +0000

In terms of the length of an exercise, its arbitrary – ‘How long is a piece of string?’ In terms of being alone in a studio by myself working on exercises and training duration (specifically for a 45 minute solo duration) those numbers will do. I decided on time based structures that would work. Spending 44 seconds on a feeling image isn’t enough to experience it in any depth. Spending 23 minutes and 31 seconds on an open format stream of consciousness improvisation may be way too long to understand or contextualise what it is I’m left with by the end of the time period.

By: Carol

Carol — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 09:20:16 +0000

The durations are minutes, multiples of minutes, but what about the seconds inbetween? Improvisations of 44 seconds, of 23 minutes and 31 seconds for example. How would this affect your durational condition?

I want to know how you work on the work of others directly? Are you taking this material into the studio – the books, dvd roms, writings etc – or are you drawing from references you have extracted? What is the material presence of these influences and does this inflect your dialogues? Examples?

Reading your process makes me think about Foucault and his ‘technologies of the self’, you can read this material in the context of his later work on the ‘care of the self’. There is also something slightly panopticon in your survey of influences which are co-present but through which you ‘watch’ what you are doing perhaps.

By: kristian

kristian — Fri, 29 May 2009 06:47:52 +0000

Great questions. I’ll start with the bottom comment – I think there’s more to be said for the unpretentious and the innocent than the dilettante. Having experienced plenty of dabblers in so many contexts in dance I’ve simply lost patience with the ones whose self perception is out of whack with their current level of ability…I’m talking about relatively low levels of competence here armored by say, high end marketing or aggressive posturing. I just want to see good work and that usually involves a spectrum of skill and / or honesty.

In pursuing skill (driven by a number of concerns including a deep push to experience more and more possibilities within my ability to do, create, and communicate) I’ve wound up looking into consciousness, perception, mind, self etc. Given that the only guarantee I have in life is that I’ll wind up dead I might as well pursue this until that event occurs! Anyway I’m discovering a direct correlation between skill and awareness…kind of obvious but easy to overlook.

How is it manifest? I’m not sure why but I’m reminded of something I read where Merce Cunningham laughingly answered his own question about how one does or makes choreography…how do we do it? By doing it! Skill becomes manifest in the action, and the action itself should be commensurate with the situation or event at hand. If the action is skillfully executed then timing, degree of effort, expression etc become an effective confluence of intention, awareness, and response within the event itself.

If the unaware or the innocent does this its usually an accident – therefore honest – therefore (for me) pleasurable or satisfying to witness. But maybe that unaware person or thing is unable to reproduce that kind of action with any degree of art or efficacy.

And its in the context reproduction that I am finding the demand for consciousness and skill to be an appropriate and viable pursuit.

Hope this helps Mr Devil

By: simon

simon — Fri, 29 May 2009 04:47:04 +0000

Tight bit of describing.

Devil’s advocate (someone has to speak on his behalf):

“making me more and more conscious, and more skilled. Which is kind of the point really.”

But so what? I mean, what ends are served by being more skilled and/or more conscious? What is the effect of this? How is it manifest (and for what reason)?

Why not stay unskilled? (There is much to be said for the dilettante).