Nothing
My everyday dancing has taken on a bit of a shift. The first thing is that I’ve been dancing in my lounge at home. This has been for practical reasons – of cost, travel, etc – and also to ensure that I am definitely dancing everyday. It reminds me of those dancing in your lounge/bedroom days pre training (pre-puberty?). Yes, I can still do the splits.
I’ve settled into a good rhythm and have been approaching the work with two main (but very contrasting) concerns. The first is ‘starting with nothing’. This is in part inspired by Goat Island’s “Small Acts of Repair”, but also by wanting to ‘soften’ my thinking and ambition before each dance. I find it brings a clarity and a warmth to how I am experiencing the actions. I am not (of course) pretending that nothing is there, or that nothing has gone before, it is more adopting a quietness to the body-mind state before and during the work/play.
The second is I have been dancing directly to music. If I am going to dance in a lounge, best I put headphones on. The absurd novelty of dancing directly to rhythmic and melodic content is fantastic fun, and it seems to collide with ‘dancing from nothing’ or ‘no-place’. I’ve been working on dancing between different melodic/rhythmic parts with different parts of my body, complicating my attention, and making quite severe co-ordination challenges.
And then there is the environment. Apart from being a little worried about what my neighbours across the street (who can look directly into the lounge) are thinking, I am also a bit concerned about how much noise I am making for the people in the two flats beneath mine. As a result, much of the work has adopted a kind of shuffle, or a delicacy in the placement of my feet. I tread carefully, and the silence seems to be magnified by the headphones, the music and the nothingness.
27. May 2009 at 06:15
Apologies in advance for basically converging with you on the two key things in this.
Firstly in my own practice I have recently found correlation between Ralston’s Body Being principles (echoed also in Paxton’s work but without Ralston’s inquiries into intrinsic strength or effortless power) and Stanislavski’s ideas about the neutral body.
So emphasis is placed on relaxation, centredness (of the standing body esp) etc. There is also a deliberate letting go of the kind of desires that can interrupt the flow of ideas and movement. Desire is one thing, clinging to outcome however is ineffective. I like your use of the word ‘ambitions’ here . Anyway this involves a deeper and more attentive state of listening than ever before. Not just of internal impulses, but the actual space I am moving in, the immediacy of people outside the space etc.
Secondly I have deliberately underscored pleasure in my practice as I seem to have simply forgotten about it! The intention of taking pleasure in moving has also manifested in dancing to music (interpretively), and consequently invoking old aesthetics as well as drawing on current practices. I end up dancing!
However the listening provides the discipline to the pleasure, there’s still and essential ‘accuracy’ I am looking to hit in all of what I do. Its just more fun. But if I tried doing the splits my career would be over.
27. May 2009 at 06:22
Ah Kristian, never apologise for convergence.