stillness and absence
I was working on a very simple thing whilst dancing this morning.
For some time I’ve been noticing when improvisers are ‘thinking’, or ‘listening’ to new threads in their attention. It is as if they (I) have a tendency to occupy a certain posture (or range of postures), or actions that feel like they are movements to fall back on (or default to) when ‘new listening’ is occurring.
In these stillnesses (even though for the most part there were no stillnesses occurring), I wondered how I might increase my consciousness of the improvisation. To treat the ‘settling’ as an opportunity to be fully still. To fill the stillness with purpose, and not conflate it with what was about to happen (or what the possibilties were). It was a chance to pull back from the future, to dance in stillness with my internal gaze, whilst not ‘loading’ it with importance or meaningfulness.
It seemed to soften my desire for newness whilst propelling me there.
Ugh.
This is not simple.
Nor is it easy to write about.
Need help.
Must not publish …
10. June 2009 at 06:44
This may be relevant; I’ve been working a lot on specifically on conscious awareness in the act of creating and responding and something that works for me is a kind of temporary de-emphasising of the inventive part of the movement process at certain stages of practice. I do this is in order to create the conditions for a potentially all encompassing awareness / attention to what is actually being experienced, as it is happening.
Occasionally something very elusive happens when I am working on training a highly aware state (such as being aware of exactly where all of my body is in relation to all of the light and sound and general composition of the space I am in. If I’m really focusing on this state of ‘listening’ and then I become aware of an idea, a concept, or an imagined future my attention tends to wander into it and creates an imaginary ‘future’. Usually at that point I’ve lost a lot of what it was I was being aware of a moment ago, it becomes peripheral.
However I have continued to practice so that this high degree of attention / listening takes my imaginative impulses into account without dissipating. I can more consistently have an awareness that includes memories and creative intentions or impulses as well as a high rez consciousness of what is. Its hugely demanding on my attention but do-able, I have been improving!
Its taken a LOT of practice and most of that practice has been most effectively worked on when I’m not in the studio, such as on the walk home or getting up from the computer to make some food. As it becomes more and more of a normalised baseline field of awareness I notice it crops up more clearly and more often in the pressured creative event of improvising a dance.
I guess stopping and doing little or even allowing default movement tendencies come into play is useful too when improvising, if ones aware that thats what happening. But as for stillness I still don’t understand what that is yet.
10. June 2009 at 07:32
It’s curious (but probably not surprising) that the practice “has been most effectively worked on” when you are in situations that are not about ‘newness’ (if improvisation is indeed, at least in part, about newness).
I think I am pulling back from discovery being the ‘goal’ of improvisation.
So, with this in mind, ‘stillness’ is simply a relative state in which, on a very gross level, my body is not involved in (larger) physical actions. The paradox is in allowing this stillness to be filled with my attention, whilst quietly resisting the urge to move (or alter that state).
Ah, dancing … “resisting the urge to move”. So I think I can dance.
Do you?
10. June 2009 at 08:13
I agree it all sounds a little ‘wax on wax off’ when trying to name this material and the vital elements within it. But if I could just bring this back in from last nites skype. This is the episode in which Larsen asks for a little clarification on Ellis’s current curiosity in relation to presence.
[10:05:31 PM] Simon Ellis: but I like Bergson because he is not really talking directly to it … it makes me think about presence/consciousness in such a strong way.
[10:06:23 PM] Kristian Larsen: I like that thing of when someone’s writing spins you into an interesting and consistent orbit around a notion
[10:07:07 PM] Simon Ellis: that is THE reason to write … because ideas emerge and evolve in the act of engaging with the writing. i work with students on this all the time b/c most people think of writing as the thing that happens once you have the idea
[10:07:41 PM] Simon Ellis: in this sense writing is an ‘extroverted’ act .. one in which understanding comes through the act. not the delivery of an a priori understanding (introverted)
[10:07:54 PM] Simon Ellis: it is a practice.
[10:07:58 PM] Simon Ellis: it is an improvisation.
It reminds of of what I was going to bring up with regards to Michael Schumacher’s email. For me its in the writing more than the reading that I can gain another direct experience of the stuff I’m wriing about or get further insight. But it can read like a cliche’ no matter how clear I try to get in my writing. Its in the act of writing itself that the conditions for further personal clarity tend to occur.
Anyways as for stillness I usually see it in animals, the moment before they are about to give chase or jump or strike, it looks like pure intention contained in a prior moment of poise.
10. June 2009 at 08:33
Yes to animals. Maybe I could make up a dance where I am pretending to be an animal. Never seen that before have ya?
Actually, Tony Yap in Melbourne has this extraordinary quality of stillness in his moving. http://www.tonyyapcompany.com/
btw, do you like the new look?
10. June 2009 at 09:57
Tell you what though, them animals do have a purity of intent.
I reckon surrendering the ambition for inventiveness and its ‘originality’ laden agenda is the key strategy for just being unique.
Toni looks interesting, butoh’s slower ontology / morphology isn’t necessarily the key to unlocking the awareness – high dynamic movement equation. But its very groovy when done well.
12. June 2009 at 20:30
This is the bit of email from Michael Schumaker that Kristian is referring to above (reprinted with Michael’s permission):
“I think one alternative way to consider ‘experience’ in the context of presence is to consider everyone present at a given event and their awareness, or not, of presence. For me, ‘becoming’ begins when I remember that nothing but my presence in the never ending present moment is new.”
12. June 2009 at 20:34
[…] is some writing from Michael Schumaker (direct from an email – with his permission): I found your blog entry about Stillness and Absence interesting. I have also encountered a ‘default state’ in my my presence when […]