after 2 contact-jams : organic, sustainable choreography

where does my special enjoyment of "amateur"-fluid, minimally pre-designed dance that is created in the moment based on minimal agreements and rules come from? 

i have participated in two jams based on contactimprovisation, one by Roffa CI and the other yesterday at Contact Zone, both in Rotterdam, the Netherlands

the dance is in the moment, it works, it fully uses all already existing structures, patterns, personalities, energies, conditions and lets them interact beyond what they would each do on their own. there are clear objectives that can safely allow individual variation with each iteration, ideally these variations and their conscious performance are the point.

such an example was Asymmetry of the Embrace by Snježana Premuš at the Allee plaza in Budapest, May 4, 2025 during the symposium Contemporary Somatics - Bodies Today 

if I had to use a metaphor, these kinds of dances create groups of flowers, at times mushrooms, that grow in the wild. they grow directly, of their own accord, there is no further extra intervention necessary. everything that happens happens as it needs to and is therefore congruent, which is a prerequisite for survival, since there is also no extra support and no guarantee.

on the other hand, professional dance as it is practiced more traditionally, would then be the equivalent of growing flowers that are cut for export. part of me rejects this practice both in dance and in daily life altogether as unsustainable and harmful. 

then, there are hybrids that do point to a way forward, such as Dobra Voda, also performed at this symposium, at the MÚ theater in Budapest, by Zrinca Šimićić with Bernadett Jobbágy. there was a pre-defined installation of objects and a pre-defined sequence of tasks, partly specified movements, imagery etc. this sequence was repeated a number of times, if I remember well it was open how many. each time the iterations became variations in the moment, giving full openness to how exactly the performer would literally go through the motions. 

knowing what to pre-determine, why, trying this out, finding out what works sustainably, by means of rehearsal, remains a basic task of choregraphy. it is possible to re-visit existing traditions, practices etc. but these must not be used mindlessly or without questioning, which risks abuse and their own destruction. 

those so-called somatic practices which acknowledge the fullness of human experience, individual variations, bodymind connections, without pre-standardizing them for everyone, work with, not against the human senses of the practicing individual, create a kind of ecology that is conducive to such organic, efficient choreography. 

of course at some point a practice becomes hollowed out, no longer enough, just as change, development and evolution are inevitable. then it is important to ask for what was the aim, what were the means pointing at, are there others available or do they need to be developed? is the aim still what we want? (love, peace, happiness, safety, freedom ... and dance)

Laban & Co. ?

having inherited a new set of books, all reflecting areas of dance and dance history and dance theory, I keep coming back to the enormous heritage created by and on the instigation of Rudolf von Lábán. 

i also keep thinking as I survey even just briefly through books such as Lábán's "The Art of Movement" and the extensive postulations, all backed by notation, models etc., is how much of this heritage could have been helpful for the next generations of dancers, also in the "postmodernists" in the US of A - Anna Halprin on the West Coast, the echos that became Judson Dance Theater on the East coast, with Elaine Summers creating her very own lineage as a pendant to Halprin, let alone post-War European dance artists. this entire heritage seems near lost today, submerged into immediate, sensorial spectacle, echoing forms of forms of forms created before. (continued with artificial intelligence modells) 

following through on the ever more detailed and intricate, sensorial understanding of movement and dance that have emerged, from Francois Delsarte and Genevieve Stebbins, all the way to Charlotte Selver and Elaine Summers (Sensory/Kinetic Awareness) how can we make use of this inheritance? 

it is understandable that a first generation just coming off European-formulated "Classical ballet" and its becomings wished to remain open, all too often going into Indian and Chinese-based bodymind systems and -traditions instead, from Yoga to Tai Chi and Chigong. but there is more, and more to keep developing, whether "serial" choreography echoing "serial" composition in 20th century "classical"-derived European/American music or their further developments into aleatoric, chance-based, improvisatory strategies. 

in a certain sense, one could say that European-derived choreography became ever more organic-understanding, the rather superficially pre-set mindset releasing into every more sensorial-present states. with Mary O'Donnell-Fulkerson's attempt at syncretizing both extremes into a single perspective (Open Form Composition) a wholesome understanding has emerged that allows this development to come to full-circle and start moving.

zen-e? : the beach, in line, three

this week I got to try the first two scores with non-professional dancers age group 55+ in Rotterdam. working with and controlling flow, from open and free to condensed and in full and close control, seems to be a choreographic concern of creating tension/movement in space with a group of dancers/movers as well as physically with a single body. 

i keep perceiving music in such terms, as abstracted physical human-body (character) movement, with·in the kinds of musical languages (e.g. https://www.wassilykandinsky.net/work-50.php )

 

mode de valeurs et d'intensité - lifeforms / dance forms

first beginning with lifeforms/danceforms again, after a very long time, by now only possible on old MacBookPro mid 2009 (El Capitan) not on the others. 

too many parameters in dance? because of the addition of not only body-parts but also space/place AND intensity / tension level - or so it seems. 

it may be possible to match width in shape / extension with visibility (e.g. 12,5 degrees to 30 to 45 etc. different from the previous = small or large) weight, effort = or play with reversing them within. 

directions, sudden or sustained changes, jumps, sidders/shivers, ripples, hard and softening, release etc.

tone height = space height / level is the simplest and easiest => adapt into 3D and movement 

** I can physically sense the effect that Thecla Schiphorst described when explaining why she intentionally did not have ready/snap shapes available, it is indeed working, even a simple port des bras forces me to evaluate how I move my shoulders, arm joints, where do I rotate of flex. 

Nevertheless for choreographing a sketch of movements as notation this is eventually too cumbersome, short cuts would be necessary, like the ones I've suggested and had an idea of using the keyboard for, a 45 degree scale, low middle high, arms options of straight (default) or rounded (extra modification) 

US(Americanas) - fe(r)m(m)(é)e

 "I write for myself and strangers." (Gertrude Stein) 

This quote by one of the cultural heroes of my adolescence who was marginalized for the longest time until after WWI she suddenly wasn't, speaks volumes about any creator's dilemmas. 

Having worked on the choreography of the dance I published yesterday was slow and irregular enough. There is still almost too much that this dance still needs to grow, especially in performance and with me if I am to be the performer. (and it seems like the singer-songwriter model remains my best possible option for the time being) 

Unlike Emily Dickinson, another writer who had been a heroine of my adolescence, I have realized that I am not satisfied to just let the work accumulate in my drawers until perhaps someone else discovers them and even has the guts to publish them the way they were meant to be. 

There is the counter-example of Julius Eastman who was kicked out of his New York City apartment and lost almost his entire archives. No matter how present-day people (culture vultures!) try to revisit or revive and hype his work. (and themselves in the course of it) his potential remains vastly under-understood. 

Perhaps not a bad thing to think about on a day of International Strike by people identifying as women, since all of the above artists were more or less openly queer, gay, non-heterosexual. (So was apparently Hilma Af Klint) 

Concretely, if I should die all of a suddent, there is no one at present who will take over or even have the means to continue. The potential of what I have to offer is here and now, and always has been. It is not somebody else's job to do it for me, at best others can work in partially similar or supportive directions. But not the way I can, and not with the particular understanding that I have. This is obviously the same for all of my contemporaries as well, who equally do and understand their own work. 

Either way, here, for better or worse is the dance as far as I could perform it yesterday.  If the controls don't work, you can also watch it directly on Vimeo here. 

 

PS: by comparison, the video-recording of working with the étude mode de valeurs et d'intensités by Olivier Messiaen has no such problems of emotions, re/presentation, re-enactment, actions, etc. (= a different embodiment) Consequently, my presence comes over as much more 'true' and 'authentic, even tough dance-technically, again, a whole lot needs to be done. 

EDGE (2000/2001)

revisiting this piece from 2000-2001 is a very good reminder. 

I had just turned 29, finally gotten to EDDC which had been a bridge too far back in 1992. the guest study was made financially possible because of a temporary government assistance program for artists living in the Netherlands. that kind of support and recognition meant the world for me, helped in the struggles with family who did what they could to be supportive but were still very much struggling to accept it all. 

being on edge, moving on edge, out of the safe but rather immobile comfort zone, into the present and danger, was very tantalizing for someone with the generational trauma of parents and grandparents (Hungarian refugees during and after both world wars) but it was also a Hic Rhodos Hic Salta opportunity, in the here and now, as imperfect, overcomplex and as under-rehearsed as it was.

the struggle I had with personal expression as very real, the blockage in my rib-cage ( "don't speak, don't feel yourself in the presence of others" ) was still very, very much active.

Meg Chang was right in her observation of me when she watched a rehearsal of In Circles back in New York in 1997, even the wide open loft space was still too small for my immense energy and drive, uncontainable. I recognize this drive in everything, and it could also wear out, destroy in the longer term, cut down. ( Ursula K. LeGuin, about "the creator spirit", in The Dispossessed)

here, the piece was epic, the ambitions could have filled an entire evening's performance, but had to be fit into a student performance evening at an institution, with very helpful and supportive colleagues who nonetheless were much younger than me and partly at different stages in their own art production. remember marvelling at how accomplished they all were and how relatively late to the party I felt myself to be. the musical environment, from personal artistic favorites, creating an open-form composition that I would move through, tested the very limited technical possibilities and working with and around it.

I can feel sympathy and solidarity for my younger self, a great deal. the drive has been given space to realize itself ever better, what I had been striving for for decades in part has finally been accomplished. a bit more relaxation, and finding some much needed further realization by being able to finally relax a bit, allow for time to happen, finding trust in the self, which has become more able to exist and express itself and communicate with others more effectively.

and I still keep going towards the edge of what is alive in the moment, as much as I can, as far as possible, but much more successfully and with more ecology in my practice to back up the work. in that sense I am finally catching up with some of my colleagues from back then. quoting an artist-friend, live and learn.

(no, I am not naked, I am wearing a silver-pailleted tanga that I bought in a sex-shop nearby)

as for the result in this VHS-copy of the VHS recording, the moments of helplessness, shortcomings, are just as much a part, the inability as much as the ability and the powerhouse that got much needed affirmation in the right kind of environment, comparable to what I understood Elaine Summers felt when she met and worked with the people who, together with her, later would be referred to as Judson Dance Theater.

i keep wondering these days if I should re-stage this work again, but so much has changed internally. this change would create a distance to the raw need at the time. the shape would be more as I wanted back then. how would I "re-visit" and restage the internal drive from back then? 

PS: this was part B that was not realized during the evening, it took a few years and it was recorded in 2005. The original intention had been to close the piecde with this solo, with the large projection of my handpalm and a rose towards the end. Alas, when the people clapped prematurely I stopped the performance instead of continuing. 

music, a plan for 2026

what does my body want to express without the holding form/lens of a specific piece of music? I have asked this question before. having become better and better over the years with form-u-lat-ing my dance to music, even creating more traditionally "set" choreographies, it may be time to focus on this question even more clearly and with more time and attention. how I am able to express myself personally, communicate (drama? theater?) may be an important component to explore and/or to avoid trappings of ( = becoming the same as music) at the same time. 

2026 here we come

#wintersolstice #stillness 
#reflections #decisions