inside - out

these past two weeks I've had the luck of seeing several dance performances: the improvisational presentation of Ivo Dimchev as a guest of Baila Louca and Para|Diso by Emio Greco | PC.

having seen and enjoyed much of Conny Janssen's piece 'zout' which uses live-guitar music and some video-projection, having seen her in an interview-show on television, i realised that she is able to move and interact on the same level as Dutch people in general, which allows her to become a mainstream-accepted choreographer in the Netherlands (and certainly in Rotterdam, where her company is one of the main modern dance companies of the city, next to the Scapino Ballet, Rotterdam Dance Works and the Meekers)

nearly finishing my own video of my contribution to Elaine Summers' "SKYDANCE / SKYTIME / SKYWEB improvisation with sun, moon, stars" I realised today that all of us essentially choreograph on the same level, because we make intentional choices to influence events that create the experience of a dance which can be witnessed, experienced, and in some way or other appreciated by present public in a social setting. this is the same for all of us and it happens on a directional level.

i also noticed however how we each can fall short on the fulfilment of what we set out to do.
in the case of the mainstream work, i found that the sensorial experience was not always fulfulling what was promised by the choreography, it hinted at what may have been intended, but i found that the dancers did not always have sufficient kinesthetic understanding of their own physicalities to realise the intended movements, let alone having space for the quality of dreams and their un-directedness, unless one choses to consciously interfere, such as in waking-dreaming or day-dreaming. (i learned very much about this value during my particpation in Ione's 15th Annual Dream Festival, on invitation by Elaine Summers Dance & Film Co.)

to put it short:
they do arrange reality in a certain way that has been accepted, but in my own experience there is more to life that is bypassed by these choreographies.
one could say meta-level and micro level, the meta-level being 'culture' the micro level our universe as it is every day in any detail of our living being etc.
throughout time there are always other people who do feel the necessity to realise a way of directing / meta, that is more in synchronicity and understanding of the micro.

any scientist, any philosopher, but also any artist, any professional at all (peasants, bakers, priests etc.) have areas that they are researching, finding out about, in their own time, exactly about problems arising from such macro-micro mismatches

< the wonders of life & existence


< level of conscious direction, focussing


< wonders of life & existence


in my own work, i came to let go of any 'meta'-level until i had more explored from the micro-. this has lead me to the Kinetic Awareness® work of Elaine Summers, and the work of Mary O'Donnell-Fulkerson, Mary Overlie and, again, many other teachers, where such explorations can happen without demanding that a preset meta-level must be met as a result in order to be acceptable (as does happen in forms of Yoga, or TaiChi, or Bartenieff Fundamentals, or in fact any set of movements that are codified into a 'language', similarly in archaic societies that recognize only one set of specific possible choices in design)

gradually, I was more and more able to re-relate the micro to the macro, and now have forms that have in themselves the conscious understanding of change being embedded in the choreography itself as a vital and decisive component. this is a demand I also make towards my own culture: that the ability of change be inherent and acknowledged as a fundamental part of any large-scale cultural system that wishes to remain alive and developing over longer stretches of time. (and be able more resiliently to deal with catastrophes or minor events of crisis)

the study of Open Form Composition at DANCE UNLIMITED in Arnhem was a great clarifying tool to learn, and it helped me to understand choreographies for dance-pieces as growing entities, that are moving, changing, have their own energetic conditions over time, and can give these excitements to others watching.

so who knows, after all, i might as yet be able to cross the bridge and make more and more people appreciate that what they may think of as a 'lack of choreography' '(too)ephemeral' etc. is not only very much adherent to the ephemerality of dance as in our life, but also can give very many vital components to any kind of culture, therefore being worthy of support.



[ "it's not impossible to - TURN IT IN-SIDE OUT ..." ;-) ]