Skytime 2014 - a first reflection (anticipating Winter ...)

(screenshot on a computer in Berlin, showing the two livestreams next to each other)
it’s been a week since the successful performance of #Skytime2014 #Moonbow / #MoonRainbows in New York City, and Schiedam, in the Netherlands. summer has clearly ended, fall is now, time to start preparing for winter. (reflection, clarifying, growing directions)

i am clear that a long phase of investigating that started in 2013 about where I want to grow to as a choreographer can start to articulate itself and be formulated this coming winter/period. #directness of #sensorial #experience is becoming one keyphrase, #re-balancing #oppression, and #decolonization another. 

kinetic awareness

as i prepared for the concert, i was working with the equality of all body parts when it comes to bearing weight. my body was mostly horizontal, verticality happened as a result of local contraction of body parts. 

the decision to listen to the parts bearing most weight when it comes to the next move, and to have any body part “on top” remain flexible and able to contract in order to take its weight off from carrying parts, became important technical discoveries, that greatly helped the ‘flying’ and lifting bits.

i also greatly value this understanding, in terms of working on emancipation.
translated into decolonization, for example, this contracting and taking weight off would be people from a privileged and dominant culture making space by themselves for people from a less dominant culture and enabling a healthy move all over, unlike fixations.

(or the same could be done on the level of individuals, obviously)

visceral / imaginary / livestream

re-balancing dreaming (which I so far always chose not to influence by my consciousness to let it do its own thing) with waking and dancing, was another major theme. my performance-mode clearly is not used to be open to dreaming while dancing ...

in a sense, to work with people via livestream in more or less real-time, across time-zones, and across vast planetary distances on something that usually is rather immediate and visceral as improvisation of a dance as a performance, was a special experience in itself.
there were times when the streaming would be interrupted or repeating, so at some moments I no longer knew what was going on in New York, nor could I see the totality of the environment, the night-sky, or all related works of all contributors. added that whatever came was at least 20 -40 seconds after it had happened. and the same with what came back from our side. what was real? what was imagined? did it matter? it was a good challenge to always be completely thrown back to oneself, and face the chance to trust one's own impulses and ebb and flow of energy ...

something new
finally, I realized that there was great value for me in the fact that both sides of the concert happened in venues that are related but not an integral part of lage-scale / institutionally funded circuits. i believe this gave a lot of freedom about what was possible, with fewer expectations to conform to already existing formula.
and I very much like the understanding of do-it-yourself, even when it is done on a professional level. i also always love how very successful this approach is when I work with 'amateur' dancers and in a direct legacy from the works of Elaine Summers, Anna Halprin, or Rudolf von Laban.'Invitation to Secret Dancers' continues to challenge me as to allowing fun and that 'it's just dance' (like John Cage liked his music to be described as 'it's just sound' ... and laugh)

great thanks to everyone who has been involved!
the sky's (not) the limit ☺

__
for more information about skytime, please visit www.skytime.org
for my own contributions from the Netherlands, in Dutch and English, welcome to http://hemellopers.blogspot.nl

20-year anniversary : Elaine Summers

Elaine Summers during "Invitation to Secret Dancers"
New York City 2005, photo ©2005 by Jeff Fox

Today it is exactly 20 years ago that I met Elaine Summers in Vienna taking her workshop in video-dance at Internationale Tanzwochen Wien. The consequences of this meeting have pretty much shaped my life, both professionally, but also privately. They provided & helped find much needed answers that I was urgently looking for, new perspectives that I hadn't considered yet, and continue to give me an example for doing things in what to me deeply seems right, both as a professional and as a human being. 

Elaine Summers has helped revolutionize dance as we know it today, by expanding its connectivity to include and exchange with many areas not traditionally thought of as dance: not just everyday movements, but also connection to the moving image of film and later video-projection, creating intermedia, drama and acting, un-trained dancers, traditional dance vocabulary, and the internet. Unlike many of her once-colleagues at the now famous collective Judson Dance Theater that continued in the years of 1962-64 after the watershed workshop started by Robert Dunn, and parallel to the groundbreaking work of Anna Halprin on the West Coast, Elaine Summers created a very technique that encompasses all of what was created at Judson (Kinetic Awareness®) and has remained true to her ever ongoing research of dance by providing a very simple and very effective framework and principal of learning. I find her instrumental in directing dance from its late-modern state to post-modernism, from form and vocabulary to awareness & perception, from where new forms can emerge that fit the human dancer more closely ...


I know that I am extremely fortunate to have met her during my formative years. Without her my life would have undoubtedly taken on a very different tangent and, I dare pose, have been a lot less fulfilled than it feels today. Thank you ☺

Invitation to Secret Dancers - Rotterdam 2011

This coming Friday I get to realize another edition of Elaine Summers' "Invitation to Secret Dancers" as introduction to a neighbourhood-dance event in Het Oude Westen (the old West) a very multi-cultural neighbourhood in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. The performance happens in collaboration with the Elaine Summers Dance & Film Archives and is a part of the ongoing project "Elaine Summers Dance Scores", where several of her works from the 1960s until today are collected, together with data on first performers, archival photos, footage etc.
Also, we are honoring the call of UNESCO for the yearly International Day of Dance, this year promoting dance in public spaces ...  
click here for the Dutch blog with more information about participants, photos, and videos


realisation 2010 on the Schouwburgplein, Rotterdam
What keeps fascinating me is that while the dance may appear 'easy' and is designed to be very accessible, it is actually quite a challenge for anyone involved: the dancers have to be very sensitive to the presence of the passing-by audience who they make contact with and invite to dance. They also must maintain an acute sense of actions around them and have a sense for how they can contribute to it.
And any Secret Dancer coming by may still feel like having to overcome barriers of not being used to dance in public, before letting go and happily joining the dance in their own way, rather than simply exercising a prescribed dance routine. (which might, however, be a possible option)

for a wonderful realisation of "Invitation to Secret Dancers" 
by Elaine Summers Dance & Film Co. at CEC Solar 1 in New York, 2005 click here

"Invitation to Secret Dancers" is very clearly an outstretched hand / arm / limb / gesture towards anyone, inviting and enabling them to dance, and potentially encouraging them to find their own dance as they go along. I find that this is an ongoing theme in her work. By originating Kinetic Awareness® Elaine Summers has even developed an entire technique / practice where students are developing just that, under guidance from a teacher - their very own way to move and dance. "Invitation to Secret Dancers" deals with the fifth and final phase of Kinetic Awareness® where after articulation, coordination, speed and tension-levels, the practitioner deals with relating one's own sense of movement to those of others.


Dance Scores
Just like many of the dance scores that Elaine has created throughout her career, I understand this dance as a tool for empowerment, directly in line with other works such as "Illuminated Workingman" or "One and One and One and One". The artistic background is one that practices inclusiveness of all kinds of movement in their own right, from the very start, without giving up either trained or untrained vocabulary, but rather understanding both as being in a continuum, and accepting each for its own potential. Aesthetics become perception again, just like is suggested by the Archaic Greek term 'aisthesis', taking for true, rather than merely a specified design that is accepted as "beautiful" or "desirable".

By interpreting the score for the dance, anyone involved can learn more about the subject of the dance itself. This, too, is very much in line with many of Summers' dance scores - another example could be "Walking Dance for Any Number" where one becomes acutely aware of ways to walk, simply by closely following the instructions.

Doing this dance, I find myself becoming ever more fine-tuned and able to make contact and have possible communication with potential strangers in public space, an issue that I've met with over almost 15 years of producing and performing work in public spaces (see below a first production with "Invitation to Secret Dancers" as part of the series con·sens·us in 2004)
But I also find I become ever more aware and able to formulate possible kinds of choreography that can be included to become a part of "Invitation to Secret Dancers". 

And so on we go ... as Elaine likes to say: Merry Dancing!



uitnodiging aan stiekeme dansers / Invitation to Secret Dancers has been realized with Natalie Dupon, coordinator of Neighbourhood Park Het Oude Westen (the Old West, a neighbourhood in Rotterdam) with thanks to Corrie Kreuk, Culture-Scout Menno Rosier / SBAW, Bernadet van Winden / SKVR and Janine Brall / Studio Yoga Maya. The overall event has been made possible by grants from the Rotterdam Arts Council, Stg. Bevordering van Volkskracht, Alliantie West-Kruiskade, Stadsmarinier, and a large number of volunteers - thank you very much!

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 ..." ;-) ]

Elaine Summers: Improvisation with Sun, Moon, Stars - Danspace @ St. Mark's Church, New York City - March 2010"

From March 15th until April 2nd I once more got to enjoy the privilege of being an invited artist-in-residence at the Elaine Summers Dance & Film Company, made possibly by a generous grant from the Kinetic Awareness® Center and private hosts Harriet Bograd & Kenneth Klein, as well as Rachel Cohen / racoco productions

The occasion was the 3-day show "Improvisation with Sun, Moon, Stars" performed March 18, 19, and 20 at Danspace Project @ St. Mark's Church, as part of the series "Back to New York City" curated by Juliette Mapp.

It was a most fruitful experience and I came back, once again, filled with impressions, learning, wonderful experiences, and above all, inspiration that is gradually unfolding to bring me further than I thought possible.


The Concert:

Summers presented a continuous line of development from completely abstract and "difficult" to a very approachable and friendly ending.

film still from "Absence & Presence" 1968-1987 ©by Elaine Summers

The evening started with "Absence & Presence", a film-dance lasting 8 minutes, no sound, projected onto an old-style screen of the type one could once find in class-rooms.
While I thought I was well used to the ways I could enjoy Summers' work, this one challenged me once more: 12 minutes of shots of body parts moving, in black and white silhouettes, completely silent, so abstracted that -semiotically speaking- the movie is indexical, suggesting relationships and sensation, rather than iconic and presenting easily identifiable images from the world around us.

Once again Summers succeeded in challenging ingrained habits of perception, and goes on for 8 minutes, as it seemed to me without regard for dramaturgical development or climax, these seemed irrelevant for this dance. (Summers regularly creates films which are a dance, in extension of the once-hallmark Judson regard for any movement, including so called-pedestrian every day actions as viable dances and art)

Instead of being contained in conventional forms, the film became an experience for which there is as yet no habit, no ready-made set of keys or standards for interpreting business-as-usual. It took me until the third showing to actually get to enjoy the sensations based on what my mind had learned by then.


(excerpt from the original filmdance)

The next item went one step further: "Two Girls Downtown Iowa", made in 1973 during an artist-in-residency at Iowa University (with thanks to Professor Hans Breder, who pioneered the Intermedia Department of this University) again is a silent film-dance in black & white, no sound, and lasts 11 minutes. But this time we can identify see two women dancing together on a street in downtown Iowa in a single shot and single take. The film was recorded on a high-speed camera: when it is projected with a standard-machine, the result is one of equally distributed slow motion.

This movie not only lets the viewer experience the abandon and rush of dancing, which at times is so close to flying in the air, that old dream of mankind, now evoked by sequences of both dancers floating in the air - but it also blurs the distinction between intentional dancers and passers-by of the street: because the camera doesn't move from its opening-shot, when the women leave the frame or become small specks in the background, suddenly the daily pedestrians become prominent, their motions too, slowed down to be enlarged and tasted.
(notice the similarity of this strategy with the first phase of Summers' revolutionary movement approach Kinetic Awareness® where moving one body part at a time, as slowly and as relaxedly as it will go, creates a heightened sense of one's body in movement and a general sense of well-being, literally allowing enough time for sensations to become more clearly perceptible)

The film-dance demonstrates to me an early understanding of dance as a phenomenon of our everyday lives and makes it possible to sense the variations between letting the body move its ways and doing this with a projected goal like e.g. to cross the street, walking home, sitting down etc.


(excerpt from the original filmdance)

"Windows in the Kitchen" filmed 1976 for the famous Kitchen New Music and Video Center in New York City, opens up one further phase: the small-projection screen is taken away by a dancer who comes jumping in with a huge leap in white workingman's overall (courtesy of Thomas Körtvélyessy / Reàl Dance Company) - the next projection hits the large white wall of the altar-side of St. Mark's Church. The film-dance shows the late Matt Turney, long-time member of the Martha Graham Dance Company and student of Elaine Summers for Kinetic Awareness®, moving along the windows of the kitchen, filmed in color (camerawoman: Paula Court) showing several shots and angles of Turney ever so refinedly balancing and lightly shifting her weight as she moves along the windows.
This time there is live-music by John Gibson on the flute, travelling through the space, which opens up the ears after about half an hour of concetrated silence, ... and live-dance in the church space by Douglas Dunn, himself a most prominent 2nd generation Judson choreographer and dancer from the 1970's onward, dances a duet with the larger-than-life projection of Turney: sometimes funny, sometimes purely poetic and stilled in magic, adding the 3rd dimension of actual space of the church and his direct physical energy.

Seeing all together made me understand once again the crucial importance of timing and dynamic-phrasing of energy in space, which is so essential in performance, but especially in an improvisation. His delicacy of listening to his own flow of movements and character and Turney's recorded, visually projected movements, plus Gibson's live flute, formed an experience of sheer magic and poetry, an entire conversation about the ageing dancer, reproduction of a person who has passed away and one who is still alive, here, stillness, listening, absurdity, serenity, and humour.

The evening progressed to a quartet of four women: Dr. Jill Green, Professor of Somatics at the Dept. of Dance at the University of North Carolina, Dr. Meg Chang, dance-therapist and professor in Adult Education, Gabriella Hiatt, and Kiori Kawai who danced an interpretation of Summers' "Crow's Nest" from 1980, to a live-performance of the original music by Pauline Oliveros, sung by a choir of 12 people who were positioned around the upper balcony of the Church.
Here, the score consists of the full-color movie showing Birchtree Forest, Ocean, Desert, and Desert Flowers, again projected against the full wall of the altar-side of the Church.
The dancers interpret the film by partly improvising, partly performing set choices made to certain moments in the movie.
Again, the dance was intergenerational: two of the performers were in their mid-twenties, one in her mid-forties, one in her mid-fifties. All four dancers are following other full-time professions as well, but for this production they worked as professional dancers. And again all the participating media were blended together: projection, colors, singing, movements.

Rather than using the original installation of silk-stripes arranged along a cube-structure, Summers chose to show the movie in larger-than life-size, which made a special challenge for the dancers to use the upper half of the projection efficiently. There were several moments like Kiori Kawai's beautiful still moments where she blended together with the enlarged flowers, or Meg Chang's walking along the image of the desert and riding the waves projected behind her. Gabriella Hiatt performed beautiful arabesques and extensions and Jill Green used her costume of a floating night-gown as an extra projection-screen.
The sound of the chorus singing mesmerized in its clarity and aural opening up of the entire church as a space to be in acoustically.


(excerpt from the performance of "Skydance" at the 2nd Intermedia Festival, University of Iowa, 1984)

Finally came "Skydance / Skytime / Skyweb" an assembly of elements of the original "SkyDance", rearranged by Elaine Summers for the specific conditions of the Church and performed by a total of 9 dancers, including all the previous ones. Following the diversity of styles and approaches which is so characteristic for the overall work of Elaine Summers, this dance was completely unlike her other work: its style, structure, design, and music all had a 1930's feel to it, almost that of a dance-revue, performed to the very exuberant and varied original music of original SkyDance composer Carman Moore, played live by his ensemble: there were narrative elements, romance, humour, conflicts, and again interaction with this time 6 different video-projections.

Some unforgettable moments:
- Kiori Kawai and Kevin Ho, positioned at the very beginning in silence in the niches on either side of the back wall of the church, while Gabriella Hiatt stands in the middle holding up a small blinking light - against a projection of a blue and orange galaxy in the middle and a sun above Ho and a moon above Kawai: strongly reminiscent of the feature-sequence known of Columbia pictures with its iconic woman holding up a torch...
- a passionate, at times nearly romantic duet by the Sun & Moon characters, interpreted with daring contact-acrobatics by Kawai and Ho, echoed later in a mesmerizing duet by dancers Marion Ramirez and her husband Jeong-wong Kim, and finally in a hilarious and original duet danced by Hiatt and Douglas Dunn, both wearing costumes that suggest 1930's style pilot-outfits, with perfect comedian timing.
- stilled, beautiful solos by Elke Luyten and by Meg Chang, both making full use of their very own unique qualities as dancers and their costumes.
- an unforgettable solo by Jeong-wong Kim in which he dances in and out of the performance space, in perfect sync and partnership with the spiralling galaxies on the floor, at times using shades of movements from traditional Korean dancing, moves out of contact improvisation, and his very own incredibly physical talent which surpasses any single style of movement.

- and finally group moments: Dragons vs. Birds, using single characteristic moves for each; the 'comet' section lead by Kiori Kawai holding up a long veil of white tull and followed by the other dancers joyfully running with wonderful impact and childlike abandon on a circle, then cutting across the diagonal from downstage left to upstage right before dispersing again.

Finally, there is a solo section in which every dancer of the evening comes out wearing shiny, glittering, and diversely colored costumes, freely improvising through the entire space with the abandon of eight year old children who enjoy a moment of play, against a projection of recordings from the very first performances of "SkyDance" during the second Intermedia Festival at Iowa University in 1984, ending with running along in a circle and clapping, applauding the audience before taking a final bow.

This happy, magical atmosphere was continued into an "Invitation to Secret Dancers" another long-time classic by Summers, this time directed by Harriet Bograd (who together with her husband Kevin Klein very generously allowed me to stay at their homely and welcoming apartment and providing a space of rest and joy)
The dance was accompanied to an original score composed again by Carman Moore and performed by his ensemble, this time quoting jazz and big-band music from the 1940s and 1950s. White, large helium filled balloons and umbrellas made extra canvasses for the multiple projection of original footage from the performance of "Flowing Rocks / Still Waters" of Summers from 1987 done at Lincoln Center, New York, in a part of the complex that has since then been rebuilt.


conclusion:

In this concert Elaine Summers arranged a large portion of her palette as a choreographer, film-maker, and intermedia-artist, a sample of the sheer range of diversity that she is capable of creating, arranged in an incrementing order from indexic and abstracted, all the way through to participatory and directly inviting.

While there are certain premises underlying all of the dances, e.g. that there is a great emphasis on the moment of actual interpretation by the individual performers, depending on the specific structures and intentions of the dance, helped by the long-term study of Kinetic Awareness® and related body-mind exploring approaches, or the demand that any costume always be body-friendly, not limiting the range of expression of the dancers, Summers defies a single, identifiable look, or method, or certainly any single style or let alone what these days is called 'branding'.
Rather she irreverently and diligently is producing an enormously diverse variety of possible uses of the human individual bodymind to produce unforgettable moments of art and conversation between elements of a performance, be those dancers, media, or the audience completing the event.

It was a tremendously instructive learning experience for me in many respects: choreographic structures in real time and in relation to the individual interpreters, the use of video-projection in a given space with its specific qualities and asthetic challenges and its various possibilities to interact with the actual performing space and the audience's ingrained habits of watching a dance.

Even though my own activities were very relaxed in comparison to earlier, more stressful residencies, my mind was filled with singular and individual moments of being in relation to a reality around me, with a hard-working group of people realizing a vision and spirit of one pioneer and instrumental artist that has created not just one but continuous moves forward in expanding what dance can be understood as today.

credits -
choreographer and filmmaker: Elaine Summers
realized in collaboration with the dancers: Kiori Kawai, Douglas Dunn, Jeong-wong Kim, Marion Ramirez, Meg Chang, Jill Green, Kevin Ho, Elke Luyten, and Harriet Bograd

music: John Gibson (Windows in the Kitchen) Pauline Oliveros (Crow's Nest) Carman Moore (SkyDance SkyTime SkyWeb - and - Invitation to Secret Dancers)

curator: Juliette Mapp, Judith Taylor-Hussey
production: Danspace Project @ St. Mark's Church, with special thanks to Abigail Ramsay and Abby Harris-Holmes


special acknowledgements:
My residency was made possible through a generous grant by Kinetic Arts & Sciences / Kinetic Awareness® Center, the kind hospitality of Kevin Klein and Harriet Bograd, as well as Rachel Cohen / Racocoproductions, with special thanks to Deborah Goldberg, Lily Cohen, and Jenneth Webster.

Kind support in the Netherlands came from: Bruno Listopad / Stg. Disjointed Arts, gallery Mirta Demare International Art, Pauline de Groot /Stg. Dansstudio Pauline de Groot.

I would like to thank all the dancers for their continued friendship and all the interactions we've had, and for continuing to make me feel part of the company in my own right, their continued support and energy, and those many wonderful moments of being allowed to witness them dance.
Dr. Thomas Houser was a delightful and exemplary presence for me during this trip.

Juliette Mapp, Judy Taylor-Hussey, and the staff at dancspace project realized an incredible production assistance and above all a wonderful PR for this evening: as a result, articles and announcements appeared in TimeOut New York, and reviews in the New York Times, as well as several other newspapers.

Finally I would like to specially thank Elaine Summers for the many years of her generosity, kindness, and continued inspirational learning experiences.

Thank you ~ ...


(note as of July 23rd, 2010: several errata have been reviewed and corrected)

at HMKV / synoptic

I am one of a group of artists at the project Synoptic: Twilight Zone (weblog) a project initiated by Hungarian art-manager & curator Hajnal Szolga in Dortmund, Germany, August 14th-22nd.

Media-designer & sound artist Bence Samu of the Hungarian duo binaura and I are working on a video-setup which visualizes the spatial patters of my movements. Bence maintains that a human presence is always infinitely more sensitive, I'd say it's a shared thing: the apparatus that is designed for a single function may be at times much more sensitive than what I can perceive at a moment, but it is my presence with the witnesses of the event that gives sense & meaning to evaluate what is happening.

While it is wonderful to be in a project where I function via German, English and at finally again also Hungarian, it is an inspiring environment. All the artists working here have a very quiet but vibrant energy, which I find very stimulating.

I am developing a dance score for the final showing August 22nd. For now I am thinking of several phase where I transform from daily movements (with the audience) over movements from the state of looking from the corner of my eye, into geometric figures and into internal movements. It seems that I am ready to work from a purely kinetically oriented dance (as happened in "Bivak Gloria" in Antwerp 2007) to adding a personal-social level. Also, the question of how to successfully move through the geometric figures is very exciting, without losing myself into stiff figures or imitations of what I once learned in the Rotterdam Dance Academy.

The exhibition in which we work centers on the phenomenon of people trying to communicate with beings from other dimensions, especially the dead, by means of electromagnetic devices. not an easy task for average-enlightened Western-Europeans, it is a scary topic, loss of control threatens, it is much safer to ridicule any such attempts, and forsake the holy aspect in it (and not lessen this word into quotation marks around it)

One of my aims is to lessen the fear of the unknown, which I find to be a key issue here in this process. How do we actually maintain whatever control we have, but are able to open ourselves for new experiences beyond what we already know. How does one manage to overcome indifference?



It terms of development, what I am working on means a move from available tension to sensitive energy. In order to achieve this I will have to satisfy the level of available tension, be able to play with tension more maturely than what I've been able to do so far, even more refined, more under my control, and more inclusive of the option of geometric spatial patterns and hard-edge moves.

Yesterday I saw a British video-documentary about Steve Reich and decided that after using music and visual arts and language as my main frame of reference for methodology, it could be very interesting to devise a frame of reference from kinesthesy & dance (again)

the classical

so clear, so well-balanced that it can be a learning example, creating a class of its own, a league of its own. The Well-Tempered Piano, any masterpiece...

the result of a long process, often, though not necessarily often of a long creational process if regarded from the actual making itself. (?)

perhaps that in the pre-modern times, the mere making of anything (new) was special enough, a celebration, an object. it made a difference in the usual wilderness. no change even today :-) except that the "wilderness" includes a lot of human creation, or so may seem. what will make the difference and to whom?


today I reviewed the video-compilation of Elaine Summers' Hidden Forest, performed Aug. 23rd 2007 at Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors in new York City.

it was a very new experience for me: so new that the first time I had this feeling of emptiness, not knowing what I was looking at - what was this, why was this interesting for me. even though I've appreciated and trusted Elaine over the years more than most, I couldn't follow her just yet.
especially since I had performed in the piece myself! ;-)

today it was a little different, a week later: I could see better what was happening in the near darkness, my brain obviously had done its homework. today I could enjoy watching and felt this deep connection growing to it, similar like what I've experience earlier when I started to listen to Laurie Anderson's music: growing affection, from a deeper, more mature place...

so if there is a new classical among us, a true classical of this time, where is s/he and who is it? and would I / we recognize her/him/them if we met, or their work? ...


about the wilderness:
despite all suggestions from the previous successes, and the atmosphere we try to create, of safety, love & happiness, our existence remains at its bottom as precarious as ever.
despite all ads & music & culture, and even though we do our best to shut out those that didn't make it as well, and try to escape being contaminated by their 'bad luck' their example lets us realize each time again that any luck is temporary, to be used when it happens. and that waste remains a loss, carelessness or indifference create debts in the long run. a ruined harvest still means famine to come.

if we dcn't act accordingly it happens once again...
if we force stronger and more violently, so will be the consequences