Studio and Research Advisor Meetings: Feb 2016

1) Feb 5th, 2016:  Morgan O’Hara

Morgan and I discussed my plan for how to write the project report. I had the idea of using my dance and talking practice, and the live-ness of the word production, as a way to produce the body of text for my report. This approach is in line with how I’ve been working: consider the space, move, let the movement produce words, and then write. I often use this writing to generate a 1-2 sentence choreographic directive, but there’s much more that comes through, and it’s connected to the flow of attention and perceptive ‘stretching’ that I’m interested in. It’s also connected to the thinking body, the body that produces thought, or some other consideration of writing that isn’t necessarily generated by movements on a keyboard and mental organization.

Notes:

- Consider visual poetry, or how the words are placed on the page, in relation to their choreographic position in the space.

- Keep a perspective on your thesis, and don’t let it inhibit your practice.

- Find out what others dance artists have done with movement and talking (I’m thinking about Deborah Hay, Meg Stuart, Jeanine Durning, and Jonathan Burrows at the moment)

- I’m touching on the field of live art, so look into those artists as well, so I know who is doing similar things (improvisation as life, the human relation to time and space).

- It has to be your own question, and come from your own inner relationship to working on something.

References:

Kontakthof by Pina Bausch (the moment with the microphones)

A Year from Monday by John Cage

Eckhart Tolle

Cynthia Hogue (Arizona poet)

Artur Tajber (look at his description of live art)

Boris Nieslony (fluxus, black market)

2) Feb 11th, 2016: Simon Pope

I discussed my studio progress and the NYC residency with Simon, as well as the project report, and my strategy for generating the text.

Notes:

- The live-ness of the writing is important

- How can I include (because this is an MFA) the expected level of comparison to other people’s work, and my relationship to it, in this kind of text?

- We discussed editing, and the analysis of the text after its production. This analysis could be when I add in references to other artists, annotations, etc, but this process would interfere with the text’s live production

- My proposed solution: the preparation. This relates to how the space I’m working in affects the material that is generated. It’s a pattern I’ve noticed repeatedly. So what if my focus is on the materials I reference in my preparation for the live movement improvisation?

- This relates to my interest in choreographing the conditions, or how to construct an event that produces some kind of knowledge

- If I want to be in this flow, then I have license to it

- Possible future research: the status of the dancer/ how the thought process, in its being witnessed, changes it. However, this also changes the status of the witness

- How can the text transmit its movements to the reader, in a live moment?

- What makes for a valid thinking practice? If it motivates you and others, does it make it valid? In line with feminist tradition: not seeking authority to be valid, but being able to move others, or impel others, towards movement/ momentum. This works against the tendency of the research as a summing up, as having a definitive closing sentence, or closed-off response

- Be aware of who I’m working from, and who my allies are

- Go with the most salient, tested, choreographic directives I’ve already researched in my studio practice to address in my paper

- Tie them back to my three categories of space: personal, collective, virtual

References:

Katie King

Donna Harroway

Bruno Latour