Performative writing.
I’ve gone back to the Exiting/Re-existing score, but inscribing it in text and audio.
I’ve been expanding it to include more physical, perceptive, and projective functions and activities I’ve tested in the studio.
My process has been:
Start with the category (ie, ‘bones’)
Move from the bones for 20-30 minutes in the studio.
Exhaust their movement possibilities.
As descriptive words emerge, say them aloud (and record via audio)
Write down the score-version of this exercise on poster paper (I’ve always had an affinity for poster paper. It makes me write differently, and it has a presence when hung in the studio)
Edit an abbreviated audio clip. (approximately 10 minutes)
This is what the bones score looks like, and some others too:
Exiting categories include:
Skin, Breath, Fluids, Muscles, Bones, Fascia, Nerves, Emotion/Guts, Digestion, Attention, Smell
Re-existing (Projection) categories include:
The Gaze, Words, Representation, Rhythm, Expectations, Vectors, Balance, Copying, Sound, Wrapping, Taste
I also made some drawings. I used the following improv task:
‘Move the pen until something I can identify emerges.
Keep going.’
There’s something about ‘waiting for the moment of identification’ that has been present throughout the entire year…
Laura has asked me to complete one piece by the May 15th deadline, I think this is it. I want to wrap it up and put it away. I also want to use it, experience it as a practice, and stop adding to it.
I’ll have to consider how to present this work. Angeliki proposed a handbook. I like this idea, but have always had an affinity for poster paper. It makes me write differently, and when hung in the studio it has a presence.
Bold statements on big paper.
Perhaps a handbook with a poster insert.
Perhaps this is the second incarnation of Lone Dancer.
Also, I took Laura’s advice about experiencing other people’s practices over the past month. My experiences were both related to language. I worked on a verbatim dance project with Catherine Murray, and a dance theatre production with Meagan O’Shea. Both positioned dance in relation to language differently. The verbatim project was a method for generating movement from language (specifically from interviews), and the dance theatre project used narrative to enact dance. However, both started with language and moved toward dance.
I want to be careful about how I frame my connection to language. I want to make sure that it’s a byproduct of movement, and that it’s generated through the body, and not vice versa. It attempts, but doesn’t’ fully capture, the movement poetry of dance, and it therefore needs the dance. It provokes movement because it needs to be fulfilled through the dance’s intensity. More on this to come.
For fun:
I’ve been playing with furtive practices this month, specifically one related to representation, and noticing my outward appearance, and its possible interpretations. I performed a face score (as seen in the last two process videos) in which I used the following score:
‘Follow the sensations of the face like a pen dragging across paper.
Continuous.
Stop when you notice a face that has a name, be it a Feeling, a State, a Mood, an Attitude.
Just notice this face, don’t judge it.
Continue.’
I tried it on the subway home. It can be extremely subtle. It makes me aware of my internal dialogue and at the same time, my perceived outward mood.