A text I wrote dealing with the sense of making direction within a field of opposing forces and a Haikou Poem of Japanese poet Sogi were the starting points of this exploration.
The rest evolved by talking and working within an evolving relation with Afroditi Vervenioti and the whole process of the choreo lab.
I need to
thank all the above for this educational experience.
‘I hope that a path to the world shall appear’ Sogi, Japanese poet
FINAL
REFLECTIVE WRITING ON CHOREOLAB
Going
back through my notes, thoughts and events of the choreolab, I
realize that this has been quite a long trip!
In this
writing I intent to bring into conversation bits of the reflective
practice that took place during the lab, from the perspective of the
‘making’ of my project.
I am
going to start this thinking with a list of valuable objects-subjects
and entities, from which only a couple where actually used it the
final making of the project presented on the sharing day of the lab:
I could read a clear desire from my part to use valuable materials
into the piece, as a proposition to what seems to me as a continual
undervaluing or cheapening of human lives within contemporary Athens
urban conditions.
- Chopin- Nocturne, no.27, p.2 (not used)
- Soil (not used immediately in the piece)
- Water (as above)
- Leaves from trees (as above)
- Haikou (Japanese short poem): (used)‘I hope that a road to the world shall appear’, (Sogi, in Leibadas, 2002, p.56, translated in English by me)
- A solo dance by an interesting performer. (Used but it was more of a duo with a rope).
This
collector’s piece of work started of in a time of fury for Greek
economy, and for the citizens of Athens. Buses and trains where
hardly ever working in autumn of 2011, and we would often finish –off
from the studio to go or not go to the one of hundreds of
demonstrations taking place. The media would bombard us with a
cocktail of agony (every month bankruptcy was almost here, every month
a little different), anger (every month another scandal would be the
favorite paradigm answer to the question ‘how did we get here’),
and frustration (every month the solution to come was becoming darker
and darker and the results more and more insecure). Overall, the
Greek’s society and politics Molotov bomb seemed to be exploding
into many of the possible directions and our own concerns and fears
were dominating our thoughts and psychological states.
My
starting points/interests/ questions were:
1. A
small text I wrote and an image that was companioning the text in
my head: here, I translate roughly the text in English:
‘I
was standing on the edge of the cliff, and did not know what to do.
Jump? Stay? Where to should I move? What was
really possible to happen?
I
could never decide, I was just waiting up to the last moment and then
something happened.
I
knew however how to keep my eyes closed against time.
I
feel many opposing forces inside of me that want to tear me apart.
I
desire to do nothing.
I
just want to stay here with them.’
Greek:
‘Έστεκα
στο γκρεμό, στην άκρη, και δεν ήξερα τι
να κάνω. Να πηδήξω? Να μείνω? Προς τα πού
να πάω? Τι ήταν πραγματικά δυνατό να
συμβεί?
Δεν ήξερα ποτέ να παίρνω αποφάσεις
–απλά περίμενα μέχρι την τελευταία
στιγμή και κάτι συνέβαινε.
Ήξερα
όμως να κλείνω τα μάτια στον χρόνο.
Νιώθω πολλές δυνάμεις μέσα μου
αντίρροπες που θεν να με διασπάσουν. Δε
θέλω να κάνω τίποτα .Θέλω να μείνω εδώ
μαζί τους.’
3 Inspiration and research based on the form of Japanese Haikou poetry, where the minimal amount of words, carries in a way the wholeness of an experience. Simplicity and the lack of anything that is not necessary are the main characteristics of this form of poetry that interest me. Envisioning, metaphor, induction, emotion and intuition are simultaneously present with all their force in Haikou poetry, according to Greek translator G.Leibadas( Leibadas,2002, p.16).Starting from this, I wonder how I can work towards such a condensed piece of work, that invites at the same time all the above layers of interaction with its audience.
Starting off with a task that I gave to Afroditi, and
then passing it on me, as Ana suggested, I experienced the making of
this piece from different positions and I could see different
multiple directions that it could lead to. The task-centered methodology that we used, exploring
the task, taking up our own practice as research and giving back the
task to the performer made for me obvious the importance of issues of
speech, communication and choice making within choreographic process.
Analyzing our primary task in terms of language that is used to propose the task/ physical conditions that the task produces/ the language that comes up from the task was the basic choreographic issue in my collaboration with Afroditi (my performer). The first task that I proposed to my partner was inspired from this imagery I had of a woman standing on a bench and doesn’t know where to go. So it was: ‘Stand on a bench, and explore all the possible variations of you moving on to another place.’
To explore this Afroditi had 30 min. and the first time I obsereved for 10 min. without really interfering. Then we had a talk and then she went on for a second exploration of the task.
On the third time that we would work on the task, I chose to bring her in the studio and give her a prop, and there unconsciously I picked up and gave her a rope. That day in the studio, watching Afroditi making her net-way through the studio, while Nefeli was climbing on the wall, and Ana moving within and filming, I experienced this wholeness created by chance that my restricted choreographic imagination could not grasp and articulate.
This I keep, and remembering the conversation about chance based making processes with Kyriakos, I can say that it was this ecology made by the simultaneous evolution of different tasks, that could make my choreographic proposition somewhat richer and more free from the conditions that meaning coming from and to the task opposed.
For this, I felt, that this process that Afroditi was going through, the making of a pathway and a net at the same time, would nicely frame and work within other choreographic tasks, creating a world. And as we already knew that ‘non-relational’ is impossible, many tasks had common threads, and they interfered with each other. E.g. Nefeli’s working on sensitivity, informed my own interpretation of my task, which informed my language when talking to Afroditi e.t.c.
Describing all these details I just want to reveal the multilayered nature of choreographic process, in general and as understood within the frame of the lab.
Time to prepare for the ‘Sharing’ was short, but very constructive as I saw this many different layers coming together and being orchestrated under Kyriakos’ valuable music score and Ana’s instructions.
I feel that ecology, multi-centricity and multi-layerness where the stars of the final part of the lab, heading towards the sharing, and this I keep as a very interesting paradigm of how things may work in this way.
Concerning
my piece, I made clear how much its making was influenced by the
conditions of the lab, and I believe that methodologically I have
kept different aspects of task-orientated versus
instruction-orientated making, and this idea of making within a
broader context along and among other people that interests me and
would like to explore further in the future.
Also, I
keep the fact that the performer had created a personal reading of
the meaning of the piece that was quite different to my own starting
ideas, and this evolved throughout the collaboration. I would like to
visit this work again in the future and see how it can progress from
there.
Many
thanks for this constructive, creative and pedagogical experience to
Ana, Kinitiras, Kyriakos all the participants and especially Afroditi
with witch we shared a lot of interesting work!
Final sharing presentation, December 20-21, 2012
