IDOCs » in the port of old Amsterdam
Dear Reader. The following document is an attempt to document the process of processing thought whilst moving the body, which is an interest that materialised itself (so to speak) in the TR residency which happened in November of 2014 in Amsterdam. This particular document is proposing an attention to detail I will later address, as I start creating the documentation of The Moon Practice within the context of my creative practice. Thanks to all participants of the TR for their support and devotion and eagerness to share knowledge, experience and reflection. // This document reflects the work done within the context of the TR that I found particularly interesting. It should in no way be considered as a general reflection of the TR.
2014.12.09

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introduction:
Once upon a time there lived a man who promised a group of internationally acclaimed teachers of contemporary dance he was to create a document that was to take form of a fairy-tale. This one particular fairy-tale was to become a (first ever) documentation fairy-tale.
 
It is important to note, dear reader, that whether this documentation fairy-tale was in fact the first of its kind, or not: was of no importance to its author. Because to him, you see, to write a documentation fairy-tale was to suddenly articulate his otherwise structurally prepared thoughts into a structurally non-supported format - and all that for the first time. In other words, he never wrote anything like a documentation fairy-tale before and to write in this new format, and to write in this new format well, proposed him a challenge he refused to fail at.
 
It just so happens that the man, whom I will from now on refer to as The Man Who Was Passionate About Giving Promises, had by making his promise put before himself an utterly unrealistic challenge. This challenge was not of creative or methodological, but was, in fact, of administrative kind. You see, The Man Who Was Passionate About Giving Promises loved giving promises so much so that he was, as a result of his previously given promises, currently and temporarily sharing his time between three different institutional jobs. All of which he loved, but all of which, in return for his hard work and devotion, left him with barely any time to invest in himself and his otherwise institutionally unsupported interests, such is writing. 
 
Writing, as I’m sure you'll understand, is a rewarding but time-consuming task. A task that is impossible to perform simultaneously along to any other task. It is entirely impossible to be writing whilst also engaging in a dance, to give an example. If only because to write (in this case) means to compose your impressions according to a single standard and linearly, and to dance (in comparisson) means to compose your imressions according to the standard on a non-centrical multiple and non-linearly.
 
 
exercise one:
 
I am standing on all fours. The palms of my hands are spilling over the surface of the floor (either soft surface meeting the other soft surface). The floor is active and extends towards me, the floor is active in showing me support.
 
I am shifting my weight simultaneously forward and to the left. I am carrying my weight over my left knee and both palms of my hands. My left palm is carrying more weight than my right palm. My left palm is carrying so much of my weight, in fact, so that it becomes possible for me to remove my right knee away from its previously established contact with the floor. In my minds eye I see my right knee, and the lower leg that springs from (or follows in) its presence; I sense the volume of the two bones of the lower leg (I sense their respective spatial locations, and I partially sense their surface, as their surface meets its immediate surroundings/ the fluid, the flesh, the connective tissue) - These lift up and out from the support of the floor; the foot expanding and extending away from the knee via everything that is standing between them; the knee shifts its position in space, carrying the rest with it. This spatial shift was made possible by my previously described (primary) weight shift. My perception of right knee, now approximately beneath my bellybutton, still includes the extention: the volume of the lower leg, the ankle and the foot. The distance between my anatomy and the floor lessens, until it finally disappears. I am enjoying the contact between the dance floor and the fabric of my training pants, my leg hair, then the surface of my skin, my soft tissue, fluids and finally: the bone.
 
I am moving at a speed that allows anyone who is observing my dance to conclude that even though I am moving at a slow pace, I am never moving in “slow-motion”. I am moving at the speed of my thoughts, and I am moving at a speed that allows me to contain my thoughts in the continuum in which I am moving my body.
 
The sense of my bone, that is now pressing into the inside of my skin, inspires a slight sight of pain; the pain informs me that I surpassed the maximum optimal amount of weight I should rest into my right knee at any given moment. My sense of motion is now in the hands of an auto-pilot (that consists of my memory, previous experience, other bodily functions) because within that moment of panic my mind escaped my control. My mind got too involved with the felt-sense of pain.
 
Following my next thought, I perform a manouver that will see me drop back into the sense of my weight shifting; this time over the right knee into the palms of my hands that are now ahead of me. Right palm far ahead, facing away. Left palm just off the location of my left knee, facing (what is for my point of view) backwards. My pelvis is next in line, processing a change of location. Several actions occur simultaneously: 1 I am shifting what would be the centre of my weight into the position that will see to the fact that my weight is primarily carried by the effort centered around the work performed by the palms of my two hands, forearms, upper arms. 2 My right sitz bone is thrusting itself eagerly towards the back of the neighbouring lesser trochanter. This action engages the right hamstring, which maintains the pelvis from making contact with the floor. The hamstring is dependent on the right knee and the right lower leg and the side of the right ankle to be making resistance to the floor; the surface of the skin of the outer side of the right lower leg is melting into the fabric of my training pants and then into the floor, in order to engage with and provoke the resistance of the floor. The more it melts into the floor, the more does the floor respond and resist. 3 As a result to this situation, the left leg finds itself suspended in the air, reflecting the work of the right leg by offering the surface of its skin to meet any resistance imaginable (found in the fabric of the pants, or any of the particles that are at the time suspended mid-air). The left leg also engages in the sitz bone hamstring connection, but in a way that creates the sense of the lenght of the leg imploding into its connection with the hip; as if the whole of the leg would be finding its focus in the space that exists between the head of the left femur and its respective hip socket, and the fluid that rests within. 4 Crutial point! The two heads of the humerus bones, that are currently resting on the support of the elbow, underarm, wrist and the palm of the hand are at this point landmarks around which the scapulas and clavicules will orientate themselves; thus becoming the localities around which the muscle work will organise: muscle work that will bring in or pull in (so to speak) the volume of the chest, with it the spine and all of the organ tissue within - into the appropriate high position that will allow for the pelvis to hang beneath the chest, without ever touching the floor. The back is curved at this point...
 
My mind follows, seemingly undistracted, whilst obviously searching for gaps in the attention I give to my physicality in order to insert what feel like to be revolutionary thoughts concering the topic of labour; even more to the point: thoughts concerned with the topic of the inappropriateness inherent to the presence of pain in dancing in 2014.
 
Suddenly, my dance is a political exercise. Every next shift of weight is carried, I carried through with an even larger amount of attention given to the process of picking up, carrying over and letting go of weight - in order to eliminate any sense of pain wihtout changing any of the mateiral. I was to work within the given aesthetic parameters, without ever compromising phisical health. Significantly, my political work became silent, internal work that was to this day never expressed in the particular social environement that essentially carried throught the artistic work I am reffering to. Which is...
 
***
 
exercise two, AKA the last exercise, which I present to you in the form of a question.
 
How would it be possible, dear reader, to “documentatively” account for the significance of the following two elements in any individual process of learning?
 
First element: the circumstance (both in terms of the circumstances that enabled a particular student to come to any specifically addressed point of learning; and in terms of the circumstance as the particular context that make some information momentarily impressive and other information not).
Second element: the minute detail, which is any kind of detail that essentially makes the difference?
 
I should be able to address these if I am ever to make a document of The Moon Practice, which is essentially what I was supposed to be doing here. To take the first exercise as an example:
 
This exercise expresses approximately 15% of the work that I did whilst moving my body in a particular, learned pattern (a dance phrase) of which, in my story, I documented the first three moves of. Given that experience of moving, thinking and writing about it, I can only imagine the amount of processed information that 6 people process whilst practicing The Moon Practice, which is an imporvisational practice concerned with the process of materialisation of thought whilst dancing. I think that to document The Moon Practice should address exactly that amount of processed information.
 
I think that any learning and teaching exprience should address exactly that amount of processed information. Otherwise would mean to always stay in the representation of things... which is a thought I throw at you without explaining it all to well. Next time, I promisse.
 

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