Facilitated by The Netherlands:

Roos van Berkel,

Robin Berkelmans,

Maria Ines Villasmil

& Marieke van Bueren / ICK

Hosting:

‘The choreography of documentation’ 

 From quantity to quality:

the creation of meaning during the process of documenting.

Goal:

Day 1

Wednesday the 12^th of November

Maria on the Moon Practise – Day 1:

MOON Practice Session #1- Comments

Notes: Maria Ines Villasmil

TR#2 – LEAP

Pavle, session #1

PMF- Preparation for Moon Practice/ Process of Materialization of Fiction PMF

Robin: Reflecting on my own stage and where I am now. I enjoy the way of communication of Pavle. His way of choosing the words, and the attention he pays to it. Language is relevant for guiding the process. His method is very strong and is inviting me to take part of it. A kind of a poetry that invites to engage. There is a balance in the use of the words that helps to create my own material.

Maria: Language was quite clear and took us into a clear path, where everybody can have their own journey and experience, but still it is a clear path  that we “all” follow, even not knowing where we go. We trust.

Pavle: By practicing repeatedly with the same group give me access to enter to the physicality in a deeper way, but for some groups this did not work the same way. Some times I think that while doing the practice I get a lot of information that feed the practice constantly. The method is quite unstable. Besides, I don’t like the word “method”. The image of the “pollen” helps me a lot. For instance, how can I allow releasing all this pollen around, fertilizing each other and making it into a more physical experience?

Pavle: Fiction is more connected to the experience of something else than just movement.

Elina: Body mind language is like listening my own thoughts.

Ezther: We have to get there, the place Pavle wants. In order to go into a certain practice I ask myself how I can be guided to arrive to this specific physical moment. How can we try to develop a way of guiding us but someone else do the “speech”.

What can be the result?

I find the word dissolving boundaries, or shape, and all forms and general ideas constantly dissolving. And this is another way of working and needs more time to evolve.

Pia: How to not go toward the pain. You still dealing with the moment. I was quite busy with these ideas of being good. Remind me of an idea of a good dialogue in a good day. The images allow the people (us) to embodied the exercise and accepting it. What kind of dialogue these words bring into my self?

Francesco: I am familiar to have someone guiding me while meditating but it is also interesting how would be the purpose of it. Using the same principles or forms but looking for another result. Thinking about the breathing -for example- open up a part of the body, you see how the body changes but you also observe the body going trough this process. There is not a neutral landscape. Anybody has certain experience and of course this information will land in a complete other way over each body and person.

Roos: I enjoy very much the use of certain images (for example the hair), but also the active tapping into the specific body systems.

Elina: The concept of “fiction”. What is fiction?

Pia: Is abstraction and fiction the same?

Pavle: Abstraction is part of fiction and it is more romantic.

On daily lunch - Roos:‘It was the most economic option to make lunch ourselves. So it became a daily ritual to collect 5 euros pp, and to walk to the supermarket Albert Heijn for groceries. With a wish list in our pockets, we would cross the busy Red Light District on our way to buy ingredients for a nice lunch. I usually avoid the Red Light District – many tourists combined with the fact at least half of the women does not work there voluntarily. This daily ‘crossing’ confronted me once again with the fact that so many very different collectively organized realities can exist parallel to each other in a space with a diameter of 1 kilometer. 

Day 2

Thursday the 13^th of November

Roos on the Moon Practise after writing workshop with Frank Gunning:

The studio is one street away from the red light district in Amsterdam. On my way to the studio, I pass the windows framed with red light. Some have their curtains closed, whilst others give visual access to a woman that displays her body. With increasing mixed feelings with regards to this context, I am on my way to something entirely different: the 2^nd LEAP Teaching Residency that facilitates the exchange between the countries named above.

Within the program of this residency, we usually open the morning with a Moon Practise - a practice that is carried through from the Teaching Residency in Sweden past July.

The following is a reflection on what I so far understand the Moon Practise to be, an attempt to accurately describe some of my sensations during the practice with the aim to transmit the experience and a conclusion on how see this practice relate to societal context. Whilst writing this document, I focus on the aim of this residency: from quantity to quality – the creation of meaning during the process of documenting.

The Moon Practise…..

is a happening and a gathering in a performative context. As a movement-based performative practice, the group is divided in 2: one half forms an audience while the other half performs. Agreeing to a non-judgmental, valorizing watching and being watched, the communal space is opened for the happening. The performers are asked to begin the practice by standing in the middle of the space, slightly off center, facing the audience. This time I am part of the half that performs. I take place next to the other movers and from there the journey begins, lasting for about 15 minutes.

I see…

The audience and I look at the surrounding space which feels like a big attic. Looking up I see wooden beams painted white, to the sides I see narrow brick pillars. Our attention seems to be going forwards, but I can feel it sliding more and more towards and into our bodies. Inviting us to sense each other’s attention and impulses.

I sense….

How I invite myself to be open and in the moment. I shift from being open and fully available to space and time, to becoming conscious of what I’m doing (yes, censoring myself..). Being in a totally open improvisation whilst being watched and sharing the floor with professional dance colleagues, is a great gathering that intimidates at times. I guess it is the totally open format that mostly triggers these momentary shifts.

I hear…

How the sounds of the space in which we perform, is registered in such a different way from the point where the performative space supposedly stops. I have a continuous awareness of the sounds in the ‘around space’ as well as the ‘within space’. But the latter is acknowledged and responded to with more immediacy. Hearing whilst being watched and sensing…

For now I would like to conclude that the Moon Practise is a gathering of shared responsibility, one that travels beyond the walls of the dance studio.

The collective awareness and especially the non-judgmental attitude towards the taking of initiative is a life skill that is directly bodily practiced within this ‘form’.

Day 3

Friday the 14^th of November 

Day 4

Saturday the 15^th of November 

Day 5

Sunday the 16^th of November 

LEAP

Conclusion Session-Closing Day – Nov 16

Notes by: Maria Ines Villasmil

Question asked for each participant:

1.How was the structured of the TR#2 for you?

2.How did the plan enhance your process of documentation?

3.How did the practice of Pavle’s Moon Practice help to go deep into the bodywork?

Facts: We will collected by the facilitators of TR#2

Documents

Movies

Pictures

Material

Sound (recording of discussions)

Pavle:

When I think on my teaching I have a lot of impression of having a box of questions. One element is the independency of the students. I treat them as a source of information also. While teaching young people (in their process and in their understanding their own process). Working inside this group (TR) help me to understand and the feedback coming back to me is more elaborate it because the performers of the TR are more mature and prepared artistically to respond to it.

Formal planning (like following schedule) meant that we are able to go with it and follow the flow of it. This shows the amount of work we placed on making this possible. It is extremely engaging to work in environment like this. I feel I get to relate and got engaged in a more complex way.

The space was provided to process all this information. I felt very much supported in this environment.

Finding security in an environment like the one we constructed gives confidence to be able to approach other environment with younger people. It helped to face my own insecurity.

Francesco:

I appreciate the choosing of elements out side the TR for feeding the residency a lot. We were able to feel each other more due to the experience we had before together. I value the exchange of information that came out in a very formal way. This also informs the practice of the Moon Practice. Everything informed the practice, our coexistence was reflected in the Moon Practice.

How this will affect my own practice as teacher is a question that stay resonating. This experience will have an impact a kind of ongoing impact. There are processes that are happening in someone else but helped me to remind or recollect this experience through the other. Re-acknowledging something is something I appreciate and is due the practice and repetition of the process that this happens. We are open, and we will keep searching for something constantly.

Robin:

I was quite naïve while doing the documents. I kind of came back to my old times. Some devices came into my life that removed other skills. Using paper allowed me to send out information. Allowed me to do word games, and play with it allowed me to open up, to make a hai ku, and open up the process. By the end everything was affected - also my write practice the whole week.

I found the Moon Practice is another way to also documenting and write. It was a deeper realization and connection. I felt a very fertile ground that will affect me somehow. I find myself like a sponge in this environment, so I appreciate it a lot.

Elina:

I appreciate the way the process took me into documenting (IDOCDE). In the beginning I was not too enthusiastic to go back to it. This time I appreciate to go through the process. I appreciate to be working with people more close to my age. I miss that since I teach people who are much younger. The maturity of the group I can take it into my own teaching. The environment created helped me to relax and to work very intensively  at the same time. I feel safe inside working in all this several layers.

Great to be in a new place. Find out the meaning of the swan in the window.

The wide point of view of the organization of the TR helped us to wide our views. Thanks for that!

Roos:

I liked very much the phrase of Pavle “Welcome to the other side”. It formed itself into an image that stayed with me during the practice as well as writing my idocs. I appreciate this opportunity for the residency a lot, and glad to sense that input (inspiration) and output (discussion & documentation) are happening at the same time

Pia:

I remember something about processing and planning. But there is always this thing yet to become. Then I asked how much I need to prepare? how much I can be in the moment? First I need to be there to write a document. “You are what you do”.

I remember the question in my school someone asked me, where you will be in 5 years, in 10 years in 20 years. The last thing I said was to be a teacher after 20 years. I never expected to b teacher right away.

Non-hierarchy does not mean any responsibility. How can I embody those words. We need to have some responsibility and one person still needs to take this role.

I liked very much going to the archive and having the lectures. In the beginning I was not too enthusiastic but after I was more open and fine with it. I found another ways to surf into the theme. If not, for sure I was going to be in my own habits and ways of doing it.

Esther:

Already offering the preparation to the TR is offering us a kind of preparation the same we have while doing the Moon Practice. I enjoy very much the following of the schedule and dealing with it as the same way we filling up the planning. Simplicity was also part of the process. This gave us such a lot of space. Simplicity is before complexity. I appreciate this simplicity offered in a very complex way.

The most exciting exchange can happen in a simple activity like cutting fruits and cooking. Allowed us to share and find out another way to find some entrances. There is a lot of respect of what we do and how we do it. But also respecting our own space. If this is there we can really operate. I had a longing for it. It was just so important to do this preparation to offer us the possibility of having this space where we can coexist.

“Welcome to the other side” also was a kind of welcome us. Mean that we have to get there. A dance we are making, where things happens and we not knowing how we  will arrive there.

The visit to the archive also triggered me a lot. Idocde is a living archive. For us going there is also to make it very visible how much work requires, how it can become an archive. This was an eye opener. I can write a lot and after I coming back to practicalities like what is the title, how you can tag it?

With Frank the practice of the practice. The writing. Since sometime I feel scare of writing and it is in fact much much closer to what we do.

It was a realization to see how close our works are.

You push that button and you see what happens and what is it?

Final comment towards Vienna 2015:

-Each country has one responsible. 

-We will make a “Symposium Preparation” Folder.

-Everybody can bring ideas and documents toward to the next symposium and place it there.