In my work I am using choreography as a medium for receiving and producing images. I started my research on the relation of image and movement, stillness and motion in 2007 for my piece "Tableau Doublé" (K3-Centre for Choreography Hamburg 2007) in which I was using a wide range of images taken from various historical, cultural and aesthetic contexts, that were processed by two performers into a living collage of poses, gestures and movements. I am fascinated by the pictorial quality of movement, the traces, moments and memories that lie within motion.

For my latest work "ALL" (an attempt to create a contemporary teatrum mundi) I wanted to dig deeper into the world of images. Big parts of our world are perceived and known to us through images. But do we really know what we see? I developed the practice of image meditation as a method to confront ourselves with aspects of the world. Instead of giving in to the quickness of contemporary image bombardment I wanted to take a closer look.  Almost all movements of the choreography "ALL" are generated with the help of image meditations. More informations on the piece you can find here:

http://beyjenny.hotglue.me/?ALL-copy2-copy

Image meditation is a combination of meditation and authentic movement practice. After watching an image for a certain amount of time the dancer takes time to move with closed eyes as a response to the image. I have used the practice for my artistic work as well as in my teaching.

preparative exercises

- "authentic movement" - I let the participants do each one round of authentic movement with closed eyes to connect to their body and to the movements that it contains followed by one round of responding to each other in order to open up the possibilities of using outside triggers as a motivation to move

- "still moving" - a sequence of exercises on the pictorial qualities of movement. Like a film that consists out of a series of still pictures, a movement consists out of many small and short moments and sensations. The aim is to stop while moving and to keep moving while being still.

image meditation simple version

setting:

beamer, room that can be darkened

Depending of the size of the group I do it in two or three groups, using for each group a different image. I use the structure of authentic movement: one group is the meditating, one or two groups are witnessing. I lead the meditation by announcing when to close the eyes, when to open the eyes and when to start and stop moving.

structure:

2 minutes of meditation with closed eyes in order to prepare for the image. The group is sitting in a comfortable position, the room is dark. The image is not yet projected.

 3 minutes of meditation with open eyes with the focus on the projected image, perceiving the image with the eyes. Group 2 does not see the image, witnesses only the response.

10 minutes of moving with closed eyes as a response to the image, (I don't want to give tasks but mention some questions that might help: What does the image trigger, what do you remember, what makes you move, what energy do you get from the image, can you move into the image, what are the details?)

change of groups

Variations

- variations in lengths of time: longer or shorter meditations, longer or shorter movement responses

- response to the response: Group 2, that has not seen the actual image, gives a movement response to the image meditation of group1. Traces of the image can travel like this from one body to the other.

- playing with open and closed eyes during the response

- creating movement sequences and scores with the help of selection and memory

 to be continued

The photos were taken during Sweet&Tender for the end of the world at Dampzentrale Bern 2012, where I have first tried image meditations.