revelations, reflections, confessions; post-symposium update

Dear Member of the IDOCDE Community,

The 6th IDOCDE Symposium of 2018 entitled “You Are Here!” has come to an end. This Symposium, unlike the previous ones, was an experiment par excellence. Being the experiment that it was, the Symposium was as affirmative of our desires and aims as it was provocative, in that it exposed that we are not quite there yet.

There is much to be learned about experiment, about communication, about conflict, about meeting people in real-time, about patience, assumptions, and jumping to conclusions; about the mind-body split and what it will take to close that gap, to integrate thinking and doing on a cultural level, through practice, once and for all.

This Symposium revealed how detailed the work ought to be; how many structures are not yet organised in a way that would make possible such attention to detail on a daily basis; how many misunderstandings are at large at the moment; how many different things people think about when they say a word like "thinking," or "practice;" and lastly and perhaps most importantly –– just how high the stakes are.

In other words, what has become clear to me is that no matter how much we know about what it takes to negotiate and survive diversity, we, as a community, don’t yet havethe experience of having negotiated and survived diversity on a daily basis. I say survived, because indeed, diversity is first to be survived, as creating space for it comes to challenge every possible structural habit we, a community of people living in predominantly white, patriarchal, heterosexist, capitalist societies, have already and unquestioningly embodied.

 The Symposium, however time-consuming an endeavour, is but a snap–shot, a doctor's appointment, a visit to the amusement park. The Symposium is really “taking the temperature;” it’s reflective, in that it shows us where we’re at. The work, as I see it, the real work, the work to be done, is in taking what we’ve learned from the Symposium seriously, and meeting the challenge by trying to do things better – all year round. The real work is in sustaining the questioning, the sharing, the cross-informing, the studying; the challenging and the being challenged by. The real work is in listening to reports, feedbacks, to the impression shared, and taking the time to do something about them.

Here’s what I’ve written to members of all teams whose efforts brought the Symposium together. I share the following words with you, too, in the attempt to inspire you to insist on staying in touch with this community, to inspire you to insist on drawing from and contributing to this community.

“My hope here is to be able to seduce you (if case you're not already) into maintaining contact with the IDOCDE Community as the time goes on, as your research continues. Share your writings, your processes, your procedures, your questions, your winter worries and your winter works with the Community, and use the platform (idocde.net) to do so. [Share examples of hardship, and tried solutions; those that succeeded and those that failed.] Use each other's work and presence as context and support. Contact the editorial team, if you find yourself in need of support with publishing, linking; in case you'd like to initiate efforts with other users, but are not sure how to go about doing that.

Last but not least, I do encourage you to engage in collaborative efforts. Create documents together, link your documents with those created by others; share the work, share access to the work, share access you have to your communities with other users. Use social media in the process, share your Facebook pages with IDOCDE's Facebook page, contact the the editors if you'd like to have your work featured on any of the IDOCDE's platforms. The internet is here for us to make use of, and so make the knowledge we have access to available to others. knowledge is power, as my grandmother keeps reminding me.

How to do this best is not yet evident, since using the internet is not yet second nature to many a member of the dance community. To add to that, it is not evident any longer that the dance community ought to be our only focus. many a question along these lines will be asked in the coming year. some might come your way. Others might be turned to the platforms themselves, in which case please know that how you use those platforms (idocde.net, idocde-related social media) will be seen. How you use those platforms will come to inform our process, will come to inform the future decisions that will see IDOCDE through the next couple of years.

Help us, the Project Team, learn how to be better providers by using the platforms in the way that makes most sense to you! and use us, in turn, to gain visibility, to gain access, to engage with what i think we ought to feel responsible for –– the world.

thank you, once again, for all the effort, the patience, the focus, the passion, and the courage.
may your find support wherever you go.”

In closing, the coming months will see documents being uploaded to idocde.net commemorating this year’s Symposium. I expect a variety of genres to be employed, from documentary-type documents, to poetic ones; from reflective to creative-critical. A good place to start is Márta Ladjánzski’s article entitled “You are here – docuM;” a wonderfully articulate and thorough overview of what happened between Friday afternoon and Sunday evening of the 2018 IDOCDE Symposium entitled “You are here!” [http://www.idocde.net/idocs/1950]

power to the people,
pavleheidler for Team IDOCDE

written in and published from Stockholm on August 10, 2018