EMBODYING AND IMPROVISING PerceptionS (1)

How can I nurture the gut feelings of dancers so that they remain, even in set performance?

Why do I research dance? I think I’ve found some kind of answer to this question. I don’t want to research dance conceptually, but I want the research to be reflection on my practice. Why do I reflect, so that the problems I face are noted, so that I try and alleviate some of the unhelpful bits that are unknown and also, to keep exploring a form that interests, excites, angers and fuels me.

Dancer, Choreographer and Researcher, LIAM FRANCIS, said at the end of one of his journal articles on the authorship of dance –

“I encourage the dance doers to question, suggest and explore more often, rather than leaving this to the theorists. Let’s assist the theorists to challenge ethics and deepen conceptual thinking from the inside outwards. We have a privileged position being situated at the heart of this artistic organism; there are many things that may be missed by those on the periphery, so let’s use this position to propel the extent of dance thinking.”

Well, there we have it. Dance research is dancing. It’s about being at the heart of an art form others look on to. The experience of doing it is what I’ve invested in so far, and each time I dance, I deepen my understanding of my practice, of doing it. Written research is ‘outwarding’ my experience of dancing to others. Not to teach, but to share and build a dialogue from practitioners that are in the field.

My research has led me to question where my attention is during a dance. Is it on perfecting shapes? The feelings? The intentions of movement? Guessing what it should look like and/or replication? Dance training offers some answers to these questions, simply from doing it each day, but I want and need more exploration to guide me as I transition to making choreography, as well as performance.

Research has led me to a term ‘Body Schema’. I’d not heard of it before last year. My understanding from scientific literature is that the body schema is an overarching term for ‘senses that manifest and reside in the body’, which is surely all senses. There’s discrepancy over how we are aware of these senses.

The ‘body schema’ is defined as pre-reflective, says Gallagher.

Foultier says the ‘body schema’ does not escape consciousness, but rather moves with ranges of awareness.

Two contrasting opinions of the same phenomenon, the phenomenon of

‘moving without thinking’.

Bear with me as I think about moving without thinking.

Gallagher gives an example of the ‘body schema’ in action as when reading a passage of difficult text, the body moves closer to the text, you might move a finger across a difficult path of words, and the body ‘does’ this before being conscious of it.

As a choreographer and dancer, the idea of moving without being conscious of moving can stir up questions about my practice. When I have felt most ‘free’, ‘relaxed’ and ‘liberated’ during a performance, I notice that my mind sometimes wanders elsewhere. It can feel like my mind is just noticing what my body does as it takes over and produces an action, a step or a quality of movement.

I am stuck, then, between feeling as though I need my mind for retaining the knowledge of dance from others, for learning materials choreographed for me and learning techniques that are used as current currency in the industry – and also, wanting to find this feeling of moving without consciously thinking, of feeling liberated through dance and expression.

Let’s suggest that my aim is to do the work of others, but without thinking about it.

Can I?

And why this aim?

I’ve noticed that thinking of dance in such a ‘cognitive’ way doesn’t help me unlock my movements, I’ve noticed it even can stifle them and make them feel small. There are things my body can do and feel that I don’t think I can label well in words. I’ve been exploring methods to learn and dance material without words, but with a greater attention on the immediate embodiment of material.

I began by asking whether when I feel free when I’m dancing occurs when movement isn’t conscious. Rather than asking whether I am conscious of movement, perhaps I’m interested in how I perceive movement, how those perceptions are continually reorganised through practice, repetition and performance.

Alva Noe says that perception is an active thing. And that we perceive by doing. As I walk around a painting, for example, I perceive it in different ways. If I walk closer, I see the brush strokes. If I move further away, I see the object in the picture in full. Action and movement is the way I perceive something. It makes sense, then, that as I strive for more embodiment in my dancing,  I also find more things to perceive in my dancing. And, if perception is active, as I go to perceive more, I also go to move more. Embodiment and perception feed each other.

Another term for thinking of my ‘perception’, could be my ‘artistry’. Or on London Studio Centre’s contemporary pathway, where I teach, a term used is the Physical Voice.

The physical voice is what is already stored in the body, techniques, life experiences etc. And, how what has been stored interacts and negotiates with new movement, new environments and new tasks.

Sara Ahmed says that space and objects themselves are ‘orientated’ by how we perceive them.

She states that ‘familiarity is not, then, in the world as that which is already given. The familiar is an effect of inhabitance; we are not simply familiar, but rather the familiar is shaped by actions that reach towards objects that are already within reach.’

I.E, I wasn’t born familiar to my phone. Over time, I have continued to reach towards it in my pocket, and now I can use it well.

My practice/artistry/perceptions are made up of things that, over time, I have reached towards. Whether that’s a Graham Technique Class, a focus on floorwork in improvisation or perhaps looking for narratives in movement, if I practice reaching towards this, then it becomes something I can reach to easily.

This is the basis of learning in dance.

It makes sense that when learning rep, my aim is to reach towards it enough times, so that it seems familiar.

But, as I perform, even if I have rehearsed or practiced, I am also perceiving the material in a new way each time, because I am coming towards it from a constantly shifting starting point.

As Ahmed states, the ‘familiar’ is not a given thing, it’s repeated reaches towards what I perceive as familiar.

As each previous reach has shifted my orientation slightly since the last reach, I am constantly reaching from a different starting point.

In other words, I cannot return to performance with a historical perspective; I can only perceive it as it unfolds now.

Perhaps attempts at repetition makes some things seem familiar. Attempts at repetition orientate me in certain ways and puts certain things within reach (and other things out of reach). Daily ballet class, yoga practice etc.

But when attempting to repeat rep, I’m starting from the last time I performed it. I’ve come to understand that I’m not attempting to freeze my body in these exact states, so that what I’ve practiced ‘sticks’ and replays exactly each time.

Instead, I aim to use rehearsal and attempts at repetition to continually reach towards the same rep, navigating the differences of each perception of it.

Practice and rehearsal is there to inform how I navigate my previous experiences of doing something with a new perception.

If something new occurs or is perceived in each performance, all performance is an example of an enquiry; a question of how I negotiate between my experience and my new perception.

Thinking this way about dancing suggests that my artistry or physical voice is from using all my experiences in each practice because how I am orientated directly shapes how I navigate what I’m trying to perform.

I played the violin before I started to dance, so, maybe when I started my dance training, I was training to dance but I was orientated by classical music training. (I was playing dance.)

I have now completed my dance training and I’m also injured, which has orientated me away from moving, back towards music. Perhaps now I am playing the violin as a dancer. (Dancing the violin.)

When concerned with an inter-disciplinary practice, this thinking allows me to blur the lines between my experiences and understand that they are all orientating me, even if I’m performing just one discipline at a time.

I am dancing the violin, and I am playing the violin as a violinist and I play it with all my other experiences too.

Thinking of practicing rep as something without repetition also unsettles how I think about learning and rehearsing set material.

I’m not learning what is on the page,

I’m not just ‘picking up’ the material,

I’m learning it, picking it up and I am (necessarily) perceiving it in new ways.

I’m never Learning Material, Remembering It, Performing What I Have Remembered.

I’m Learning Material, Perceiving It, Perceiving It Again, And Perceiving It Again

Perhaps I am zooming in and in and in and in on details.

Perhaps I am taking material outwards and exploring how it meets with different things in space, audiences, objects, acoustics.

I realise that when training, or when collaborating with other dancers and giving them material of mine in the studio, my aim isn’t to repeat things to ‘master’ them,

 it’s to remain responsive to what is orientating me, to perceive things and to take what I have already perceived with me in my reaches towards goals.

There is unknown in each performance, if perceptions of it are new each time.

As a choreographer, I ask how much do I set? Do I set the perceptions of something? Well, I can’t. Perceptions from the dancer are constantly changing. I can organise how the space is used to coax out perceptions perhaps. I hand over trust to dancers to perceive things in new ways, preparing the dancers so that they perceive with knowledge of moving in and with the language of the work.

The material isn’t improvised in my work, but the perceptions, the ‘lively tensions’, the stuff on the inside, very much is. My research focuses on this inside bit. How do I prepare, challenge, embody what is felt on the inside?

How do I nurture the gut feelings of dancers so that they remain, even in set performance?