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2.2.2021, 17:42:44 | Category: Dramaturgy, Space & context, Interdisciplinarity, Process of making

Šrámy/ la débattue

Key words:

REMEMBRANCE, BODY, PAIN, COLONIALISM, RACISM, LIVING DRAMATURGY

Artist, dancer, dramaturge and performer focusing her work on acrobatics and circus Stéphanie N’Duhirahe was this years resident in Žďár nad Sázavou. We asked her to write us more about her process of work during her stay in the castle.

Z: What was the main topic of the research or the creation during your Residency?

S: In the project Šrámy/ la débattue, I question the relation between body, remembrance and their connection with the pain. What is remembrance? What do we and what do our bodies hold from different stories of life? How can we speak about pain?

For this Residency, I particularly focused on the fact that the body remembers through generations. The main topic for this residency was Remembrance and pain linked to the History of Colonialism and Racism.

Z: What for a method you have chosen for your research or your creation?

S: This project is a site-specific project. The performance is built around the function of a specific place over a specific period of time so the show will always be a new experience and different stories will emerge from each time and place.

It is a project of living dramaturgy : I create different scenes (what i call sequences of life) in an unorganised manner, they could be used or cut out in function of the space and time. Everything could be changed. However, I use 2 elements as main tools for acrobatic and choreographic research : Ropes and Stones. These 2 objects will also help to link together the different sequences of life.

Z: What for a body you have chosen?

S: I work with the body linked to a specific space. I choose different spaces for specific reasons linked to the topic, and I let my body discover the space, move in it to try to understand it and find some connections. I worked also with the connection between body/Rope and body/stones.

Z: Were you working on the solo or group study or piece?

S: I was working on a solo which at the same time is not a solo : It can be performed by one or several artists depending on how I feel or depending on the place where it is performed. This project is an attempt to create an open performance structure which allows some hosting performers to create a new interpretation of an existing sequence including their own insight.

Z: In witch context?

S: During the time of this residency, I was working physically alone in the space, but for the reflection about the topic, I was collaborating in distance with the pedagog François NDuhirahe, my father, who wrote some texts about Remembrances which I use to create physical materials. I was also working in distance with the dancer Min Hieu Nguyen as consultant for the research of choreographic movement.

Z: Are you interested in interdisciplinary collaboration ?

S: Being myself an interdisciplinary performer (mixing in my practise, circus art, video art or performing art), I am really interested in interdisciplinary collaboration and it is a really important part of Šrámy/la débattue ; it is a collaboration with people from different backgrounds who can bring different perspectives to speak about this theme. (For example in this research, I already collaborated with the anthropologist and writer Hervé Munz and the sculptor Cécile NDuhirahe)

Z: In which phase of the process you have entered this Residency?

S: This residency offered me the possibility to dig deeper into the subject and to clarify what is important for me in this project. It was still the phase of reflection when you allow yourself to collect ideas, impressions, and sensations without thinking so much about a result. You let yourself be inspired by places, sounds, time and discussions.

Z: How did you like the work in the Castle, was the place inspiring for you?

S: It was very inspiring for my research to work in a place like the Castle of Zdar -such an important historical monument- . I have no doubt that this place is full of stories that, if we listen carefully, still resonate inside the walls. It is really the best place to speak about Remembrance, History/stories and pain.

Z: Was the frame of Cluster residency interesting from the networking perspective for you?

S: Yes I think the way the residency is organised, the support and discussions about our project really help to develop a project.

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25.1.2021, 17:11:14 | Photo: Zuzana Žabková | Category: Dramaturgy, Space & context, Interdisciplinarity, Process of making

Vertigo

Key words:

CARE, PLAYFULNESS, STUDIO TIME, VERTIGO, DIZZINESS, COLLECTING, SCORES, TASKS, ROLE OF CHOREOGRAPHER, CURATING PRESENCE

I’ve talked with Becka McFadden - choreographer, dance maker, dancer, performer and writer about her piece Vertigo, which she was developing during the Coaching Residencies 2020 last summer. As I was curious how the work evolved after the intensive time of Couching and what resonated with her until now and how it continues in this unclear pandemic temporalities. I proposed to ask questions about this piece through the tarot reading.

Z: As you’ve already started to talk about vertigo, what about tarot? I wanted to start with that. I don’t know if you have experiences with tarot.

B: A little bit, but let’s not assume I know everything.

Z: I’m also not a healer/tarot reader but I’ve been practicing for several years, with friends, you know. I’m learning with each reading. So for Tarot and each reading, you have to have a sort of a question. So maybe we can start like this way, if you have a question about your project that you want to ask - related to the project, the content or what will happen. It can be super simple. Maybe have a think and in the meantime we can mix the cards so that we connect you to the fortune and destiny and fate and all that [chuckles] and then the cards can receive it.

B: It’s interesting because I think the questions of process that I have feel like, kind of rich, good questions to ask. And then when I think about asking tarot cards for anything like that the questions I wanna ask are like really awful, self-serving questions [laughs].

Z: Well what I will do now, I call it a bit more of a ‘fast-food’ reading. It is three cards and within the three cards we can also include a subquestion or when something in the reading opens another question, we can draw one more card. Maybe now chose one that resonates or that is very present. The thing that is great about tarot is that it is also about fate but which is present now, in this moment. The way tarot is designed is full of symbols open to interpretation, you know.

B: Ok, so preferred oracle is the I Ching, so I am going to ask a question that I would ask the I Ching. “Is it going to happen?”

Z: Ok, so now take a part of the pile and chose three cards from there.

So this card relates to the recent past, about what was going on until now. The second card is the ‘problem’ , the present. And the last one is for the advice. I will do an interpretation which I can see.

The question was whether it was going to happen. Here is a Knight of Swords, sword is one of the symbols of the minor arcana - cups, swords, wands and pentacles. Sword is an air element and it a symbol of the rationality and thinking realm, the pragmatic context. The knight in the card is very dynamic, the clouds and the trees too, you can see movement and wind. This is sort of describing the time until now, which was full of movement, with a more pragmatic and goal oriented way of doing things. The way I know the card is that it is also connected to a kind of an exclamation point, it’s supporting you in all this movement but also saying to you to be cautious so that you don’t overdo it. Telling to check a bit what it happening behind you. Have a pair of eyes on the back of your skull too, go with the wind and look at what is in front of you but still be present. It’s a bit of both. So that you don’t die, or you die but you know how to come back.

The middle card relates to the present and the now. It’s a very nice card - The Queen of Cups. Cups are somehow opposite to swords - they are much more related to the emotional work, relationships, sensitivity, care. The queen is sitting on a throne surrounded by all these cupids. It’s a playful moment, there is a river, her coat and the pattern on it is water related, cups are also vessels for liquid, water. And water presents this fluid, wet and moist flow and that relates nicely to the previous card but it’s much more oriented to care work, sensitivity and listening, in the context of listening to others. Queen is also related to the symbol of mother, meaning you can be pregnant with all these surroundings. Everything is fertile and prosperous here, yellow and shiny. It’s a very supportive card. Where you are now is a lot about giving care to others and being emotionally connected.

As for advice - the last card is also very nice. It’s a six of cups. It’s showing children that are playing in front of a house. It’s also a very shiny moment, there is a lot of yellow.

B: There is like a progression of yellow throughout the whole reading.

Z: Exactly. And it’s increasing. And in the cups there are flowers growing. So we can see this growth, as if something was planted there and here it already grows. This card also shows some nostalgia, a kind of coming back to teenage times or your childhood, your memories or friends. It could be showing that you will meet a friend from the past. The appearance of children can likewise be interpreted in many ways. Maybe it’s connected to playfulness, to bringing a came moment into the future. This could be connected to an encounter from someone in the past.

B: It’s a very interesting juxtaposition.

Z: Yeah the first one is kind of like, you’re just moving ahead and on and on this one is kinda like a step backwards. And you connect to the past but bring it to the present. It can be connected to the project or to your personal life. It’s about connecting to something that was there, recreating something. The queen is holding it all together from the caretaking position and the last card is opening room for play again.

We can open another card or we can leave it like that, what do you think?

B: Hm, maybe one will emerge from the thing.

Z: Maybe!

So where are you now, with the project?

B: Yeah, so this is really interesting. In the context of how I organised my life in order to be able to do the project I have definitely been prioritising this sort of pragmatic, goal-orientated way of thinking. And in a way that is what I was trying to get through at this residency and into the next phase, because so much of it was about finding the right context, like where is it going to happen, is it going to be programmed, am I going to be able to find the right team, get all of these things in place and then also, am I going to be able to get myself in the right place, am I gonna be able to get out of London all of those things. And that requires a lot of activity. I think this sense of wanting to be in a place where things feel more sustainable and more human and connected, being able to sit in that space of creation in a way that I don’t feel like I have to go back here [points at a card] but that I can stay in this sort of space where I can continue discovery and exploring, and it keeps being fun for me and exciting for me and other people involved, is something that I really talk with Alice about a lot during the sessions. Especially because I was bringing a performer, a musician, a composer and thinking about how do I hold this space, how do I lead this team but simultaneously not loose my own sense of playfulness, my own sense of artistry, my own sense of passion for this and just become sort of an administrative functionary where I feel my own sense of creativity is subordinated to needing to run the show. And what’s interesting about the other project I’ve been working on is that that part has not been my responsibility at all. And I had this opportunity to really play, discover and to remember how much I enjoy that and that I am good at it and it’s fun. And that in itself is a gift and a contribution because that creates the material and the content of the work that the spectator can engage in. And I think that if I look at the project and its content and its particular methodology, there’s also - as there is for each of us in every project - this question of what am I as an artist and a human being working on in this project. And I would say that what I am seeing goes very much in the direction of what I am trying to cultivate in myself. Especially in regards to moving forward and other projects.

And I’ve been asking myself where to put some of my energy. In the past week I’ve been a bit, hm.. Together with the situation with Covid. And it’s an interesting with the residency paradigm - it’s like you have this very focused period of work. In the perfect world you’d go on holiday for a week, come back, and then go straight on into an intense move towards production. But instead we have these long lags and periods where we’re less structured and where I guess we’re sort of structuring ourselves. And I guess some of what I am looking for a this stage of the process is to find a rhythm the feels regular, and intentional and like it’s building, and it involves moving and it involves reading and writing and thinking and working with images, and collaborations but also working by myself, but that doesn’t have this sort of grind to it that takes the joy out.

Z: And do you think you have found this? Or are you close?

B: I think I am looking for it. I would say the closest I ever got to that was when I moved to Prague in the autumn of 2017 and I was living in this flat that had an enormous kitchen. And I consciously put no furniture in there and that was my studio. And I tended to start in the morning, do yoga and then I would dance for 2 hours and then I would write and make collages and I developed a lot of material that way. And I don’t really have that space anymore. I do have a space that I could work in but I find that I don’t and so some of what I try to address with myself - and in the research I do and what I was just looking at - is why that is, what is my resistance to setting up and occupying that space on my own. Whereas if I am given a task by a collaborator or a director I will use that space that way to address that at home. But I am somehow resistant to do it on my own. And I think it has to do with the other things I do, the things that I tend to earn money from that I feel anxious about and that makes me feel like I’d rather do those things.

Z: Yes that’s very much a thing - how to separate the safe work with this kind of work. And where you are living. And sometimes is a temporal not a spacial separation, but sometimes the spacial one is super important. Where you move to another place where there’s a blank space where you can start from or continue building.

B: Yeah, it’s helpful for me to have that somewhere else to go. And that’s something that I would like to figure out, in a more sustainable way. To have a space where I can commit to going to do a particular part of the work. To hold this particular space for that. There is the work for the project and there is the work one has to do for themselves to be able to do this particular work as well. And then there is the rest of the work that we have to do to make sure that everything else in our lives keeps ticking.

Z: Exactly, and then we have to somehow make this sustainable so that we are also able to work with others. To create a space or a map for ourselves so that the others can join. And so what about the work you’re doing now with the others?

B: So we haven’t gotten back in the space together since the residency since the musician was also in the other project that I am doing so we’ve had our lives taken over by that. And we’re both kinda in the process of coming back around. I’ve since found a visual artist and video designer who is going to work with me on the projections and design elements so we have had some inspiring conversations. We’ll be looking at the space soon, especially while we still can. And yeah, I want to continue to finish the rest of the casting. And then I have some more conversations coming up to address all that. I find those situations interesting. When I work with the designers I don’t feel the same sense of threat to my own capacity to play as I do when I think about bringing in performers.

Z: Do you know why?

B: I think it’s a couple of things. For so many years I was teaching and when I lead physical processes I don’t want to go back to a paradigm where I am the one who needs to know everything.

Z: Ah, so you are somehow trying to change the hierarchies in the process.

B: Yeah, I think it’s challenging. And maybe that’s something interesting to ask the cards. I’ve had this separate name for what I do since 2004 - […Fusion ]. It was really useful int he UK cos I was always doing things in higher education and it is quite difficult to be both a lecturer and an artist. And it was very useful to have. Cos people in the arts mostly thing that people who work in the higher education have nothing worth to say, because it’s viewed as very esoteric and separate. So it was very useful for me to be able to do those things under a different names. And I find that here no one ever writes it, they just print my name. So I’ve been trying to decide if I want to continue using this. Also because when I was doing these open workshops that Sesta helped me organise, a few people came and were interested in how it works as a collective. And I’ve realised and kinda known for a few years - it’s not a collective. It’s my company, they’re my ideas. I create all of them and I invite people to collaborate and I want them to bring their creative activity and I’m not going to to tell them what to do but I am ultimately responsible for the overall vision and for creating the vision in which they can work. Just like the experience I’ve had in this other project - if it was a total free for all it wouldn’t have been as good as an experience as it was. It was essential that the director pulled the frame. And I think that’s something that I’m facing up to also being true of me and asking myself that if I continue to use this name is that what it really is. And this question of where the line is. Which is also why this notion of care and playfulness is also interesting. I’m not interested in dominating the people. I want the opportunity to work with me to be an opportunity for them to deploy their creativity. But equally it’s not just that.

Z: You want to be the one, who is creating tasks, rules, …

B: Yes, and I am. This a way how to bounce those things. And I think it is tricky though, how one creates the processes. And I find it very important, because we are not taught how to do it. And there are so many examples of toxic processes. And In my desire to give space, I see it grow, so it is about a playful collaborative way. Alice Chauchat said something interesting about a dancer who said that they don’t work with the choreographer in order to dance to feel freedom, they work for transformation. And so when you are clear about what you are looking for with your performer is an opportunity to transform. It’s an opportunity to discover something about them selves. It’s not a therapy, it is not a space for self-expression. And I thought that’s quite useful.

Z: Do you wanna open the other card, with the question how do you act in the position of the giver, leader or a creator?

It is ace of swords, the beginning. Swords as symbol of intellectual process this brings us back to pragmatism and set rules, somehow what you design, what you plan. How confident are you about what are you doing? And how do you work on the methodology and building up of the scores? How do you bring transformation to the others?

B: Once when I was presenting stuff during one of the coaching evening session, people would stay silent and I asked Alice and she said because you don’t seam unsure about anything, but it doesn’t mean I don’t have self doubt.

This project started with an idea, or sensation a problem which I can’t really articulate in language. And there is an essence of content area, then I started reading and listening to music which is related to it and this was how I started to put together ideas. And from the collection of material and process it turns to certain ideas which can be worked on with people in space. That feels like important relationship, that there is a process and the need transforms to a collection. I collect intuitively, because my brain is much more into feeding connections. This is maybe why I love Anne Carson, it’s informed but it’s also idiosyncratic. My brain wants to dance around. Usually I lay on the floor and start to move around. For many years I was in denial how visual I work. Usually I collect lot of images and print outs and through them I create scores. And when I am able to turn them into task, this is when I know I can bring others into the process.

Z: My last question. Where is Vertigo now? Because observing you being in process of digesting Vertigo as a movie, I would like to know, is the movie still there, or transformed into something else?

B: I haven’t done much work on this since then. But if I come back to Couching time. I’m interested to perceive where we arrived with others through the montage. because we started the process with the body experience in architectural vertigo, being in the spaces which made us dizzy. And that juxtaposed with the story from the film. The work i did in the gallery was then misinterpretation and expressionistic renderings of the very concrete sections of the film. I like that as an idea hw to work further. I like that with each performer we go through specific scenes and I like this idea of body masks. It make me think if we have a piece of fabric and then it suddenly turns into the knot and this is a moment of the film and then it releases and disappears again. That it materialises and dematerialise. If we talk about composition, there will be lot of questions about duration. The film seams like it will bare a number of investigations and I have been collecting material from a variety of sources. And I wonder what other writers will do with the piece. And in this state I feel I want to stay with the work of the film and with the work of these spaces. Jakub sent me a text about Vertigo and see this as a way for him to work on his mask and performativity. And then each of us is working on this quest what it means to be unstable, what it means to be dizzy, in vertigo. I think to get too obviously personal its not helpful. I think it will be terribly important to engage with silence and breath.

Z: When I saw you performing, I was experiencing flashes, there was a continuity of movement where I was observing a salt of the horror. You brought me into the state where I was experiencing different temporality and this particular time stretch made me feel dizzy. Also working with the genre as horror, where you expect to be scared or surprised, but I have to say I wasn’t scared, I was in the fluent state feeling a potential of fear coming. Why you are doing it?

B: I do the work, because there is something I want to understand. And all the things related to this work are attempt to understand. And i suspect if they concern me, they likely concern others. The state you’ve just described is the state I’m hoping will emerge. I feel responsible to provide a structure to provide a material for my audience, but I also want to provide the room where they can find a space for themselves, because this is what I find the most important when I encounter a performance or an installation. Because what we do in performance is that we curate presence. Because in performance we can actually experience time and experience bodily mediated thinking and feeling that we can’t really access via any other means.

Z: Thank you Becka

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24.10.2020, 19:38:10 | Photo: Dragan Dragin | Category: Dramaturgy, Space & context, Interdisciplinarity, Process of making, Education, Art & Society

Hungry Hearts

Key words:

VULNERABILITY, MILLENNIALS, BUSYNESS, ACCUMULATION, URBANISM, DARKNESS

I’ve talked with Eva Urbanova - dancer, choreographer, dance maker who was one of the residents taking part on this year Coaching Residencies about her work on the piece which she recently presented as her final work on HAMU ( Academy of Performing arts - Music and Dance department). We've dwelled into the process of her work and topics she was addressing in her work together with eight performers coming from different backgrounds. We’ve talked about the numb hectic skin avoiding encounter and vulnerability of becoming intimate with the other in her choreographic process.

ZZ: So dear welcome to this amazing interview

EU: I'm so excited

ZZ: :) But maybe firstly just describe me what actually happened during your performance?

You were just telling me that you had presented your master piece on Thursday a week ago, and I know you were working on its final part during the Residency with Coaching. So let’s start with this, what was it and how was it for you?

EU: This piece is called Hungry Hearts and it was my final choreographic project of my MA studies at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, which is two years long study program.

I’ve started to work on these ideas two years ago. The main theme of the piece that time was vulnerability. Two years ago, it was called the Power of vulnerability and during that time I was working with another performer Agáta Jarošová, who was also working with SE-S-TA before and did the couching residence two years ago. The thing is that I was not really satisfied how the piece evolved, how I created it and I felt there is much more to explore. I decided to continue to work on this topic and develop it for my master thesis. Within the piece I was connecting several concepts like millennials, busy and fast lifestyle in the cities, consumer society and capitalism. I was thinking about how we are disconnected from ourselves as people and about this hunger for life that we have inside of us, and that there is something what has to be fulfilled. I was questioning how we get our hearts fulfilled.

And it is not only vulnerability, but also playfulness and intimacy which goes within it. Our generation, if I can call us us millennials, we are connected to the technology more than to the people around us. And this time I was working with eight performers. There were two dancers who were a main duo. They were more experienced with contemporary dance than the rest of the group, which I call ensemble - girls who were a little bit younger. From the beginning I knew I would have two main performers who are going to hold the whole piece and the rest will amplify the situation with their intentions, with their presences and energies.

I also wanted to present this piece out of the theatre space. I wanted to research on how the body will be perceived when being out of the classical frame of the black box and out of the classical audience expectations. I decided to not use any light design and stick only with the daylight which made me think of how I can connect audience and performers.

ZZ: When you talk about this question of the visitor, or relation among performer and the audience which was also very much resonating during your Couching Residency…. I wanted to ask why are you going out of the black box and coming to the gallery space? Is this some kind of homogeneous space where you are creating a similar condition for visitor and performer? What were the strategies and how were you exploring the relation with the visitor, what kind of methods you found out throughout the process?

EU: The place we were working was Korzo in National Gallery in Prague, a place with big windows where people passing outside can observe what is happening inside. And this disposition worked quite well with the idea I had in the beginning. During the work in progress presentation people could move around and change the point of view and angles. I asked them to move, and I gave them options to sit or stand or move. This was creating a different energetic field in the space. I wanted to explore what it would be if people would move from on one side and the energy would be not settled. Those experiments during the process of rehearsals brought lots of new ideas that I would like to explore in my future pieces. But actually for this piece, I've decided to let people sit on two sides. During the rehearsals in the gallery we worked also with the moving walls on the wheels which are part of the Korzo’s architecture. I felt that I cannot risk the safety of the audience so we decided to place audience into two corners (in two groups). Those groups could watch each other and they could also observe what was happening outside. And similarly, watchers from outside could observe what is happening inside.

ZZ: So you were pretty much involved with the work on architecture. Because the gallery space allowed you to work on inside and outside in the same time entangling gallery space with the public space. And this was also creating a specific scenography…

EU: Yes and at the end of the piece all the dancers went out and they were performing outside in the public space for the audience which was inside.

ZZ: Coming back to the choreographic work, material related to your topic - vulnerability, intimacy… Could you develop little more on this, how you were working on the choreographic score, what kind of tools you were using, how you were expressing this intimacy, was the intimacy your tool or score or?

EU: In this case I think what was really interesting was to create the material with two main dancers. They didn’t meet before. They were coming from different backgrounds. It was very organic throughout the process to work on their vulnerability and intimacy between each other. They had to overcome an uncomfortable situation to open up, show who they are. I’ve chosen some improvisational principals and task as part of the score for them. We were exploring what is happening before, after and during the hug and also the quality of melting. We were observing the muscle tension, exploring how the dancer can soft them, how fasciae works. Within the partner work, we were exploring how we can grow from the hug to lifting. Support was another element that we work with . These principals we brought later to the group choreography.

ZZ: So you kind of created a scene of different things also different dynamics or colours, coming from the idea of hugging, melting and support.. which created later the material for the choreography. Maybe I would come back here to the question of choreography … As you were mentioning architecture, urban, space, accumulation, were you also applying these principals in relation to the movement in the space?

EU: There were two worlds in the piece. There was the world of vulnerability, playfulness and intimacy and on the other hand the world of the city. In the city world we created a material based on the linear movements of our bodies. Another element in this part was a stylized civil walk.

ZZ: What is the stylised civil walk?

EU: I wanted them to hold their torso in the axes. So there is no movement of opening and closing of their torso. At the same time we were keeping “the middle points.” You find the point in front of your heart and on the back of your heart. Then you find a middle point inside of your chest, which is connecting these two points. After you find lots of these middle points on your torso in different places.

ZZ: It s reminding me a chakra chain

EU: Yes, similar image. However, it’s a bit robotic. It holds the body in a certain restricted position and it creates a cold mood for performers and performativity, żof coldness which I wanted to bring into the space. It’s not much about moving or creating, you're not opening or closing your body parts. This was one of the main principals we worked with inside of this scene.

The world of vulnerability is evolving to intimacy and playfulness, but the world of the city goes to the opposite side. Performers are people with senses, but they do not use their bodies the way as they really could, they are not expressing themselves, and that is why they can easily go to the other side which I’m calling the dark side. They have a lot of shaking moments. Each of them has a little bit different story. It’s a constant falling down, they are loosening their muscles, their balances, each of them has different movement qualities. In the world of vulnerability we worked mainly with soft movements, diagonals and melting of muscles.

ZZ: Speaking about the darker movements, what were he triggers for them?

EU: We were trying a lot of things. One task was inspired by the morning walk in the metro station, when people are passing around you. Being in the rush and inside of the crowded place, lot of times is happening that they hit with their shoulder yours. Some people say “I’m sorry”, some not even have time for saying anything and some people even don’t feel the touch. They are in the box of their mind and their skin lost the sensitivity. And this is what is happening after the dancers start to walk in the first scene. They start to bump into each other’s shoulders. More bumps you receive, more of the dark world is appearing inside of your dance. The music is the cue for the dancers. The music is getting faster and more layers are appearing inside of the score. This is creating the atmosphere of a busy city.

ZZ: If we zoom out and we observe the dramaturgy of it. How would you describe the curve? What kind of city we are experiencing by watching it?

EU: I imagine something like a huge city. I lived in London and Tokyo. Materials which were in the gallery are cold, marble … dancers didn’t like it. If you imagine the center of NYC or Tokyo people are surrounded by these cold materials. Through the body of the dancers I wanted to bring the contrast. So I focused on softening the muscles. I was departing from the image of the abandoned city where the nature is growing through the buildings. Eight dancers were creating connections through their arms, crawling on the ground. In the scene of the city world they are individuals disconnected from each other. In the scenes of the vulnerability we wanted to create the connectedness as the plants are doing with their rooting system.

ZZ: And why you were working only with girls?

EU: It was not that I would make a strict decision about it. But it was somehow that only girls wanted to work with me.

ZZ: I'm asking if it was a certain statement, then I was also asking that you have to work with 8 performers because it was a condition for the master project from school?

EU: They wanted me to work with group, officially you have to work at least with 3 performers. And I wanted to work with 10 and I've got 8 performers.

ZZ: You are speaking about millennial generations. But you are also working with the teenage girls and “grown ups” :) … Teenage hood is also hectic dynamic period, and it is very much encountering first sexual intimacy. Teenage is something what you are doing for the first time. You also described how the younger dancers were changing the energy in the group or how they influenced the work…

EU: I didn’t mean young by age but by performing… like performing contemporary dance… young performers more by experiences in the contemporary dance scene. And there was age difference also but what was interesting for me was to experience their various backgrounds. It was interesting to observe how the people coming from different contexts can work together. I had to step out of my style and go more into the conversation with them. It was really crucial for me that they were coming from different backgrounds, bringing their knowledge to the basket and this very much worked with the topic of the piece. Even-though we are so different, we can still enjoy life together.

ZZ: Last question, are you going to continue on this? Or you think you found a final form for this piece?

EU: It was a very hard process for me. We didn’t have so much time. I would appreciate more time to experiment inside of the space of the gallery. And I also got lost in the idea throughout the time. But let’s see, maybe after the winter and Corona crises… but I think I want to continue to work on this topic and explore it more in the future for sure and also explore the dance in the gallery space.

ZZ: So you feel like going out of the black box?

EU: Yes

ZZ: Maybe it would be nice, if you could establish collaboration with National Gallery. And I think generally, it would be great also for other artists, performers, choreographers, dancers if National Gallery opens its spaces for performing artists and let them rehearse in the whole space.

EU: Yes! It was very nice experience. For example, during the rehearsal time people walking by or visitors were reacting to what we were working on in the space.

ZZ: Good to hear. Thank you Eva very much for the Interview!

EU: Thank you!

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24.10.2020, 19:12:36 | Photo: Stanislav Miller | Category: Dramaturgy, Space & context, Interdisciplinarity, Process of making, Education, Art & Society

Beside the Black Box: Re-inventing Aesthetics of Coming Together / Art making in the time of Covid

Key words:

OUT OF BLACK BOX, PANDEMIC DRAMATURGY, VIDEO PIECE, PUBLIC SPACE

Kathy Casey – dramaturge and director of Montreal Dance in Canada was one of this year coaches who together with Alice Chauchat – dance maker and artist based in Berlin and also a coach of this year Coaching Residencies presented conversation about their work during the round table untitled Beside the Black Box: Re-inventing Aesthetics of Coming Together on Sunday 23th of August 2020 in National Gallery in Prague. For the panel, Kathy Casey was sharing some works she is currently involved with and which are needing time frames and environments that black boxes don't necessarily suggest for active audience involvement. She opened up how some of these works rely on “devotions”: repeated and investigated over long periods without much predetermined organization, challenging preexisting concepts of dramaturgy and choreography.

Art making in the time of Covid

HI, I’m going to follow up on Alice’s talk about her practices over the past several years by honing in on the last 6 months and art making during Covid. This will include how these 6 months have affected four of our works followed by questions of how social distancing is shifting my own dramaturgical practice and finish up with some readings I’ve been doing through the pandemic.

But first, let me give you an idea of how things were pre-Covid. I have been working with choreographic teams as a dramaturge for 20 years. What that means is that I spend a lot of time in studios watching and discussing dance works, trying to figure out with the team what we want to do and how we want to do it. I have become more and more interested over the years in projects that are looking to redefine what a dance can be and what context it needs to come to life. The majority of works that I have been involved with have been made for a theatre, mainly black boxes, but also other spaces such as galleries and studios. I have rarely been involved in digital projects though we do have an architechtural video piece that is touring.

One of the first impacts of Covid was on how we started rereading works that we had recently created. The world came to a halt, we could not see others, could not touch and we were united in facing this unknown and unknowable future. As art is always in dialogue with the world it lives in, our recent works suddenly had these different reference points.

As an example, I’ll take one of our most recent works, GROUND, imagined for a theatre, it is a work for 5 dancers, each on their own small trampoline, in a line, maintaining a connection through rebounding in rhythm. The very tight score of the work is mostly repeated hand gestures that are similarly executed by the 5 dancers but always different in their details. Each of the dancers follows their own emotional path as the pace and actions shift over time and this emotional path is given form through their facial expressions.

GROUND TEASER https://youtu.be/07YxH3KurWg

Suddenly, with arrival of the pandemic, we started to see how this piece was well suited to these times: it is a metaphor for a community that is separated, not touching, not moving through space, but united facing a coming future. Their differing experience of this future as it approaches could be seen as the heart of work.

Once we realized how Ground could be reread, we decided to put into action our plan to take Ground out of a theatrical setting and bring it into public spaces. We separated the trampolines to respect social distancing, got rid of all of the rest of the set and took advantage of the applications for outdoor performances when no inside performances were being allowed in Montreal. While all of our other performances have been cancelled through January 2021, Ground, which wasn’t to be presented at all, has been performed 10 times this month.

After several months, Covid began shifting how we see presenting our works. I’ll start with Ground as it captures the shift from black box to no box work by bringing a theatre work outside into public space. There are many artists that have extensive experience working in public spaces but it is new for me.

GROUND OUTSIDE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvuQy0jAfts

The first question we had was would people come? Not if there would be enough people but if there would be too many and we would have to cancel the performances. This is certainly a new swing on this question for us. But other more dramaturgical questions quickly followed. What was paid attention to outside compared to the specific focus and expectations that the black box imposes? I’m used to working on durational pieces with people coming and going but outside, which has similar comings and goings, seems different. Why? Because the work is actually fairly short and still people may only see a small portion?

There is a freedom outdoors that is so different from a theater or studio or gallery. It is more relaxed, more real somehow. What is that allowing? The outdoors can bring in a more diverse audiences too, in particular a greater range of ages, and they do many more unpredictable things: kids running around, bicycles and dogs crossing through, someone talking to the performers. But the biggest difference seems to be the environment itself. There are moving trees, buildings, clouds, trucks passing by, horns beeping, ambulance sirens, birds chirping, wind, sun and they are so grand and so everyday all at once. No stage can compete with that.

There are also performative shifts from black box to no box. For Ground, in a theatre, the performers had to imagine a landscape in front of them as the reality was blackness, outside there actually is a landscape and it is one that is active and ever changing. So they are exploring a more active and reactive way of being.

I am torn in watching Ground outsite between loving the freedoms but missing the focus of more theatricalized constructs especially when I feel the piece is slipping into crowd entertainment or even distraction. But it is clear we are understanding something fundamental in the work in a way that doing a more aestheticized theatre version would probably not allow.

One last thing this no box is bringing into focus is how we are integrating into our local community in ways we rarely have before. Bringing work into neighborhoods rather than centrally located theaters is not usually easy to do where I live but Covid has opened up “underground” performing and made it possible legally and financially. Covid is pointing out how much we have focused performing elsewhere to survive and how much we now need to come home. The long-term possibility of doing so will nonetheless require ongoing financial and political investment and we will see if that comes to pass.

On another front altogether, the pandemic is changing what it means for us to collaborate in certain works. For instance, travel restrictions, quarantines and, more recently, the bombing in Lebanon, have radically altered our creation of a new work, All in All. The creation team is based in Montreal, Beirut and Mexico City. It is a work looking at identity construction, history, cultural multiplicity, memory and ritual. It is a work of proximity and touch but Covid has shifted what we had seen as gateways to togetherness and healing to ones of public health dangers! So with Covid, we simply could not continue the work as we could not bring the creative/performing team together in the same city. This means that we have now pushed back the premiere for at least a year.

Imagined for museum or gallery spaces, the work is a 6 hours long choreographed installation, with three different sections each in a different room and the public free to move from room to room at any time.

Knowing that we might be able to create this work for awhile, and seeing so many live works being shared on video or live streamed during the pandemic, we began to question if there was a way to reimagine All in All digitally. What was quickly clear was that reducing the work to video would shift the piece from a multisensory, embodied experience to one that prioritized the visual sense and flattened the work in time. So we have now developed an embodied digital installation translation of each section so that we can maintain the complexity and interactiveness of those taking in the work but with a virtual echo of the. live performers.

Let’s switch gears and talk about utopias. Montreal Danse has recently completed a series of pieces, Ground is one, that can be seen as reflections of the world we live in. Our new creations, like All in All, are more interested in creating alternative worlds, worlds the choreographers would like to live in. These two series of has brought me to questions of utopias and dystopias but the pandemic, black lives matter movement, the Beirut explosion are all pushing these questions farther by revealing how things are, what isn’t working and what must change. So what are our utopias when we are putting so many things in question - capitalism, minority rights, policing, environmental destruction, corruption, emerging fascism amongst many others?

I will be very curious to see how this reimagining of our world will feed into another new work that will premiere in February, INVISIBLE. It is utopian in its own way, a social experiment of living, moving and being together. This work also uses expanded time as it lasts 72 hours without pause. This piece has spirals as its main body reference but it has left behind scores or other choreographic structures to focus on what transforms over time through constant movement, fatigue, comfort and sharing. Our main choreographic questions are ones regarding hosting and invitations for those present to contributute to this social experiment.

INVISIBLE teaser VIDEO https://vimeo.com/403004408/f40639a404

We are slowly begin to work together again in Montreal, but we have strict rules here on social distancing, for instance we cannot rehearse without masks if we are closer together than 2 meters. We cannot touch at all. We must clean the space and the objects in it before and after each rehearsal. The government has told us these rules will not change until there is a functioning vaccine so likely for 2 or more years. So, I am questioning how this may change my dramaturgical work . In particular what I call my process research as I already see it shifting in these social distancing times.

One aspect of my process research is figuring out the languages. By this I mean the type of vocabulary and references used to talk about ideas and the developing work. It also includes the specific swing of this vocabulary – how, by who and when it is casual, jokey, serious, reflective, theoretical, forceful, mysterious, etc. Exploring how my language flow and references can mesh and rebound with these types of languages is a big part of creating trust and working together. It is important to be in synch with the languages used but it can also be useful to shift or question them.

What is notably different in assessing the languages right now is the amount of work we are doing by zoom and texting. Conversations of this sort don’t have the same flow as when we are doing them together in the same room. Even now that we have started rehearsing in small groups together in Montreal, it is outside and we keep our distance, have other sound information from the environment and generally talk less. This will certainly have an effect on the works developed though it is too early to know in what ways.

A second type of process research I like is determining the practice of a project. In what way is a group being together to create a common understanding that isn’t exactly the creation but is necessary for the creation? Sometimes it’s as simple as exchanging news of the day and getting in synch while other times it can be extensive idea exchanges or a more elaborate body practice. These practices can shift and evolve over time. I think that understanding the deep knowledge of a work involves recognizing these practices. Keeping track of them is helps to understanding the needs of a project and its roots. Not to mention that sometimes there are practices that get in the way of moving forward and being able to name them aids in seeing if they are still useful.

For sure, the social practices around creation have shifted now and will continue to do so. Consent negotiations around rehearsing and performing are present in ways they never have been before. How will our body practices transform when they are taken outside of studios? How will we deal with winter when the option of being outside is no longer possible? What kind of emotional practices do we need?

Perhaps I will finish up by saying that my confinement started with reading Rebecca Solnit’s Paradise Built in Hell. This book looks at the utopias than can emerge following disasters. But as we have realized that the multiple upheavals we are experiencing are an opportunity, or a necessity, to reconsider the world we need to create to be in alignment with our values, I have turned to social activists, in particular Audre Lorde and Adrienne Maree Brown as sources of inspiration. So that my questions now include : How do we find our pleasures of activism?

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22.7.2020, 18:48:11 | Photo: Zuzana Žabková | Category: Dramaturgy, Space & context, Interdisciplinarity, Process of making, Art & Society, Other

The starting point is the safe space

Key words:

DRAMATURGY, CROSSROAD, MYTH, MULTIDISCIPLINARITY, POSTDRAMA, HAPPENIGS, DURATIONAL PERFORMANCE, LARP, IMMERSIVE THEATRE

The artists Aneta Fodorová, Martina Dobiášová, Michal Kindernay, Žofie Blechová and Vojtěch Bárta came to the Chateau in Žďár nad Sázavou with the multimedia project nov, which is being created in cooperation with the platform Third space and Chemické divadlo. After the film experiment, nov expands into a performative installation. During the residency, the artists therefore focused on finding tools that will allow them to translate the content of the project into a completely different, performative language. How is the position of the viewer changing today? Why is it crucial to create a safe space? And is it even necessary to define your genre?

Interview with Third Space (TS) and Chemické Divadlo (CHD, Chemical Theatre) just after the showing of their work in process in the Chateau in Žďár and Sázavou.

Zuzana Žabková: How do you feel right now?
Everyone: (long silence – laughter)
ZZ: I can put it in parentheses :)
Aneta Fodorová: I think we are on a journey, in front of a journey.
ZZ: That’s maybe a good question. So you are on the road, on the way. Where exactly do you stand within the process of creation of your project?
Vojtěch Bárta: In the curve.
AF: There are many curves, there are many crossroads and every direction we choose opens twenty new deviations and during this residency, we have discovered another possible direction which means we have to take new decisions. And I suppose that when we will have the premiere in September the process will keep going, there will be a new crossroad and after every other performance, there will be a crossroad, because we want to allow the public to enter the creative process and influence the performance itself.
ZZ: So you let the process flow, every performance influences the next one.
AF: In the performances of Chemical Theatre the form has not been so open until now. But maybe Vojta can say more about it.
VB: Theatre is a living form so every performance is a little bit different.
AF: To us, it is important to talk to the audience after the performance, get their feedback, and then we decide what we can use in the future.
Eva Dryjová: What is this crossroad about?
Martina Dobiášová: This crossroad, apart from other things, is about creating an interdisciplinary work – between theatre, dance, and the film. The feedback we received today made us think that maybe we should choose one direction, but for us, this has always been the question within the process.
ZZ: Today I saw only the excerpt of your work, a stage work with the actor and the text, where the actress disappears from the perspective of other rooms…. But I would like to ask what was the topic or starting point in this project you have been working on?
MD: It somehow has to do with the crossroads. Our dramaturgical starting point was anchored around a Siberian myth that tells the story of the transformation of a human being into a shaman. In this story this transformation is perceived is as some kind of predestination and it is an irreversible and actually quite brutal process. It is about physical death and rebirth. But our approach is not ethnographic, we ask ourselves what can the story tell us now, the story speaks to everybody and is about everybody, we are all responsible for our lives. We are now in a phase when we work on it on several levels - the social level – what is happening in the world now, on the private level - how it influences us as individuals, and that is our private commentary. And to speak about the form, what is interesting is that we created this multileveled crossroads intentionally when we invited multidisciplinary artists into the process where none of us is in the position in which we’re used to be. Our actresses and not primarily actresses, Michal is a visual artist for example, I am a performer and drama teacher …and this gives us the opportunity to approach theatre in a different manner. At the same time, we look at it through different disciplines and different prisms which makes the work more fragmentary and the challenge is to find a way to let these fragments coexist in the process. So at this moment, we are not able to even name the shape or a form of what is emerging. If it a is participatory performance or installation or something completely different.

VB: We have turned and looked at it twenty times, but we are still not able to label or define the specific form and the ratio of all of them involved, and that also is always dramatically changing.
ED: Is it important to name it?
AF: What is important for us is that we know what kind of tools we use, but also because of fundings we should state what kind of work we produce or which genre, or well this is what they want from us.
ZZ: But on the other side, this is the freedom of the artist to say this it is a staged installation and the artist is here to create new forms, so we shouldn’t be restricted by the funding, we are here to change and reflect what already exists in the structure.
ED: To name something for fundings is ok, but that shouldn‘t determine the reality of what you do.
AF: What Vojta says about communication with the audience is also very important regarding the definition of what we do.
VB: It is important to tell the audience how we want to work, crossing different disciplines, that was actually one of the original impulses for founding Chemical Theatre, to create a reflective theatre which chooses experimental ways and searches for expressing certain chemistry of the world and the chemistry of a human soul which is in dialogue with the controlled world.
MD: Vojta says Chemical Theatre produces experimental work but I think that this project goes beyond that frame.
ZZ: When you talk about the multiplicity of different disciplines and forms, I would like to know what kind of forms you use in this project and why you chose them? Or how is it related to the myth you spoke about, why do you use these mediums?
Michal Kindernay: I’m originally a visual and sound artist and I’m surprised by how the theatre is still a theatre… I think it is attached to the tradition and after all the experiences, schools, and funding structures it is hard to go beyond. It's maybe also because of the state‘s division into disciplines, categories in applications for funding.
ZZ: Even though the history of art has already gone beyond it.
MK: It's now becoming more fluid and I think there are interesting experimental formats in the current theatre productions, but I think we could go even further.
In our case, we started with the video because of the pandemic and that brought us here, but we will also see where this goes if we start to work with the film on stage.
ZZ: I don’t know if you know the quote from the book O chybění (About Lacking) by Jan Mančuška and Vít Havránek which starts with the situation where you enter the room and this room is full of people and there is one actor but you don’t know who it is.
AF: I think that there is one more form in the game and that is LARP and role-playing games, which are in some way similar to this. I’m working on one project where we use similar tools, where people don’t perceive themselves as spectators because they are from very the beginning in charge of making decisions. And it is on to decide where the game is going. It makes it different from the immersive theatre where the structures are predetermined. And this is something that we try to do in third//space projects. We want to invite the public to the process of creation in the very beginning.
ZZ: Maybe it is also about duration, we could talk for example about Reality shows, video games, Role-playing games, series….. where we observe, we are in a different temporality of a classical performance, so from this, we see that you create a certain community of people involved in the process from the beginning.
ED: How you work with the audience that is not experienced in these forms you, what kind of tools you use to get closer to them, to deepen the spectator’s sensibility?
MD: The starting point is the safe space. Because in the theatre you have conflicts and that creates certain dynamics. I think that the most important is to realize that we don’t have to know now. And to leave it where it is.
AF: Also some tools that lead to a different approach and position of the spectator take more than twenty-thirty minutes or one hour. And we are still searching for new and new tools. What are the ways of bringing the audience into another state which might be comparable to be on drugs where you relax much quicker, but we didn’t find this shortcut yet and maybe it is not existing….
ZZ: Maybe you have to do eight-hour performances
AF: Hehe, Maybe
ZZ: Because this was my experience when I was part of this long performance, where I was able to leave the space, stay there, go out, and this whole experience took me in by its extended temporality. And also what you were talking about that you need a certain time with your audience for dialogue and extended field where you spend time together. It is why if you are speaking about this that you need more time, maybe you need to make eight-hour performance
MK: And this was for example in the action art and it is again coming back, performance, happenings, all this evolved but it is interesting that it was not connected together.
VB: But if you look to the west and you follow post drama theatre you see that influence by these crossings already in the ’60s.
MK: Contemporary performance also states the question of how to bring the audience into the process.
ZZ: It’s also about the context. Speaking of, for example, the transition from the black box to the white cube and how it allowed durational performances…
MK: Maybe galleries and theatres shouldn’t exist anymore :)
ED: What role has dramaturgy played in this process?
MD: There is a certain structure of how it works, but we keep open space, we have certain intentions but then it is the spectator who can manipulate it.
ZZ: So it is a river dramaturgy that is going in parallels and in different directions. It is also a provocation for the moment of crisis. Because also as a spectator if you are in the moment when you don’t know what is going on, it might be strange for you, but these are the moments you remember the most because that opens questions for you.
MD: There is a lot of space for dramaturgy, but I personally wonder how much space is there for directing. I think the classical position towards directing should change because from my own position I know that I’m much more asking questions rather than telling the people what they should do because that is more important for me. I need to ask not to give tasks.

Thank you

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22.7.2020, 15:15:39 | Photo: Zuzana Žabková | Category: Dramaturgy, Space & context, Interdisciplinarity, Process of making, Art & Society, Other

Labyrinth of emptiness

Key words:

CHOREOGRAPHY, LABYRINTH, EMPTINESS, MONSTROSITY, MADNESS

Roberta Legros Štepánková, one of the artists who attended this summer Cluster Residency in the Castle in Žďár nad Sázavou was keen to talk about her research and working process together with her partner Matthieu Legros. While talking about their work, core materials, points of departures and their collaboration we were meandering around the question how to orient and navigate the body and mind in the labyrinth of emptiness.

Interview with Roberta Legros Štepanková and her partner Matthieu Legros

ZZ: Where are you now, where are you two in the process of creation, in which moment, where I’m meeting you now?

RLS: I have the feeling we are in the phase before the finalisation of the piece, but there are still questions, and possibilities to add something, that editing out, so maybe also skipping or erasure of something. And in the process… Our premier was planned to be in Jun but it was postponed, and in August we will have a general and it is not finished yet even if to of things are clearer now, it is still in the process.

ZZ: If you can talk a bit more about the problem or topic or subject, what you where now researching on?

RLS: The subject of the research is a search. I’m always interested somehow searching into my experience and to do it not only by reflexion, but to do it physically, so researching in the physical material. I have been for couple of years interested in the space. In the inner space and the outer space. This fascination of the space was also in the beginning of this piece. It manifested as a fascination for the empty space. What it is, can we call it empty, are we allowed to call it empty? This is something what we know from mediation or from eastern approaches and maybe some part of the inspiration was coming from there, from some literature and some practices. But also emptiness is something inherent to the space or the notion of the infinite. Sometimes the empty is substituted for the infinite, infinite space. Maybe it was more intuitive, but very early in the process there was a notion of the labyrinth. And I remember that sometimes in the beginning of the process I wrote down: Maybe the empty space is an infinite labyrinth. And then I wanted to have a look on the labyrinth and research it a bit more. And I started to search on construction of the labyrinth, the stories about labyrinth, but also not too much that I would call myself specialist in it, it is still more intuitive work.

ZZ: How were you proceeding ?… If you call an empty space a labyrinth, what kind of practices, what kind of tools you used, how this notion of the labyrinth as an empty space, how this lead you into process of working on the movement and sound material?

RLS: Now when you say it, the empty space in the labyrinth is almost an oxymoron or almost a paradox. Because when we imagine labyrinth, it is full of roads, which are leading you somewhere.

ZZ: And a labyrinth is also a decision making. It is also about what kind of path you are choosing and how you orientate in the labyrinth, in the emptiness. If you call labyrinth empty space, what kind of path you were choosing in the process of work?

RLS: Now when we talk about it, now in this moment I feel it is almost an opposite, or an encounter of opposites... As you say in the labyrinth you make many choices, it is a constant tension of where do I go, Am I right am I wrong. Meanwhile in the empty space you don’t have to worry so much about it.

M: But for me, The labyrinth is a way to meet the empty space.

ZZ: Because there is something about navigation, how you actually choose to make decision, or what you follow, how you orientate, or how you navigate in this empty space? Because if you say in the beginning that you orientate in the emptiness, whereas in the emptiness you feel like you don’t have to be pressed by something what you have to choose. Are you then using intuition, or what kind of tools help you to navigate through it if you consider it to be hollow, or empty?

RLS: There are two lines, what decision do we make in the piece, or what decision we were choosing during the process of creation. And there I feel that I always somehow .. I read something or I look at something and if it resonates that I know I use it in the piece. And there I use the intuition, because I don’t do the choices by rational processes. And when I started to look on the labyrinth and there were these different characters. I was suddenly attracted to some of them, because they spoke to me. And even before I was curious about labyrinth I was reading a book which was speaking about two voices in the body. One voice which is more of the thinking mind and the other one more in the body mind - very deep, intuitive, almost like primitive energy. And I had this strong experience when I could hear these two voices in the body. It was in one workshop where I had time to work on my own. And these are like the pieces of experiences that are coming together and i don’t know really why, but I deeply trust that they're the right inspirations for the piece. It is very much intuitive work.

ZZ: Speaking about these characters, could you maybe name them, or why they were so much resonating with you?

RLS: So for example talking about these two voices, which I very strongly experienced like the front and the back of the body, almost two personalities being one being.

ZZ: Almost like having one head with two faces.

RLS: Yes Janus, The god with two faces, he is the representation of the unity of two opposites.

He is also the god of the gates or the doorways, That's the passage where two opposites come together. Related to this I felt very strongly the character of Ariadne, how she is romantic, dreamy, event naive, in love with. And it relates with the frontal body which is very soft, also in physiology that this frontal part is more tensile more elastic and the back part is related to something more bound, more round, which is related to the character of Minotaur - which represent the past, what we don’t see.

ML: With these three characters, Ariadne related to the sky, Minotaur related to the underground, and the third one is Daidalos, the architect, the constructer, he has the ground under the control.

ZZ: How are these three in relation?

RLS: They don’t come to the confrontation, this is something for the further development of the piece. But how they are now is for this moment enough.

ZZ: If we speak about … two face god and Ariadne, how do you work with this in the space, meaning movement material, how you translate or embody these characters? Or what are the tools you are using? How these characters speak to you? You are both of you working with the sound or voice, and voice is kind of resonation of the empty space. How these characters resonate in the emptiness?

RLS: There are different entries for me, how to embody the character, one which you mentioned is the sound and the text making. Sometimes one day it is the sound and text how I enter and that informs the dancing body. Because to leave the quality in one modality can inform the dancing body.

ML: Yesterday you were saying the contrary.

RLS: Ye, definitely it works also the other way vice versa. It is actually very natural for human being, how these two modalities are interconnected. And it was great to have time to research on it.

I started to rehearse and the voice came naturally to complete the character, another layer of it. I allow to be in very intimate relationship with the character. I allow my self to have time, to be carried by the character, to leave it live from the inside.

ZZ: And I see you are speaking about the time, about temporalities you are using, that you kind of leave the space. How you orientate in the emptiness or for some decision making you also take time together with the audience.

RLS: Yes I think to work on the empty space. Now we can be more categoric and we can divide it to work on the character and to work on empty space. But in reality they merge together and taking time as very important during the whole process, knowing the necessary time for the beginning for the ending for silence or stillness and I feel there is still a lot of opportunities with it in the dance and music also.

ZZ: Maybe speaking about you two. Because you also said that Ariadna is in love with. How you two are in love with what you are doing? How you two work. Because you were speaking about the body followed by the voice and what is Mat doing and how you relate to it?

RLS: In the very simple way we meet together and we say let’s work and we start working. And I think it is Mathiew’s influence in this. When I start I would like to speak, analyze…

ZZ: So you are taking the Daidalos position :)

ML: I’m totally instinctive

RLS: I’m efficient, And always when we improvise I want to name things and write them down.

ZZ: Is your work a mutual listening?

RLS: Yes, very much and Indeed more and more, we can talk about characters, emptyness, about the space, but today I felt that we can let go the structure so we can come back to the listening.

ML: That was super important these days, because eI was busy with technic and I was not able to observe so much what came now in the process

ZZ: So you think you found a certain way how to orientate in that labyrinth of emptiness?

RLS: Yes and no, to make it not so easy. I think we found a great way to collaborate, that’s the really important basis and I mean I wouldn’t say that is finished but I feel that it is a very alive material and we can work it more and more but also i feel to have a pause :)

Thank you

Whole article...

5.7.2020, 19:07:28 | Photo: Peter Soukup | Category: Dramaturgy, Space & context, Interdisciplinarity, Process of making, Education, Art & Society, Other

When we read together at night

Key words:

DREAM AND REALLY FUCKING

Second edition of The Dance Reading Club series When The Dancers Know The Answers took place on 17th of June again in Living room of Studio ALTA in Invalidovna but this time in more Decameron like chiaroscuro mood. Under the name Good Night Readers ladies from platform Bjornsonova hosted two hours long life and online reading of excerpts of texts by feminist authors as Alice Munro, Linda Stupart, Octavia Butler, Ariana Reines, Justin Frank or singer Eartheater, meandering from detective, sci-fi narratives to erotics and poetry. Good night readers started as an initiation by platform Bjornsonova during quarantine as a sequel of Boccacio’s Decameron folowing the plague pandemic in 14th century into nowdays viral times.

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5.7.2020, 2:41:59 | Photo: Zuzana Žabková | Category: Dramaturgy, Space & context, Interdisciplinarity, Process of making, Education, Art & Society, Other

When the dance fails as a gesture

Key words:

GESTURE, FAILURE, STUMBLING, FAILURE, MISUNDERSTANDING

The first edition of the Dance Reading Club series When The Dancers Know The Answers took place in the living room of Studio ALTA on Thursday 21st of May 2020 and it hosted two hours long discussion which started with the question When the dance fails as a gesture? Observing how the piece Assemblage by Martina Hajdyla Lacová found its audience in the park due to the pandemic restrictions, sandwiched later with the video excerpts of performances mentioned in the discussed text Writing Laughter / Violent Desire by Jenn Joy brought the discussion back to the core of what is the artistic gesture and why it requires gaps, stumbling and failures.

Due to the pandemic restriction, program of Studio Alta had to find a way how to rethink the frame of planned shows considering limited number of the audience members. One of such examples was a performance Assemblage in which the piece made for the black box went out of the box and readapted its scenography and choreography to the park Karlovy sady in front of the building of Invalidovna, where Studio Alta currently resides. The performance became somehow part of the park everyday movement and with its extended choreographic references to walking postmodern movement material created a playful sci-fi girl game with objects and scenography reminding artificial prosthetic nature in the context of urban pseudo nature in the park. Kids and dogs and virus were crying, barking and lingering around. The game with this close to dead nature was though very vivid and brought a certain ecstatic fearless energy into the bright day of invisible cold lack of mutual touch.

After this performative experience part of the audience moved to the living room of Studio ALTA where we continued with the discussion based on just watched performance in combination with several references video excerpts of performance mentioned in the text Writing Laughter / Violent Desire by Jenn Joy from her book Choreographic. Three video excerpts of performances mention in Joy’s text were projected just before the discussion started: La Ribbot: Laughing Hole, Luciana Achugar: Sublime is us, Didi Dorvillier : “Choreography, a Prologue for the Apocalypse of Understanding, Get Ready!”

At steak was a gesture as a movement expression used also as a communication tool which bears its historical and semantical predetermination. Referring to the text of Jen Joy we were interested in cases when this meaning oscillates on the abyss of understanding and loses its primal graspability. Observing the strategy of watched performances allowed us to examine when are failure, spasm, stumbling becoming choreographic tools and when these tools form an artistic statement. Before dwelling into the topic of failure and spasm, we had to firstly clarify what the gesture means and signify in contemporary dance and broader socio - political context in order to examine why is it failing.

Is gesture a simple movement action or a whole performance which acts as artistic action? Is gesture a body which appears and disappears? How gesture abandons its context and enters another realm? What language speaks gesture?

In the performance Laughing Hole by La Ribbot laughter becomes a gesture a moment of language’s failure. Laughter sucks spectator’s attention, awakens her sensibility and affects her body state. Gesture of laughing dissolves the meaning, because the laughter is detached from its source - the reason, the meaning of laughing and it acts as a gesture itself. This stumbling nonsense dizziness creates another meaning of the gesture as we know it and reveals impact on the spectator in its physicality. The gesture is then determined by conditions in which it acts, by its context which it reflects. Jen Joy in her text refers also to Andrew Hewitt who describes gesture as a transmitter of socio political force which by creating a moment of spasm implies a mode of resistance.

How do we read a movement as a gesture? What is to think gesture in the choreographic way? If we take failing as a transformation as an opening is it a gesture that fails or is it us who fail to understand the gesture?

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15.6.2020, 7:45:16 | Photo: . | Category: Dramaturgy, Space & context, Interdisciplinarity, Process of making, Education, Art & Society, Other

Gallery without borders

Key words:

SCORE, ARTEFACT, ART HISTORY

Extraordinary project Gallery without borders hosted a research of eleven dance makers from Czech republic and USA who were together with american choreographer Sue Schroeder exploring the role of the the artistic artefact and its kinesthetic potential in the Gallery - white cube space. Various mouvement researches were applied and reflected the display and curatorial ideas of current exhibition Art of Long Century: 1796–1918 in National Gallery Prague. The outcome of this long term quarantine research was presented life in the National Gallery Prague and streamed on 14th of July 2020. Here you can folow more on why these eleven mouvement artists decided to attend this particular project.

19th Century (wo)Man: A Contemporary Intervention

Participating Artists : Walter Apps (USA), Barbora Látalová (CZ), Roman Zotov Mikshin (RU), Nikki Morath (USA), Johana Pocková (CZ), Joshua Rackliffe (USA), Benjamin (Benji) Lee Stevenson (USA), Eva Urbanová (SK/CZ), Zdenka Brungot Svitekova (SK/NO/CZ)

Walter Apps (USA) contemporary ballet dancer, lives and work in New York, performed with Aszure Barton, Septime Weber, Lar Lubovitch, MADBOOTS, and Ohad Naharin, is currently a Dance Artist with Core Dance based in Atlanta, GA and Houston, TX.

What is your current interest/curiosity in your movement/choreographic research?

I am most interested in visual/performance art that provokes an audience to see in a different perspective and engage in questions. The realistic human sparks my curiosity. The versatile performer/dancer sparks my curiosity. Blending the two is a choreographic research that I’m interested in.

What are you most interested/curious about for this project?

I am delighted to work with international artists. I believe this experience will enrich my view on visual art through collaboration. I am also very excited to showcase the change in art during the Long Century. The way artists blended old ideas with new interests me because I am currently researching how to do that in the medium of performance.

Barbora Látalová (CZ) free lance dancer, actor, teacher and choreographer, co founder of OSTRUŽINA z.s. free artistic association www.ostruzina.eu

What is your current interest/curiosity in you movement/choreographic research?

I am writting you the tree thigs I found now in my head, because without your question Iam not in prosces that I would work on them, just I have them in my pockets.

I am describing to you something what Iam interested when I watch people dancing

first : I am acctually looking in patterns of people movements not in the sence to abandon them, in sence to understand why they are existing and what they are. The step before we want to get rid of them by exploring them or allowing them , the step to recognise them and enjoy them. I am fascinating when I can define somebodyes movement and I can say:“ this is your movement I know it. „ and oposit it is bit hard to say it to my self because usually when I recognise it I rather escape from it, because I dont want to repeat my same movements …. so now I am challenging my self to work with it what I already know in my way of movement. And I am currious why I am fascinating on the other people when I recognise their movement and I am not fascinating when I rocognise it in my self :-) ? ...

the second thing is a bit connected, it is still connected to the people movements and gestures and pop culture. Why certain songs leads people to do the same way of experssions in the movement? Like raissing the hads up, turning, hopping, screeming together with a singer, very offen the specific song leads into the similar mood of movemnets and gestures. I didnt do any reasearch about it yet, it is only in my head since x mass when I was in crowed of people dancing. Connection to emotins of sound, special time and groups of people even from different backgrounds.

The last is a concept I started with and I abandon itangularity versus rotundity, starting from painting inspiration of Austrian painter and activists Kurt Hundertwasser and writting this text a question I always have is: is it possible to do everything with dance ? Yes or there are themes more close to it or not ? If yes I still thing we have to find an entry point into it which is compactalbe what the dance can say about it and it will stay a dance.

What are you most interested/curious about for this project?

Sue, firsth it is you and after Liz Lerman’s Critical Response Process, looking very much for that, I worked with Bush Hartshorn who was a coach several times and he intruduced us into this technique, this time with you it will be firsth time to apply it on own work.

And thanks to the acctual covid situatuation I am very much looking forward the technology of the project even I am very bad in using it, now I see how important it is and people who has knowlage are much faster adaptable for that situation. It will be kind of spaceship adventures.

( I even realised firsth time in my life really need of car and driving lessons, how the life would be easyer now...) so this streem of thoughts leds me back to the area of my choreographic interest as well : independance, self-sufficiency

It has been kind of paradox in the situation we are in isolation, the needs of sociaty and connections are very visible now and thanks to taht I realise how much I dont allow to know about my self because most of my time before I do care about other people ( family, children in school where I teach many years, people in our company, audience in our performances, collegues ….and throw this way of carring they also care about me and I need them to exist) now I am in my flat with my almost grow up child and dog and it is challenging to be only with me, I realise how many things I hide or ignore inside myself , I have to learn again how to communicate, how to work with time, how to find time for relaxation, and most of it I learn about my self that Iam not doing this, I dont have the skills ….how very difficcult it is to do everything almost without help of others...and how much I need the reflection and immediate feedback life feedback , life reaction. To be alone is not easy and I hope it will make us stronger human beeings.

So this project in this moment allow me to still be only with me, I have to help my self to be selfsuficient and in the same time I know I will do it with the group of people I like and Iam interested about and finnally I will taste the need of global need and practical,use of technologies, the work, to feel again the sence of creation and to feel Iam part of something creative.

Roman Zotov Mikshin (RU) freelance dancer based in Prague, works with physical visual and dance theatre.

What is your current interest/curiosity in you movement/choreographic research?

My current interest is in ability to create a durational piece (365 minutes), ideally for the white-cube gallery space, where everything (a human body, time, music, different sorts of objects of our daily life) will be presented as phenomena, as something to be objectified and presented in the gallery space. I am very curious to present the creation and search process as a «piece of art» also.

What are you most interested/curious about for this project?

As I told on our personal meeting, I am very much excited that my current interest which I described in 2) is very much similar to what you’ve presented on our meeting. Also, I got very interested in trying new approach: not directly reflecting the work of art, but rather intention of the artist. I find it very inspiring and curious path.

Really looking forward and preparing myself for exciting work :)

Roman

Nikki Morath (USA) contemporary dancer currently works with Core Dance company.

What is your current interest/curiosity in your movement/choreographic research?

Currently, I adore the rigor of technique and aim to unveil the truth that pours out from the moving body. My passion for movement has evolved from a desire to engage communities in experiences rooted in performance art. I am devoted to developing experiences that fuse performance art and the human experience.

What are you most interested/curious about for this project?

Aha! I am most interested in how this creative project will evolve! I am excited at the challenge of the virtual portion and feel the anticipation of being in the same space for the second portion of this project. I am looking forward to the transfer of information and collaboration we have ahead!

Johana Pocková (CZ) freelance dancer based in Prague. Awarded by Jarmila Jerabkova Award 2017. In May 2019 she has established a company POCKetART z.s. As a performer she colaborates with Tantehorse company and Cirk La Putyka.

What is your current interest/curiosity in you movement/choreographic research?

Recently I am interested in movement research for original physicality inspired by human senses. I am looking for a way to alive viewers senses through dancer`s bodies. Also within my research I am trying to „alive“ artificial objects to give them possibility to be perceived as natural organism. This is something I feel similar to upcoming research inspired by paintings - artistic intention of artists and works. How can we alive the „inanimate“ painting (which is actually very moving in stillness) using our bodies? How can we relate to the story of the painting which has it`s own time? There is another aspect of my actual interest and it is specific atmosphere, calmness, concentration and time which we find in galerry space. My question is can I bring this spesific atmosphere to another (theater) space?

What are you most interested/curious about for this project?

I had a chance to work with one painting from the 1796–1918: ART OF THE LONG CENTURY in Veletržní palác – National gallery last summer thanks to S.E.S.T.A. choreographic residency with coaching. I could spend and mirror there one hour with one painting. The spectators of the gallery were coming through but I was there some time alone as well. Time there stoped and the painting uncovered another layer of its`s meanings / my imagination. Very interesting moments while finding a relation to that.

So my interest and curiosity about this project is in researching ways for unique kinesthetic realation with the art. How can I do it without copying the story of the painting but to find a way to relate to that? Phylosophical, historical, vizaul, atmospherical, architectural…etc.

I am happy to be inspired by dancers from America and my colleques from Czech and beeing part of a common discussions and sharing different kinds of views of points. I am very interested in beeing leaded by the virtual concept, choreographer Sue and to experience live stream performance from two continents. I hope Part II. Will be also realized in the future.

Looking forward to meet you all online and our creative process.

Joshua Rackliffe (USA) is a movement artist from Mableton, GA. Currently works as Dance Artist at Core Dance, and has been with the company ever since. Joshua lives his life as a cabaret entertainer, under the alter-ego "Brigitte Bidet".

What is your current interest/curiosity in your movement/choreographic research?

Currently, I'm really curious about the body as a kinesthetic sculpture and how this sculpture is presented to an audience. As the quarantine has forced us to all go online, there has been a lot of research into how one can best "broadcast" their art to the digital space. The artist has a unique advantage in this scenario, where the ability to control the gaze of the viewer is much more available. This informs the style of movement, and creates new limitations on dance as a performing art.

What are you most interested/curious about for this project?

I'm most interested to be exposed to new creative processes and perspectives that can only be learned from collaboration. The international component is very exciting to me. The more I work with different artists around the world, the more I see common threads of things that inspire us all as humans; on the contrary it also reveals many of the special ideas that make our cultures different from one another. The dialogue and the shared learning is what I seek the most.

Rose Shields (USA) currently performs acrobatics and aerial as a freelancer with varying local groups and currently works with Core Dance for a 7th season.

What is your current interest/curiosity in your movement/choreographic research?

My current interest lies in the physical body’s potential and capability to offer complex and dynamic movements and shapes within itself as well as exploring the possibilities of balance and movement in partnership with other bodies that offers new ways to lift and be lifted (or support and supported). I have been playing with fundamentals of physics (mechanics) in relationship to the human body’s structure and it’s physical capabilities (acrobatics to sum up), but in a thoughtful way that is approachable and in relation to a subject matter like architecture or a specific moment in history like Božena Laglerová becoming the first licensed Czech female pilot in 1911 (source: https://www.radio.cz/en/section/czech-history/first-brave-unique-stories-of-pioneering-czech-women-who-made-their-mark-on-history ).

What are you most interested/curious about for this project?

I’m really interested in the sculptures within the exhibit (from the few I was able to see on the website) and how they are on display in relation to neighboring paintings and what debates or thoughts that might bring up regarding the connections of history to present day.
I’m also interested in working with other artists and hearing about their ideas and what they are interested in exploring in hopes to collaborate and make multifaceted performance art.

Benjamin (Benji) Lee Stevenson (USA) is a movement artist and published poet from rural Alabama. They currently reside in Atlanta, Georgia where they work with Core Dance.

What is your current interest/curiosity in your movement/choreographic research?

I'm currently interested in using text (i.e poetry and prose) as movement prompts to evoke honest physical states of being as well as imagery drawn by the body. More broadly, I'm interested in improvisation as a performance tool, confessional poetry, surrealism, and dance theater.

What are you most interested in/curious about for this project?

First and foremost, I'm always excited about working with other artists and collaborative processes. I'm particularly interested in projects like this that require us to source inspiration from other non-performance based artworks (visual art and literature.) I really enjoy the challenge of trying to convey a feeling, sentiment, a concept with movement that might have previously been conveyed in another way

Eva Urbanová (SK/CZ) freelance dancer based in Prague. Eva has been working alongside Japanese choreographer Yukio Suzuki, Slovak choreographer Petra Fornayová and among others.

What is your current interest/curiosity in you movement/choreographic research?

At the moment I am in the process of the creation of my MA thesis choreography. This project will be performed in the gallery space, not because I want to bring the dance to the gallery, but because I want to allow the audience to perceive a human dancing body in a different interior than is a theatre stage. This experience might bring to the audience new points of view on a moving body or even they could experience a new sensation that they might not experience when watching the piece in the theatre space.

In this work I am also exploring these elements:

human body as a statue (not sure if this is the right term…but for now I will use it)
audience being part of the moving picture (audience will be able to freely move in the space)
time
human touch

What are you most interested/curious about for this project?

I am very interested in the exchange of the ideas among the artists, which I believe is a necessity in order to move forward and beyond my own habits of thinking and creating. I am curious if I can surprise myself with a new perspective on the sensing the space, which memory I can later use in my creation of my upcoming work.

Scott Wheet (USA) born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, Scott has received mentorship from Kristin O’Neal, Dominique Angel, Kyle Abraham, Tracy Gilland, Claudia Lavista, Jen Nugent, Robbie Cook, and many others and is currently working with Sue Schroeder/Core Dance as a full time dance artist.

What is your current interest/curiosity in your movement/choreographic research?

I like to focus on researching feelings and ideas that sit close to my heart. As a mover, I believe that crafting from improvisation, raw impulses, pleasure & joy are fundamentally important. When considering the creative scene, visual performance art has become an increasingly stimulating phenomenon to me. I’m often thinking about how I can synthesize static imagery with movement that is personal and confident, and materials that speak loudly to myself / physical spaces; all to build installations that are radically surreal and brutally rooted in reality.
In addition, topics of identity, intimacy & loss have been sifting through my body for the past year or so. I wish most deeply for an opportunity to choreograph work that allows me to discover my deepest self, while nurturing environments where the people around me can do the same.

What are you most interested/curious about for this project?

The first and most important goal for me would be to discover the rich and unique history of Czech visual art. From there, I’d want to identify parallels between my research and subjects that defy time. For me, working in solo form is less familiar and as such vitally important to my journey as a creative. However, I also look forward to creating something provocative and exciting with new friends!

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28.4.2020, 9:19:42 | Photo: Paul B. Preciado | Category: Dramaturgy, Space & context, Interdisciplinarity, Process of making, Education, Art & Society, Other

The losers conspiracy

Key words:

PHILOSOPHY, QUARANTINE, LIFE AFTER COVID 19, VIRUS

I was not scared of dying. I was scared of dying alone. An excerpt from the text of philosoph, curatot and trans activist Paul B. Preciado author of the book Testo Junky and newly released book Appartement on Uranus.

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28.4.2020, 17:57:50 | Photo: . | Category: Dramaturgy, Space & context, Interdisciplinarity, Process of making, Education, Art & Society, Other

Sleeplessness

Key words:

CHRONOPOLITICS, FARMACOCAPITALISM, SPECULATIVE HISTORY, DIALECTICS

Pandemic commons brought Václav Janoščík to share his book Sleeplessness online on Monoskop. He is a theorist, curator and Assistant Professor at Academy of Fine Arts based in Prague. Here you find a short excerpt from his philosophical diary and if you follow the link you can read the whole precious book.

3. 5. ’26

How to share a message when every bit of news has to be breaking news.
How to be someone when everyone has to be a (micro)celebrity.

26. 5. ’26

Budoucnost je dlouhá.
Proto potřebujeme minulost. Spekulovat, přepisovat, akcelerovat. To znamená číst a zároveň psát. Pracovat a zároveň spát.

22. 5. ’16

to meet
is to have something that is ours
hours in days
and days in hours

29. 5. ’16

Maybe everyone needs to lose a phalus.
I miss my body though.

19. 8. ’16

Too much future.

20. 8. ’16

Therefore speculative history.

10. 6. ’16

When you read a text you generally have multiple intersecting layers of narration. We have the theme of insomnia; then there is the problem of being peripheral (and Czech); then of course there is the line connected with the real or the author; and from time to time, I even try to create somewhat narrative lines. Each of these layers can be read separately, yet they are deeply intertwined. The activity
of reading consists not only of organising or assembling characters, happenings, situations, and emplotment or other narrative features – by (cognitively) mapping the space of fiction we are also mapping out the wholes of what may be absent/what remains unsaid/or even the implicit point.
–
Negarestani offers a peculiar form of such a reading,which he actually labels “hidden writing”. One reads through “( ) plot holes” in order to construe the narrative. Such reading/ writing reflects and matches the degenerating (political/ narrative/ecological) conditions. In an environment where the whole is deteriorating, regular narrative fails, and we need to devise more complex, hidden, or almost guerrilla-like narrative strategies.
Such strategies are quite pertinent, of course, to the Middle East. (It remains my prime interest to juxtapose this () whole complex with the <> blind spot complex of Czechoslovakia (or even the whole of Central Europe.) As if the Middle
East were the missing point of global politics. Possessing a hidden agency that we can extract in a manner similar to the extraction of oil.
Oil as the earthly, tellurian lube dialectically dissolves into dust (Aufhebung). Dust to dust politics being the affirmation of the dissipative system of the Middle East.
–
Central Europe has very a different dialectical framework. East <> West. Contramodernity <> modernity. Being an intersection that not only shifts itself from one side to another in the course of its history, but which indeed refracts its whole time orientation past <> progress.

–

It is like love... L
Four people showed up today. Reading from Reza Negarestani’s Cyclonopedia, a book about the agency of oil that forms the Middle East. We promise a strategy of hidden writing; reading about hidden writing and love.

....

Full book on MONOSKOP

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28.4.2020, 9:42:00 | Photo: . | Category: Dramaturgy, Space & context, Interdisciplinarity, Process of making, Education, Art & Society, Other

The Coronavirus Is Us

Key words:

BORDERS, QUARANTINE, CLIMATE, MIGRANT CRISES, PANDEMIC, ECONOMIC CRIMES

We live in an interconnected world, where borders are porous, more like living membranes than physical walls. Excerpt from the text by professor of philosophy Michael Marder published in New York Times on March 3rd, 2020.

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28.4.2020, 10:12:16 | Photo: . | Category: Dramaturgy, Space & context, Interdisciplinarity, Process of making, Education, Art & Society, Other

Our crown

Key words:

TOUCHLESS TOUCH, ISOLATION, SOLITUDE, DEATH, FRIEDS, LOVERS

We are facing death, but we are also pregnant, and this is a kind of lying-in. An Excerpt from the New moon report on March 23rd, 2020 on online platform Artforum by Ariana Reines, a poet based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, author of A Sand Book.

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13.2.2020, 14:53:36 | Category: Dramaturgy, Space & context, Interdisciplinarity, Process of making, Education, Art & Society, Other

SE.S.TA TALKS with Mirka Eliášová

Key words:

CHOREOGRAPHIC APPROACH, COUCHING, ABSTRACTION, WILLIAM FORSYTHE, CONTACT IMRPOVISATION

Marie Kinsky talks with choreographer Mirka Eliášová (CZ), professor on Academy of Performing Arts in Prague about the usage of specific choreogrephic tools in her teaching and creations, about improvisation as an opening tool for later choreography, about the influence of William Forsythe technic and her research on these principlas in relation to the contact improvisation

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13.2.2020, 15:54:34 | Photo: Zuzana Žabková | Category: Dramaturgy, Space & context, Interdisciplinarity, Process of making, Art & Society

Detached Gestures

Key words:

RESIDENCY, GESTURES, MOVEMENT MATERIAL, MOVEMENT VOCABULARY, CHOREOGRAPHY, DETACHEMENT, ENSTRANGEMENT

We asked dancer and choreographer Silvie Kudelová (CZ) to tell us a bit more about her research, current questions, doubts and process of working during her Cluster Residency in the Castle. Here is what she shares with us.

Six questions for Cluster Resident Silvie Kudelová

ZZ: What was the main topic of the research or the creation during your Residency?

SK: During the Residency I was focusing my research on movement vocabulary for the upcoming solo. I have created set of movements and gestures as a reflection on the topic of detachement and estrangement, which we encouter as individuals in our society.

ZZ: What for a method you have chosen for your research or your creation?

SK: In the course of the Residency I was following the research I have started beforehand which was concentrated on the creation of the movement material for the solo. This material was then later analysed in details This discovered material served as a basis for my later improvisations during the Residency from which I was again picking up the material for later work on solo.

ZZ: What for a body you have chosen? Were you working on the solo or group study or piece? In witch context? Are you interested in interdisciplinary collaboration?

SK: As I have already mentioned, I was wokring on my solo performance. My task was to develop and grasp the choreographic method and the concept itself.

ZZ: In which phase of the process you have entered this Residency?

SK: During the Residency I was working on the prefinal phase of my project. All the other components where already established and the topic was clearly develope within the movement material. The main focus was put on choreography and the method I will work on in detail.

ZZ: How did you like the work in the Castle, was the place inspiring for you?

SK: I really appreciate the working conditions in the castle. It was not my first artistic project in this place, and exatly for this reason that the environement of the castle was familiar to me I could spend these days fully focused and concentrated on my work.

ZZ: Was the frame of Cluster residency interesting from the networking perspective for you?

SK: I was very happy to share the space for rehearsals and accomodation with my friends, who were chosen for this Cluster Residency. I found also important to confrontate my work with audience during the work in process showing in the castle and I was thankful for the fruitful discussion about our creations and proces of working afterwards. The feedback I’ve got was very inspiring for my following work.

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6.2.2020, 14:05:57 | Photo: watt | Category: Dramaturgy, Space & context, Interdisciplinarity, Process of making, Art & Society

Words do something else, they shape the direction of a piece

Key words:

TRANSCRIPTION, MEMORY, PRACTICE, CREATION

What if words were the key to working? The Brazilian choreographer Volmir Cordeiro, who lives in Paris, begins a wide-ranging conversation wit the Madrid- born dancer, choreographer, filmmaker and visual artist La Ribot, currently based in Geneva, where she teaches at HEAD (Haute école des Beaux - arts et de design) - on creation, including decision making and freedom in work, as well as relationships with others…. Shaping ideas: what is that? We introduce the excerpt of their interview which was published in Watt - contemporary dance magasine in 2017 and which can guide you in the process of their thinking.

La Ribot > Volmir Cordeiro

A Skype interview which took place in August 2016

Volmir Cordeiro: I laid out several issues to bring up with you. From there we can develop what interests us today, this conversation today, I record and transcribe it, and I give the transcription to Charlotte. Form my thesis I do interviews with dancers and i transcribe them myself, it’s fascinating. It has to do with memory or what we think we remember of the discussion. When I am transcribing I pick a direction, creating a certain distance, its quite different from reading the interview itself, Transcribing is not the same as writing, either.

La Ribot: When I do this sort of interview exercise I speak really poorly. Then when the person sends me the text, I say to myself it isn’t possible! And I start the real work, saying? “this is what I wanted to say”. And the work becomes super interesting and also huge. I realize that language, meaning the threads of living thought, have nothing to do with the thinking involved in reflection and in writing. And there I have another big problem: what do we want? The live interviews where you can’t understand what the’re saying, or the rewritten, more reflective ones? I always prefer the second option.

VC: At the same time, it’s also good to see what happens, in these more spontaneous moments, less controlled, where the words flow out without needing to appear intelligent or saying weighty things.

LR: We could do both, with questions in blue answered live, and then the ones in red corrected by afterthought. The last time I did an interview, I was completely incomprehensible but still quite touching.

VC: I like that there can be shadow zones, situations in which meaning are less defined. In any case, we won’t publish any of this unless both of us agree on what is and was said. So there will be a period for revising. But it can all be retranscribed like the beginning of the interview, examining the structure itself. What it is which makes an interview for us, what does it mean for us to be interviewed, let’s look at the words, what do they say about us, act do we want them to say about us, how do we get into this work?

LR: Yes, I just bought a 200 page book an interview of an artist I adore, and it’s just great to read

VC: Who is the artist?

LR: John Armleder, a Swiss artist I like very much. It’s a single interview he did with a critic, and it runs throughout the book.

VC: I think they should publish more interviews between artists, especially dancers, because we talk a lot when we are working, but the words remain hidden or are forgotten, there is no presentation or concrete existence for them.

LR: There are so many things we say when we are working on the staging, the choreography, the back and forth between all the collaborators, be they the dancers or the lighting designer, it is an essential part of the process. We never really talk about directing, the staging. We never rally mention the fact that in order to get something up on that stage you have to share, to talk saying “yes” no, fighting for it, looking for ideas, removing something, cleaning, dropping it, doubting, not sleeping!

VC: These are things we don’t generally have access to.

LR: It’s too bad, because they could shine a light on parts of our practice.

VC: In the work, its construction, at the beginning, middle or end of the project, have you established a special place or designation for words? How do they manifest? Is it just a way of finding perspective on what has already been done, an introductory moment to share a perspective on the project, or is there a specific targeted structure in your process which includes the use of words?

VC: In the work, its construction, at the beginning, middle or end of the project, have you established a special place or destination for words? How do they manifest? Is it just a way of finding perspective on what has already been done, an introductory moment to share perspective on the project, or is there a specific, targeted structure in your process which includes the use of words?

LR: For me it is necessary - it all depends on the people with whom I am working, for me to speak more or less, introducing or setting things up, during it explaining or just experiencing pleasure. For example, for my most recent creation Another distinguée (2016), I invited Juan Loriente someone I have known for twenty five years, we get along and appreciate each other. So he shows up, I start talking and ten minutes later we are improvising without having to say anything more - for an entire week………..

……. you can find more in WATT #1

link to order WATT #1 : http://w-a-t-t.eu/?p=116

link to order WATT #2 : http://w-a-t-t.eu/?p=118

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6.2.2020, 11:56:44 | Photo: Zuzana Žabková | Category: Dramaturgy, Space & context, Interdisciplinarity, Process of making, Art & Society

Week with Labyrinth

Key words:

MOVEMENT MATERIAL, STUDY, COLLABORATION, SOLO PIECE, RESIDENCY

We asked current resident dancer and choreographer Roberta Legros Štěpánková to tell us a bit more about her research, current questions, doubts and process of working during her Cluster Residency in the Castle. Here is what she shares with us.

Six questions for Cluster Resident Roberta Legros Štěpánková

Zuzana Žabková: What was the main topic of the research or the creation during your Residency?

Roberta Legros Štěpánková: The main focus of my work during the residency was to deepen my collaboration with my musician (Matthieu Legros), to find ways how the sound material produced by myself can be extended, played by him. Within this, we payed our attention to understanding and elaborating the characters/qualities that stand at the base of the inspiration for the piece – namely the myth of labyrinth.

ZZ: What for a method you have chosen for your research or your creation?

RLS: The work I did was training and creating/making of material (short pieces) with or without the musician, so that I could find out more about the eventual ways of our communication, co-existence, how can we work together so that it makes sense and creates something bigger. The material was video recorded, that still needs to be watched and analyzed.

ZZ: What for a body you have chosen? Were you working on the solo or group study or piece? In witch context? Are you interested in interdisciplinary collaboration?

RLS: It is a solo piece I am actually working on. Though, a musician is invited into the collaboration, I would still like to keep it as a solo piece. It is interesting, because it makes me think and reflect quite a lot about how our relationship can/will influence the dramaturgy and scenography of the piece. It is inspiring and enriching in any case.

ZZ: In which phase of the process you have entered this Residency?

RLS: I had been working on the piece since late 2018, but the work has taken place in limited periods of residencies (May 2019 one week at PAF France, august 2019 in collaboration with Melanie Venino in Marseille, October 2018 alone at Cloud/Danslab in The Hague Holland). I was very satisfied I was given this opportunity by SE.S.TA in the beginning of the 2020 to spend a couple of days in a historically and naturally very inspiring environment to re-center, see where the piece is now and what it needs from me.

ZZ: How did you like the work in the Castle, was the place inspiring for you?

RLS: Unintentionally, I have already responded. Oh, yes and very much!

ZZ: Was the frame of Cluster residency interesting from the networking perspective for you?

RLS: This time, the situation was very specific, I guess. From before, I expected a big group of artists, but we found ourselves in an oasis of intimate working environment, for which I was very grateful at that moment. To begin the year, to share my material and working process intimately and to perceive other artist´s work felt like a bliss and a real work enrichment. Also the way how the team members (Eva Dryjová and Zuzana Žabková) sensitively guided the work presentation at the end made sense to me and opened some new doorways.

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6.2.2020, 12:31:16 | Category: Dramaturgy, Space & context, Interdisciplinarity, Process of making, Art & Society

SE.S.TA TALK with Vicki Amedume

Key words:

NEW CIRCUS, CONTEMPORARY DANCE, PHYSICAL THEATRE, INTIMACY, IMPROVISATION, GENDER, ETHNICITY

Marie Kinsky talks with choreographer Vicki Amedume (UK) about her history as a dancer and maker, about her working process, theme of their project Catch me dweling into questions of intimacy, gender, age and ethnicity, her community and last but not least her stay in the Castle during the festival KoresponDance 2019 in the frame of Round about Residency.

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30.10.2019, 18:10:47 | Photo: Zuzana Demlová | Category: Dramaturgy, Space & context, Interdisciplinarity, Process of making, Education

Pedagogical Seminar

Key words:

ANALYSES OF CHOREOGRAPHIC PROCESS, EDUCATIONAL WORK WITH CHILDREN

During the first weekend in March, a pedagogical seminar took place at HAMU. It was led by Anna Sedlačková, dancer, choreographer and faculty member at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava and dancer, choreographer and dance theorist Jean-Christophe Paré. The seminar was organised by SE.S.TA Centre for Choreographic Development and moderated by Marie Kinsky and Zuzanna Demlová. Zděnka Brungot Svíteková provided translation from French.

> original czech version below the english one <

The theme of the seminar was the analysis of the choreographic process in educational work with children. The majority of the participants were educators in children’s art schools.[1] Translator’s note: A základní umělecké škola provides primary or elementary school aged children with accessible, extracurricular education in a range of artistic disciplines, including dance.

> czech version <

První březnový víkend proběhl v prostorách HAMU pedagogický seminář vedený Annou Sedlačkovou, pedagožkou na VŠMU v Bratislavě, tanečnicí a choreografkou, a tanečníkem, choreografem a teoretikem tance Jeanem-Christopherem Paré. Organizátorem semináře byla SE.S.TA, Centrum choreografického rozvoje s moderátorkou Marie Kinsky a Zuzanou Demlovou a s překladatelkou z francouzského jazyka vynikající Zděnkou Brungot Svítekovou.Tématem semináře byla analýza choreografického procesu zaměřená na pedagogickou práci s dětmi a semináře se zúčastnili převážně pedagogové základních uměleckých škol.

Přístup, který na semináři zvolila Anna Sedlačková, vychází z její dlouhodobé praxe tanečnice, pedagožky, teoretičky a umělkyně a je důležité popsat, z jakých zdrojů vychází a co je jejím zásadním tématem.

Anna Sedlačková vyučuje moderní tanec (především techniku Merce Cunninghama) a ve výuce se zaměřuje na rozvoj tvořivosti studentů. Sama o sobě říká, že pořád testuje, co to znamená být pedagog. Věnuje se však nejen učení techniky, ale také dává studentům kompoziční kontext, ve kterém na základě jejího zadání sami řeší principy, se kterými Merce Cunningham pracoval.

Právě Cunningam vpouštěl tanečníky do svého světa a tím jim projevoval důvěru. Sám o pedagogické práci píše - dobrý učitel neruší svého žáka, v principu je to záležitost rozvoje studentova fyzického talentu a snaha umožnit mu objevit jeho vlastní pohybový styl.

V práci a přístupu k tělu u Anny Sedlačkové je patrná hluboká teoretická i praktická znalost techniky Merce Cunningama a jeho přístupu k tvorbě, které vedly v 60. letech k nastolení nových estetických paradigmat. Zásadní složkou těchto změn byl příklon k materiálnosti těla a objektivizaci pohybu a s tím spojená míra přirozenosti a náhody, která aktérům dávala jistou volnost konání v rámci daných úkolů. Zdroj inspirace se tak pro Annu Sedláčkovou logicky stává tělo a reference k němu.

Merce Cunningham byl průkopníkem převratného posunu od reprezentativnosti na soustředění se na materiál(tělo). Vývoj pohybu v systému Body-Mind Centering, který řeší základní neurologické vzorce, u Anny Sedláčkové tak ukazuje na snahu porozumět do hloubky materialitě těla a aplikovat tento výzkumu v procesech tanečního vzdělávání. Tím, že poznala systémy vycházející z jednoty mysli a těla, mohla přejít k hledání jejich vztahů k tanečním technikám a jejich principům a tím otevřít prostor pro vzájemné využívání poznatků a zkušeností.

Cunningham formuloval několik principů svého vnímání tance:

Každý pohyb může být materiálem pro tanec
Každá procedura může být rovnocenně hodnotná kompoziční metoda
Použít můžeme každou část nebo části těla
Hudba, kostým, scéna, osvětlení a tanec mají samostatnou logiku a identitu,
Každý tanečník skupiny může být sólistou
Tančit se dá v každém prostoru
Tanec nemusí být o ničem, v prvé řadě je o lidském těle a jeho pohybu, jehož základem je chůze.

Cunningham začínal fyzickou akcí, ne myšlenkou z knihy či emocionální zkušeností, tím, že využíval náhodné operace a vytvářel tak neosobní prvek, který diváka osvobodil od tyranie umělcovy vize ve prospěch vize jeho vlastní. Předmětem tance je tak tanec sám a drama se odehrává z intenzity kinestetického a divadelního zážitku a lidských situací na jevišti.

Je důležité zmínit, že směr uvažování u obou vedoucích semináře byl v přístupech odlišný, ale spojovala je jejich ukotvenost v myšlenkových konceptech 2.pol. 20.století, obzvláště jejich znalost avantgardy 60. let.

Tento, na postmoderní tanec zaměřený, filozoficky a analyticky orientovaný, směr jejich myšlení ukázal na rozdíl chápání taneční a choreografické tvorby v Čechách, kde pořád převládá koncept spíše tance moderního jako expresivního a svobodného vyjádření se, které vzniká z choreografova nebo tanečníkova vnitřního nutkání a nevyžaduje tak hlubších teoretických znalostí.

Pedagogický seminář, koncipovaný především pro pedagogy ZUŠ, tím byl nesmírně přínosný, neboť zde ve výchově pedagogů chybí právě hlubší uměleckohistorická reflexe tanečního oboru. České školské systémy, vychovávající pedagogy, dávají pořád mnohem více důraz na praktický trénink pedagogů a uměleckohistorický kontext (myslím hlavně nedávná minulost) zůstává až na výjimky téměř nepovšimnut. To je však velké mínus, jelikož znalost této reflexe umožňuje

zabránit nenávistným výpadům zastánců klasického (zaměřeno více na techniku, disciplínu a interpretaci, výkon, estetickou funkci tance, hierarchii a výsledné dílo) a současného (zaměřeno více na kreativitu, experiment, proces, mezioborovost a konceptuální východiska a rovnost či prolínání rolí) přístupu ke školení tanečních pedagogů a umělců mezi sebou a obou pak proti konstruktivní kritice, která posouvá obor.
využít obrovský potenciál způsobů, jak s tělem a pohybem kvalitně, systematicky a metodologicky pracovat na základě objevných myšlenkových systémů vyvinutých našimi předky.

Jean-Christophe Paré se dlouhodobě zabývá teorií a zajímá ho, jak je možné přistupovat ke čtení díla. Jako tanečník, choreograf a pedagog viděl potřebu analyzovat a pojmenovat, co se při tvůrčí práci děje. Zorientovat se mu podařilo díky studiu sémiotiky, využití strukturalistické metody a filozofii zaměřené na fenomenologii vnímání.

Fenomenologie Merleau-Pontyho, vznikající v polovině 20. století, je pro tanečníky, choreografy a teoretiky tance či performance zásadní filozofické dílo, ke kterému se mohou vztahovat. Merleau – Ponty rozbíjí karteziánský dualismus duše (mysli) a těla formulováním zdánlivě zjevného - skrze moje tělo vidím, vnímám svět. Bytí ve světě, tedy fenomenální tělo prezentuje Merleau-Ponty pomocí netranscendentálního přístupu a asymetricky se spíše přiklání k smyslovému tělu. Tělo je se světem spojeno svojí tělesnou hmotou, veškerá snaha o uchopení okolního světa se děje skrze tělo a má tělesnou podstatu. Tělesnost převažuje nad jakoukoli instrumentální či sémiotickou funkcí. Získáváme znovu smysl pro prostor, v němž jsme situováni a který vidíme pouze z omezené-naší-perspektivy, který je však také naším domovem a k němuž nás váží tělesné vztahy. V každé věci znovuobjevujeme jistý způsob bytí, díky němuž je zrcadlem lidského chování. (M.P., Svět vnímání, 34.)

Vidět znovu prostor z naší omezené perspektivy bylo také zdůrazněno v práci se skupinou, kterou vedla Anna Sedlačková. Právě její navádění na vnímání těla přes jeho anatomické struktury a toho, jak se části těla vztahují samy k sobě a pak tělo jako celek k prostoru, bylo v jejích lekcích zásadní. Důležitým prvkem poznávání byly smysly – nejvíce zrakové, sluchové a hmatové ve vztahu k sobě samému i k druhému. Důraz věnovala třeba na práci s pohledem, kdy nám právě zrak dovoluje přiblížit a vzdálit se od objektů, tím že přepínáme z detailu a zaměřeného pohledu na pohled rozostřený, kterým vnímáme celek všeho kolem nás.

Výchozím bodem metodologického přístupu Anny Sedlačkové a J.- CH. Paré byla tedy stukturální analýza. U Anny Sedlačkové anatomických vztahů a vztahů těla k prostoru a u Jeana-Christophe Paré strukturální analýza taneční kompozice a procesů, které probíhají v choreografické práci.

Hodně se na semináři diskutovalo téma, kde pro choreografii brát inspiraci, zda musí být pohyb nějak psychologicky nebo narativně motivován a konstruován a jakou roli u toho hrají dětské psychické, fyzické a kognitivní schopnosti.

Jean-Christophe Paré i Anna Sedlačková dokázali na svých pedagogických postupech ukázat, že jde hlavně o to vědět, na základě jakých principů bude pedagog s dětmi pracovat a zda je bude umět také metodologicky ukotvit, to znamená jistá konzistentnost záměru a jasný směr vedení.

Právě svým důrazem na materialitu těla se pokoušeli vyvrátit názor, že pro to, aby vznikl tanec, je nutná nějaká vnější motivace nebo předobraz. Pokud totiž zaujímáme tento postoj, vracíme se zpátky k rozdělení mysli a těla, neboť přemýšlíme o těle jako o výrazovém prostředku pro něco, co vzniklo v naší mysli (emoční stav, představa, textová nebo hudební předloha a další) a my to teď chceme metaforicky nebo expresivně ztvárnit a přenést na diváka. Naše tělo se tak přestává být tělem fenomenálním, ale stává se tělem semiotickým a gesto (pohyb) sémantickým – významovým, znak nesoucím. Jean-Christophe Paré i Anna Sedlačková upřednostňovali opačný přístup, kdy materiál vzniká intuitivně ze zkoumání fyzikálních veličin a strukturálních vztahů a poté se teprve význam nebo požitek či pocit asociativně objeví, místo aby se pátralo po významech, které sedí.

Tato problematika je ale nesmírně složitá a s dichotomií fenomenální / sémiotické tělo se potýkají všichni, kteří s tělem jako médiem pracují. A k desémantizaci gesta se vracím níže.

Otázky Jeana-Christophe Paré se tak logicky váží hlavně k metodologii - mám problém, chci ho vyřešit, jaké otázky si tedy pokládám.

Ke studiu choreografických procesů si propůjčuje myšlenkový směr a metodu strukturalismu. Ten studuje vzájemné vztahy a místa jednotlivých prvků v rámci jazyka jako systému. Což se dá převést i na jiné kulturní systémy, včetně systému choreografického. Sémiotika je nauka o znacích a patří pod ni i lingvistika. Dělí se na

a) sémantiku – významy znaků,

b) syntaktiku – vzájemné vztahy mezi znaky a

c) pragmatiku – užívání znaků, vztahy mezi znaky a uživateli.

Převedeno na choreografický proces

a) jaký má význam ten který pohyb,

b) jaké jsou vztahy mezi pohyby v choreografii,

c) jakým způsobem pohyby používáme a jak se vztahují k interpretovi, choreografovi či divákovi.

Pro zkoumání choreografických procesů zkoumaných strukturalistickou metodou a založených na teoriích jazyka je důležité pochopit, že uvnitř jazykového systému je dichotomie langue/parol, na kterou poukázal poprvé Ferdinant de Saussure. Jazyk langue je systém a parol -promluva - jeho praktické využití. Zároveň však existuje třetí nejobecnější pojem language řeč, což je obecná schopnost jazyka umožňující nám realizaci mluvy. Bez jazyka jako sociální instituce by promluva nebyla srozumitelná.
To vše je na teoretické rovině převeditelné na všechny ostatní na kulturním poli operující systémy, které se vyznačují prací se znaky a jsou tedy důležité pro porozumění, čtení a sdílení choreografických procesů a děl.

Když propojíme myšlenkové principy sémiotiky, fenomenologie a strukturalismu, které měly ve 20. století nesmírný intelektuální vliv, pochopíme, proč se zásadně změnilo v 60. letech také estetické paradigma tance.
Stalo se, že došlo k vyvázanosti divadelních prostředků z jim nadřazených kontextů. Představení se už nepodřizují psychologii postav ani kauzalitě děje, ale na základě daného principu se vyjevují jednotlivé prvky v prostoru, stabilizují, transformují a mizí, aniž by bylo jejich chování zřetelně motivováno. Všechny prvky se zdají jako désemantizované (nevýznamové). Diváci vnímají jejich materiálnost, ale nepovažují je za nositele významu. Paradoxně však ve své materiálnosti vnímané fenomény vyvolávají řadu asociací, představ, myšlenek, vzpomínek a pocitů a můžeme je zasadit do libovolného kontextu a asociovat s jakýmkoliv označovaným, což s sebou nese pluralitu možných významů Nejde tedy tolik o desemantizaci gesta, spíš akcentování jeho autoreferenčnosti – gesto znamená přesně to, co předvádí, a zde se dostáváme opět k fenomenálnímu bytí. Věci znamenají to, čím jsou, vnímat něco jako něco, čím se jeví. Tato na materialitu zaměřená tvorba tak boří dichotomii mezi smyslovým vnímáním objektu, viděným jako fyziologický proces a přiřazením adekvátního významu, chápaným jako akt mysli. Asociace se tak u vnímatele objeví samovolně bez snahy vnímatele je vyvolat. Tím se asociativní utváření významů radikálně liší od vědomého interpretačního a významotvorného procesu, který spočívá v pátrání po významech, které podle určitých kritérií sedí.

Na semináři byl tedy obecně kladen důraz na materiál. Jak na jeho praktické zakoušení, tak na jeho analýzu a pojmenování. Jak se ukázalo, svízel pro všechny zúčastněné tkvěla v tom, že šlo o to dokázat to nehodnotícími soudy – objektivně. To, co vidím, pouze pozorovat a popsat. Hlavní hodnotou se stalo všímat si a být přesný. Pohyb tak byl vnímán ve své energetické rovině a nepřiřazovaly se mu hned představy, které v nás subjektivně vyvolával. Analyzoval se ve vztahu k prostoru a času. Kvalitativní i kvantitativní vlastnosti těchto tří složek pak umožnily orientovat se lépe v choreografické práci.

V tvůrčím procesu choreografické kompozice tak můžeme projít přes různé fáze od analýzy materiálu až ke konečnému dílu. Inspirace je chaos, kreativní práce začíná, pokud nás něco zaujme, a to si vybereme. Zde každý umělec již uplatňuje svoje subjektivní preference a tím ukazuje svoje subjektivní vztahování se ke světu.

Když to rozebereme více do detailu, tak kreativní proces nám ukazuje, jak můžeme skrze něj přejít z mikrokompozice do makrokompozice a od individuálního materiálu k materiálu kolektivnímu.

Analýza pohybu v choreografickém procesu tvorby pod vedením J.-CH. Paré spočívala v několika krocích:

Pohyb vycházející z intuitivní 2. fráze. Čistá hra. Fráze, objektivní pozorování pohybu, popis materiálu. Základní materiál – vytvoření fráze.
Transformace materiálu. Jasná energetická forma – materiál se generuje do nekonečna.
Mikrokompozice nastoluje pravidla hry, která se pořád znovu ustanovují, nic se nefixuje, pouze prohlubuje. Pravidla můžeme měnit tím, že se na věc pořád znova a znova díváme. Je to událost ve smyslu vznikání. Tím se tvoří smysl, který se skrze materiál beze smyslu buduje, smysl vznikající skrze hru.
Makrokompozice nastává tam, kde dochází k výměně jednoho prvku za druhý a dochází k rozhodování, jaké bude psaní díla.

Na semináři jsme se letmo dotkli důležité otázky institucionální a také, jak s ní souvisí chápání a rozdíl mezi umělcem-choreografem a pedagogem v roli choreografa.

Jean-Christophe Paré nás krátce seznámil, jak ve Francii za jeho působení na ministerstvu pro kulturu probíhala práce na institucionální úrovni – tzn. jak tam fungovalo školství.

Zásadní vize každé z institucí (zde zaměřené na výuku tance) - spočívá v tom, vymezit si projekt a tím získat identitu.

Poté se vytváří pedagogický projekt v rámci této vize. Pedagog je zodpovědný a sleduje pedagogický záměr, který definuje to, co dělá. Důležité je rozlišení a propojení politického a metodologického rozměru. Např. to, jaké je fungování instituce, jaké máme jako pedagogové možnosti a jak v rámci těchto možností budeme sledovat svůj pedagogický záměr. Jean-Christophe Paré zároveň upozornil, že pedagogická práce vždy bude podléhat kompromisům a že se nedají vyřešit všechny problémy. Musíme pracovat s tím, co je a býti pragmatičtí.

Protože právě spousta pedagogů neměla jasně vymezené, zda-li se mají cítit jako pedagogové, když s dětmi přeci dělají hlavně choreografie, či jako choreografové, když ale přeci chápou, že to není úplně umění, bylo zajímavé slyšet, jak pozice pedagoga a umělce-choreograffa definuje Jean-Christophe Paré.

Pedagog má dvě mise:

učí, co je tanec a probouzí žáky do tvořivého procesu,
pomáhá jim ukázat, co je za tím, než tanec vznikne, tím rozvíjí kreativitu žáků a vychovává z nich milovníky umění.

Pedagogická práce se také rozlišuje na základní vzdělání, kde učíme děti určitými nástroji a tvoříme jim základy poznání a pak může následovat vyšší vzdělání, kdy již studenti mohou dekonstruovat existující pravidla a nacházet si nástroje nové.

Umělec-choreograf na rozdíl od pedagoga dílem komunikuje existencionální otázky z politiky, sociální oblasti či filozofie. Dílo je způsob přemýšlení a způsob tvorby.

Nakonec bych ráda ještě zmínila jednu pro mne osobně nejdůležitější věc, která na semináři zazněla. Pokud chceme rozumět uměleckému dílu a umět je analyzovat, je třeba si uvědomit, že samotné dílo je text, který je vřazen do kontextu a pohybuje v intertextuálním poli. To znamená, že se musíme dobře orientovat v kulturně-historických souvislostech.

Seminář tak byl velmi přínosný pro intelektuální reflexi a ujasnění si koncepcí, metodologie a definic problémů. Což jsou věci, které se v našem tanečním vzdělávacím systému uchopují spíše intuitivně.

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11.10.2019, 11:22:59 | Photo: Zuzana Žabková | Category: Dramaturgy, Space & context, Interdisciplinarity, Process of making, Education, Art & Society

What does mean to be helpful?

Key words:

DRAMATURGY, HELPFUL, SIX HATS, SOUNDING BOARD, REFERENCE GIVER, THINKER SUPPORTER, PROVOKER, WRITER NAMER, FIRST AUDIENCE, ADVICE GIVER, CRITIC

During the Round Table: Choreographing now two coaches Kathy Casey and Ana Dubljevic were sharing the insides of their dramaturgical processes in the frame of the Residencies with Coaching. The Round Table took place on Sunday, August 25th 2019 in the National Gallery Prague, For those who could not be there, we asked one of our coaches Kathy Casey - dramaturge and artistic director of Montreal Danse to share the notes of her conference on What does mean to be helpful in creative process?

How to be helpful?

Conference in Prague/ Resiedencies with Coaching

Areas of focus

What are different ways we can talk together.
Creation teams and their dynamics.
How can we take on creation problems: blockages, uncertainties dislikes, too many choices, stress, etc.

Guiding principles as a dramaturge

Build trust
Don’t assuming knowledge
Have faith in process
Believe in group (people)
choices are the nature of the work – be careful

Research during a creation

What is the language of this project
What is known about this project
What is the practice of this project

Current questions:

What is the invitation
What is missing
What is too much
What is not enough
What knows itself too much
What doesn’t know itself enough

All of these are ways of asking: What are ways to be helpful?

Talk about dramaturgy roles (these frequently come up when people talk about what a dramaturge does) which are various ways to be helpful – there are many others…

Sounding board

Reference giver

Thinker

Supporter

Provoker

Writer/namer

First Audience

Advice giver

Critic

I’d like to share some thinking models outside the art field that have been useful for me.

6 thinking Hats by Edward de Bono

Black hat - what is not good about an idea, usefulness of banning it

White hat - what do we know

Green hat - finding ideas

Red hat - how do we feel about it

Yellow hat - what is good about an idea

Blue hat - meta, how are we going to think about something - structure of thinking

Green hat - opening out or going in

So questioning can become a tool for reframing or unframing what we know or ways we are comfortable with seeing work, ideas, possibilities etc. So that there are cracks for different ideas or approaches to emerge. To do this, we have to unhook from our knowing as well and stab into the dark.

Lateral vs critical thinking - movement in ideas rather than finding solutions

Provocations:

Oblique Strategies by Brian Eno, Cunningham IChing, words in dictionary, - the more unrelated or random they are to what’s happening, the more they can get thoughts in motion. Playful but using them takes faith that it’s worth it and not a waste of time. You don’t try to aim at a solution.

Reframing: Shifting how you are thinking about something and then yellow hat

Put in question a basic assumptions: Taking away sound in Instant Community when everything had been based on talking to create community - believing in work
Getting rid of things: everything but what you love OR getting rid of what you like the most. Always in my mind : (when) will we get rid of the first thing we really like
Byron Katie – Turn arounds Shoulds and find what’s good in it (my kids should be more respectful to me - my kids shouldn’t ..., I should be more respectful to my kids)

FLOW

Flow theory as a way to look at creation problems – Look at chart

Components

Jeanne Nakamura and Csíkszentmihályi that you need all of the following to be in flow

Extremely focused in Whole article...

Kathy Casey

Zuzana Žabková

24.9.2019, 11:58:34 | Photo: Frida Laux | Category: Dramaturgy, Space & context, Interdisciplinarity, Process of making, Art & Society

Paradance

Key words:

PRACTICE OF READING, PRACTICE OF NAMING, PRACTICE OF WRITING, PRACTICE OF LOCATING, PRACTICE OF MARIANAS TRENCH, PRACTICE OF FINISHING

Choreographer Frida Laux (DE) recently released her book Paradance on seven various practices related to her dance and writing research she have developed during her studies in Choreography and Performance program in Instute for Applied Theatre Studies in Giessed in Germany. You can read her intorduction to the exploration of the practice of reading, the practice of naming, the practice of writing, without knowing, the practice of writing not in english, the practice of locating, the seven practices of the marianas trench, the practice of finishing and see if you want to be part of a Paradance reading group by diving into the circulation of this book.

The book

the space the body

that is containing

While I am eating a chocolate pudding, I think of the space it will give to my body and how my body then will take space.
I imagine the book that will tell you about this moment and how all of that is intertwined without being a theory and without claiming any logics. This book is a book of practices.

A practice in the broadest sense can be described as something that you do and you then do again, and you do it not because you have to do it but because you follow an interest. While following such an interest, you harvest knowledge, and it is what we imagine this book to be: a place to gather people as well as their stories that are connected and harvested through practices.

introduction

Putting something heavy on your body

The moment you are reading this, the book will be more than an imagination – it is now an artefact of different temporalities that produced matter. It contains many practices that have kept it company for a year and more. Some stayed, some vanished, some are more and some less visible.

You will find the practices of this book in many spaces – one
of them might be your imagination, another one might be the one in which the book came to you and some more might be between the pages. It happened that some of the practices that grew with the book formed chapters that appear here in one possible order. The book itself became a practice of letting it be more than a practice but yet staying with practices. And so, everything is as entangled as it usually gets when we let things take their order. Now you become part of this, and it again will be another thing:

The book is a book and a space and a body and it will be anything else that you imagine along.

Berlin 2019

Frida Laux

A book written by Frida Laux and rehearsed with Carolina Mendonça und Ida Daniel /

Design: Deniz Aksoy / Objects: Filomena Krause / with text contributions by Ana Dubljevć und Katy Coe

If you would be interested to order a book fro Frida Laux write her on this mail adress : iwannareadthebook@gmail.com

The books that dont belong to the space are circulating according to a waiting list that is organised through this email so book can be a non-commodity for people to get in touch with Frida it is this email address here.

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24.9.2019, 11:21:15 | Photo: Viktor Čech | Category: Dramaturgy, Space & context, Interdisciplinarity, Process of making, Education, Art & Society

Poetheoretical Commentary

Key words:

COACHING RESIDENCIES, WORK IN PROGRESS

Art historian and curator Viktor Čech wrote a Poetheoretical Commentary on Choreographic works in progress which were presented at the end of the Coaching Residencies in National Gallery Prague and Studio Alta, on August 28th ant 29th, 2019. This year the artist who attended Coaching residencies were Laura Brechmann (DE), Elena Iachininoto – Kees Huisman (NE), Sara Bocchini, Tomáš Janypka (SK) – Sabina Bočková (CZ), Johana Pocková (CZ) and were coached this year by dramaturge and director of Montreal dance Kathy Casey (CA) and choreographer and dramaturge Ana Dubljevic (SER).

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24.9.2019, 10:54:47 | Photo: Viktor Čech | Category: Dramaturgy, Space & context, Interdisciplinarity, Education

Choreographic Moment

Key words:

CHOREOGRAPHIC MECHANISMS, INTERDISCIPLINARITY, AVANT-GARD, ART HISTORY, THEORY OF DANCE

Art historian and curator Viktor Čech is launching his book Choreographic Moment this Friday 27.9.2019 in bookstore ArtMap. The book focuses on the occurrence of choreographic mechanisms and actual dance in contemporary visual art during the past decades.The book was created as part of his PhD project at the Faculty of Art and Design at Jan Evangelista Purkyně University in Ústí nad Labem and. Here is the short introduction to the book and we will soon update more excerpts from the book.

The book The Choreographic Moment focuses on the occurrence of choreographic mechanisms and actual dance in contemporary visual art during the past decades. The book is a result of the author’s research of many years that included both the publishing of many texts and the realization of exhibition projects. These interdisciplinary overlaps are often connected in the work of contemporary artists with the reflection of analogical moments from the past, in particular with avant-garde movements of the 20th century, but are also typical for the current development of action art in which a structured system of motion, staging and the appropriation of dance forms as a means of expression became key moments. This book also focuses on a broader art-historical context, to which this phenomenon is closely linked, mostly on the previous development of art in the 20th century, as well as on the theory of dance and choreography and their historical development.

The book is divided into six chapters. The first chapter introduces this topic in terms of its roots in the interdisciplinary effervescence of art at the turn of the 19th and 20th century and its further development. The second chapter focuses on time and the possibilities of its relationship to a choreographic or performance process. The third chapter presents the key moments of choreographic mechanisms and their classical tradition and overlaps into the artistic situation of the 20th century, based on the example of the work of Merce Cunningham, a principal dancer and choreographer of the 20th century. The fourth chapter focuses on the key movement bordering between dance and action art – the American “Postmodern Dance” of the 1960s, its creative approaches and visual overlaps, using mostly the work of Yvonne Rainer as an example. The fifth chapter discusses current artwork (Kelly Nipper, Anne Imhof and Jon Rafman) that includes the physical-motion moment, mostly in relation to different forms of a scenic or visual space that the authors use. The last – sixth – chapter uses the art- work of two other contemporary artists (Alexandra Pirici and Jiří Žák) to show their artistic overlaps where choreographer Alexandra Pirici enters into a discussion on contemporary art while visual artist Jiří Žák enters the borderline area of contemporary dance.

The focal points of the book are therefore choreography in its original sense – dance-writing – as well as how this mechanism manifests itself in the current artistic situation.

Viktor Čech

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17.5.2019, 19:44:14 | Photo: Eleonora Siarava | Category: Dramaturgy, Space & context, Interdisciplinarity, Process of making, Art & Society

A fog of blurry realities

Key words:

DARK SPACE, COMMON REALITY, NANOSTRUCTURES FOR DESERT, COLD TEXTURE, DIPOLE OF INVISIBILITY, TRANSPARENCY, SPIRALLING SPACE

In order to obscure the journey we will meander in labyrinth of circles within circles by spiralling the time. Eleonora Siarava is a choreographer, performer, researcher and artistic director of Per_Dance platform of choreographic research (www.per-dance.com). Currently, she is a PhD Candidate at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki-Department of Theatre researching The multiple meaning in Abstract Dance: The choreographic synthesis and the possibilities provided by Perception Theories. In this context she studies the work of Oskar Sclemmer, Merce Cunningham, William Forsythe, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Mette Ingvartsen et.al. Her research refers to the relationship between aesthetic forms, experiental awareness and the notion of atmosphere, the connection between cognitive principles, moving patterns and kinesthetic empathy. Eleonora was one of the participants in Incubator 2019 in the Castle Žďár nad Sázavou and shares here her vibrant memories of the castle journey.

Obscurity – A Choreographic Study
A fog of blurry realities

Atmosphere is the common reality of the perceiver and the perceived
Gernot Böhme, “Atmosphere as the Fundamental Concept of a New Aesthetics”

Visuality consists of an intricate intertwining of the one seeing and what is seen
This one seeing is always necessarily a body
[Looking] is an impure and always synaesthetic event that takes place in a body
Maaike Bleeker, “Visuality in the Theatre: The Locus of Looking”

A dark space formulated or shaped mentally, intellectually, emotionally through the human presence

A dark space existing independently containing bodies, objects, shadows, trajectories, words, whispers and sounds, or even light rifts that make everything disappear..

Their common reality

A cellar, a long corridor, a floor with suspended ceiling and closed doors, a bunch of keys forgotten, some unexpected snow in the springtime, stars constellations through the bare eye of an app

A dining table shelter, symbols and cultural genes underneath. What definitions and meanings to apply. Food is served. Nanostructures for desert, please

A tactile experience of a body sculpture, its hard and cold texture. Smoothly. The touch of playful fingers while navigating in the nowhere. Unfamiliar human figures from a deep past trapped in a touchscreen of a medieval museum. What am I doing there. And here

A dipole of invisibility and transparency as an expansion of time travelling as spiralling space. Constantly moving away but never escapes

A dancing Fergus amplified. And faded while multiplied in a mirror dramarurgy. Instant choreography. instant scenography. Here and now fights obscurity

But then again.. Diving in the obscurity sea. No expectations or references of description. Can blankness, or nothingness or emptyness create an ambivalent “somethingness”? What is there to emerge, unfold, get revealed

Entering sub-spaces through expanded limps, compressed bodies, imaginary pathways, followed traces. Often in stillness

Vision and visuality and visual imagery. Projections and hybrid entities under a blue light. And other multi-sensory percepts

Install Spaces within Spaces, invite moving bodies to resonate. Install atmospheres. A choreographic installation

Closed lights, closed eyes, non-blinking eyes in the peak of the day. Strange futuristic objects, vague structures and schemas. What to do with them

Blend them with some devices from your toolkit. It is called artistic process

Photographic memories. Or mind inventions

Bleeker, M., (2008) Visuality in the Theatre: The Locus of Looking. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan

Böhme, G., (1993) ‘Atmosphere as the Fundamental Concept of a New Aesthetics’. Thesis Eleven 36, 113-126

Eleonora Siarava
Per_Dance Choreographic Research Platform
www.per-dance.com

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17.5.2019, 19:08:34 | Photo: Zuzana Žabková | Category: Dramaturgy, Space & context, Interdisciplinarity, Process of making, Art & Society

Snow in Spring

Key words:

RE- LOOPING, SHOW-AND-TELL, TREASURE TROVES

I have heard snow fall before. Still, I find it sustaining to hear its softness anew. Eryn Bell who took part of this year Incubator 2019 in the Castle in Žďár nad Sázavou works with movement of all sorts. She especially likes awkward moments, and humor. She works with what sensations can be noticed inside of one\'s own skin and what one can sense of into the world-others around oneself. From this research she make performances, teach somatics, and research social cognition. Eryn Bell shares her observations on the week spent together in re-looped spiral.

Snow in Spring

Once I read about Stellared Dendrites, the specific type of snow flake that all of the holiday decorations are modeled from. These beautiful flakes form particularly weak layers in a snow bank; such weak layers can lead to an avalanche.

As nature would have it, there was no such intense snow fall in Zdar that week. No banks of snow, no danger of a life threatening tumbling into icy abyss.

Still, we walked in the snow. Together.

Mostly together. A huddle, clumping here, dropping off there, re-looping to find itself again; bound by the membrane materials of a dining room and insistent scheduling.

Within the membrane we played show-and-tell, giving one another a peek at a tool or two from our respective treasure troves.

I found similarities in shared practices of nuanced sensing, and interest in projects which bring people together for immersive experiences, an aversion to art which shines a spot light on some individual talent of sorts, and shared interest in allowing the body-mind to unfold as it wants-needs.

I have heard snow fall before. Still, I find it comforting to hear its softness anew.

In the midst of the castlescape, and now, again, as I sit with Spring sunlight flooding my kitchen, I hear some almost formed question-thoughts roll across my brow: are you, dear clump, actively caring for me? am I actively caring for you?

If newly fallen snowflakes do not adequately bond to the pre-existing surface layer this produces conditions for an avalanche.

Is it possible to care for one another even if we do not bond?

Snow fall of less than six inches seldom produce avalanches. So that\\\'s nice, the risk is low.

What new did I find?

I have heard snow fall before. Still, I find it sustaining to hear its softness anew.

Too, then and now, a smile washes through my chest as I recall moments inside of the membrane, of the snow fall that spoke of bird songs.

I let go of looking for meaning and remember -We are made of the same stardust of which all things all things are made ... we are being nothing other than what we can\\\'t help but be: a part of our world. - Carlo Rovelli

Eryn Bell

erinchristinebell.com

theinvisibleschool.wordpress.com

eroticenaction.net

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3.5.2019, 12:15:14 | Photo: Adrien Gaumé | Category: Dramaturgy, Space & context, Interdisciplinarity, Process of making, Art & Society

Alchemical recipe to reach the Arch of Fireflies

Key words:

THE LOSS OF FIREFLIES, CONSTELLATION, TRANSFORMATION, TOUCH, STARS

Constant enlightenment blinds us. We are looking for obscurity. We occult our insomnia. Adrien Gaumé is a performer and choreographer (aka sidelaner) based in France, working europeanwide. He is currently re-reading La survivance des lucioles by Georges Didi-Huberman, where he deals with the famous article about Pasolini about shades of light struggling not to vanish or be killed by the horizon in a socio-political and aesthetical point of view. Adrien was one of the participants in this year Incubator and shares his thoughts on this one week long journey.

It turns out that i finally managed to pronounce Zdar the following when I was talking to my new dance buddies about the last research site I had been to. Not on site. And even less on my way from France and traveling through Switzerland and Austria. No. I see this as a clear benefit to my relationship with time and learning. The will is dependent. So is concentration.

Participating in the incubator residence in Zdar was a Pebel on my way to the Belgrade student campus where I offered a research process based on my mixed taste for phenomenology and the field, entitled The Academy of Fireflies. This agenda was set because of my intuition that the material of Georg Didi’s work-Hubermann on the Pasolini article The loss of fireflies represents a significant experience able to drill the body and spirit of dancers nowadays.

I was lucky enough to find out that I was still unconscious before it started. Man of a few words and kind of clerk without statements, I usually refer to equanimity and serve the space around before plunging into the thus stimulated notation of a performance or text.

The few layers of reality of the castle and its inhabitants to which we had brief access did not in any way express a real motivation to establish a dialogue. A choice of variable scale or individual details then became an option.

For me, as everyday is a new gift to learn from a different master, i let objects and venues creating the constellation calling for my playfullness. It began with two dusty pieces founded in the cellar meanwhile visiting it with a candle. Their characteristics from weight to shape, size to texture introduced me into a first minimalist aim of transformation. I gradually cover them with wax from white candles. From this stage a mutual familiarity became conceivable. Also, i started to carry them untill they will fit somewhere else.

One was an oblong bended tube and the other one an annulus, you can easily figure a ring for giant creature. Furthermore the male/female interpretation of their presence (including when carrying them), it turn insanely exciting to use it to shift the quality of candle light in the darkness by combining them both. It was either a free flame, either a bathyscaph dot.

The place was found after many walks and considerations. It made my stay for many reasons. First of all, every time my senses were involved, it was inspiring. On the other hand, its specificity and its age to support the life cycle of fish showed more than a symbolic impression. I finally managed to achieve what this place expected of me. I liked cleaning it. Observe how my touch and look turned into a kind of collusion.

What was the potential of it? Feeded by the diverse introductory to the practice of other attenders, i felt like drawing a raw back to basics. How to re-initiate a glance at elements, to light above all, the many different kind of all, not just the main, solar one. I offered the crew to woke up and place a phosphorescent pebel next to the sunnyest wall of the castle before sunrise.

The following day - despite they all desappear - i included them on a woodstick, a straight one, as tall as i am. The elements for the trip were ready!

The invitation for the mysterious performance was done. it was just a matter of weather and timing to match. It finally happens.

Here is the text my accomplice played meanwhile.

[Alchemical recipe to reach the Arch of Fireflies

When and only when your hands hold the water stream. Press them enough like you press the earth when you stand on the battlefield. where each moment conquest itself upon the fear to be the last.

Then florish the stars from below.

As well as on the stick of the shepard from the Arch.

Softly join him and try to stick your few reflects of florishing stars on his dark silhouette.

Then nestling the safe frame of the Arch, you can animate the magic stick and give a try to match as many constellations as possible.

Start with one if it s your first time experiencing this ritual.

Further on you can leave or be gathered by other attenders following the same steps.

Only the shepard of the Arch appreciate when it s enough.]

In addition, it was a blessing to try to raise myself and the surrounding poetic souls to this level of perception. With minimal resources and a clear commitment.

It gave me a bench of feedbacks about working with the invisible. As fireflies were described as fleeting tumult by my own reader experience of Pasolini piece of theory, I would say I feel it as amniotic as any stolen moment of magic. Including the mesmerizing\\\'s one!

All this was demanding and cost me a terrible nightmare every night I slept there. Before leaving on the last day, I went to check the yard of the old watermill. And a synthetic idea arose. As if to regulate the history of the domain. Anchor it to the future. To balance the industrial slope of the spiritual side of the city. To try to honor the new generation that will invent the post-digital era humanly habitable!

Let me write it like it came to my mind. Instead of mentionning a possible beer brewery which is so fashion at the moment. In order to remind in the center of the needs of the community like when it was drill to fish and survive in the middle of the forrest. With implementation of chinese funds and knowledge. Why not come up with a process to collect whiz and promote the phosphore out of it? This physical element will soon diseapper an we cannot create an artificial one. The storytelling of it requirement for agriculture and preservation of our living on Earth will soon or later depend on it! That would be like a crown in the very middle of the Zdar castle. The diversity of it users, from firemen to visitors, from priests to schoolmates and relatives might spread very naturally this new horizon of common experience quite easily.

I bet! What about you?

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30.4.2019, 17:43:51 | Photo: Zuzana Žabková | Category: Dramaturgy, Space & context, Interdisciplinarity, Process of making, Education, Art & Society

Casual report on obscurity

Key words:

OBSCURITY, BLUE, UNKNOWN, HIDDEN, BDSM, INVISIBLE, SUBSPACES

Moving in time as plants having a different pace and rhythm which we usually disregard. Moving in space of nets, nests, hollows, corners, tunnels, caves, cellars, undergrounds. Pawel Dudus is an artists, choreographer and dancer who is through his queer, migrant and feminist lense rethinking the old, hierarchical and patriarchal way of holding, dealing with or executing POWER as DARKNESS – the quality of lacking color (color=diversity) a synonym for secrecy, wickedness, evil and ignorance. Pawel was one of the participants who took part in this year interdisciplinary residency Incubator 2019 which was teasing the notion of obscurity. After the week spent in the castle in Žďár nad Sázavou Pawel shares the conversation with his friend on how to grasp the notion of obscurity

A casual report on the subject of obscurity captured during a conversation with my friend.

A week after coming back from the castle. In an intimate setting, lying together on a sofa and eating pistachios.

Pawel goes: what is obscurity for you?
Friend: I dont know. You tell me.
P: I\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'m curious to know what you think about obscurity. How would you describe it. F: Ooooh no, dont make me think now.
P: You dont have to think. Just tell me how you would describe obscurity.
F: Well, you asked me what do I think, so i have to think.

A sense of self destruction ?

or might be...

I mean of course it reminds me of some insecurities.

being suspicious.... or rather sceptical

P: Or maybe theres no real explanation to what obscurity is. Maybe its a term that can\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'t be really defined because of the fact that it is obscurity.

I mean... we can understand it within the language, you can translate the word to other languages....

F: Actually the word is describing itself! Maybe.
Maybe the meaning means this word. You know what i mean?
Because I think it means the unknown and not explainable, so it sounds really obscure.

P: Hahaha! Yeah! The words usually aim to describe something, but that specific word is really difficult to put in a box which would clearly represent its meaning. You know?

F: Actually you know what I think sometimes? Sometimes the words create actions other then the other words and not the other way around.

You usually think theres an action and you name it afterwords, but sometimes there\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s something that youre not sure about the name, but then by using the word it becomes this thing.

P: Yeah!
F: Maybe... like... it creates some kind of consciousness on that thing. It doesn\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'t have to be the a feeling

or something, it can be just object or like... a gesture, you know what I mean?
P: Yeah... mmm... not really
F: Because for instance, in „The Odyssey”, the journey, they never mention „blue”.

There was never word „blue”. They were describing the sky as silver and the sea had the wine color... bla bla, bla... maybe in the nature there are not some many blue things I guess... except for the sea and the sky

P: Nooo! But both of them are actually transparent!

F:Yes, but you see them blue.
P: Why?
F: Because of the atmosphere.

P: Okay, you know it!
F: But then... they didn\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'t mean the word „blue”. They were saying things like „sky” and „sea” but then

suddenly there was „blue” consciousness.
P: aaaaa Okay, so you name things in order to make them conscious.
F: You name them to make them visible, maybe.
P: Wow, I like this way of thinking. Exactly! This is exactly what we\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'ve been doing during this residency.

F: aaaa really?

P: Yeah, this what you\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'ve said. approaching .... we were looking at the subject of obscurity and through discovering things and naming them, we were bringing the obscurity into some sort of light, the light of consciousness, if you relate to the obscurity as something unknown, hidden or invisible...

F: you make it legit, or you accommodate with the possible meaning.

P:Yeah, exactly!
F: But like what?
P:Different things.

F: Hmmmm
P: Different artists had different proposals. One of them proposed that within the room, for example this

living room, there are subspaces, as if this room would energetically divided.

F: mmmmmm ( smiling sceptically)

P: I use the word „energetically but imagine that this room is divided into subSPACES, within the room there are other spaces, which have very specific codification ambient.

We were moving in the space and trying to discover what are the other subSPACES

F: Were you high?
P: Hahaha! No!
F: Hahaha! But this is such a „high attitude” thinking! I guess.

P: You may say it\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s conceptualizing on something that is invisible. Coming up with theories.

My proposal was to look at the power exchange within bdsm practises, as bdsm practises are being obscure itself for many people.

F: That\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s a nice topic! Because today the guy I was having sex with was a little bit like... he likes S/M but soft, aaaahm like harsh and soft at the same time. I was not sure if he would like to treat our date like that, but then you know, how can you really recognize if the person wants this kind of interaction? Thats interesting. Because you don\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'t want to make something wrong, you don\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'t want to make the person upset.

P: Yes yes yes, either you communicate verbally...

F: Yeah, but then it kills the moment.

P: I understand. On the other hand you can also recognize it by being physically sensitive. If you really observe the person, how the person responds to the way you touch the person, you get lots of information. You can navigate with it. Its like a Morse code – so to say, by reading the responses you can...

F: Yes of course, but yeah! it\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s hard to tell.

P: for example – it\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s easy to test it how the person responds to a „stronger” touch or a tighter grip - It\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s something that is still recognized as touch, You may try to touch in a more compact way and you may add some extra pressure to the body part you\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'re in contact with. You may also physically manifest your strength or immobilize the person and you\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'ll see how the person responds to it. You ll be able to observe if that triggers more arousal or if the person gets uncomfortable. And then from there you can take it a step further...

F: Yes yes yes, but my problem is, when I\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'m doing this I kind of activities, I do it somehow or people accept it somehow what Im doing. But it\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s different when people do it to me, I\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'m not used to be treated harsh... it\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s a bit like „ hmmmm okay”

P: But are you curious about it? What stops you from going fully for it?

F: I don\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'t know, I think it should be double sided
P: You mean, desired from both sides?
F: Yeah!

no no, like ... if there would be any kind of action, it should be double sided P: aaaa, you mean that you exchange the roles.
F: yeah, that\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\s what I would like to do
P: Interesting...

The music plays. The conversation continues. Listen to the track.

Whole article...

3.5.2019, 13:08:42 | Photo: Laura Eva Meuris, Zuzana Žabková | Category: Dramaturgy, Space & context, Interdisciplinarity, Process of making

Strategy to relating

Key words:

CREATING CULTURE, MUTUAL UNDERSTANDING, RECLAIMING POWER

Wondering through the mirrored strip of landscape, transparent culture is failing again. Constant enlightenment blinds us. Laura Eva Meuris is Belgian choreographer, artist, activist and dancer who is currently and continously working on her ongoing project Tracing the past, weaving the future. Within this project she emancipates the audience, challenges her collaborators and generates collective works by entangling, complicating, questioning, layering, tracking and sorting information which are challenging our bordered individualism and human exceptionalist ways of thinking. Laura took part in this year interdisciplinary residency Incubator in the castle in Žďár nad Sázavou and shares her mantra for sustainability in dimmed times.

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30.4.2019, 18:38:36 | Photo: Boris Ondreička, Zuzana Žabková | Category: Dramaturgy, Space & context, Interdisciplinarity, Process of making

About us

Key words:

GIFT, KISS, DARKNESS, MYSELF TO YOU, US

Moving the body whose nail fell down because the tongue was growing under it. Fergus Johnson is a freelance artist, dancer and drifter based in Berlin. He is thinking about the dichotomy of vagueness/clarity, the importance of play and playfulness and finding meaning within cloudy logic. He is interested in bodily states, ‘vibing’ (i.e. the mechanisms of communication within social settings), club culture and music. Fergus took part in this year interdisciplinary residency Incubator 2019 in Žďár nad Sázavou together with Eva Priečková - Slovak performer, dancer and choreographer with whome they together create EVGUS - us as a singular being, us in relation to each other, us as a nexal point in relation to the universe.. You can read an excerpt from Evgus diary on what was this journey on obscurity about or where it actually brought us?

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28.3.2019, 1:09:07 | Category: Dramaturgy, Space & context, Interdisciplinarity, Process of making

A Few Notes on Expanded Choreography

Key words:

KEY WORDS: EXPANDED CINEMA, CHOREOGRAPHIC MILIEU, HYBRID, OPEN CLUSTER OF TOOLS

Marisa Hayes a Franco-American scholar and artist who had published books and articles about dance for a variety of print and electronic media for Dance Magazine, The Society of Dance History Scholars, and The International Journal of Screendance will be one of this year moderator during Choreography forum on Czech dance platform 2019. She was happy to share her article and thoughts about her current research exploring the theme of Expanded Choreography.

The growing prominence of the term “expanded choreography” has led me to question the utility of this adjective to describe choreographic works, its implications for the art form, and how it impacts the reception of dance, among other considerations. Like any discussion of art, this may lead to further questions in lieu of solid answers, but begins with a reflection that is simultaneously linguistic, aesthetic, social, and historic.

Expanded Cinema

In 1970, Gene Youngblood’s book Expanded Cinema explored new forms of artistic production within the audiovisual field, establishing video as well as other media arts as filmic practices. This publication became an indispensable tool during a period that lacked formal recognition and analysis of how new technologies were creating a paradigm shift in the creation, distribution, and reception of hybrid works of art. Youngblood’s research inspired, among others, the term “media art”, which generated numerous theories and opportunities to discuss interdisciplinary artistic practices. Today, nearly six decades later, the term “expanded” is used with far less regularity in moving image circles, which we might assume, indicates that Youngblood’s argument that “the definition of cinema must expand” in order to include video, computer art, and other formats was eventually successful. Since the initial Expanded Cinema movement, there is a growing tendency in universities and art schools to group all forms of moving image practices together, including video and digital art, under the auspices of film or visual studies.

In the Choreographic Milieu

While this has been established at many international institutions, rendering the label “expanded” in cinema less urgent that it perhaps once was, choreographers have only recently begun to associate their work with the word “expanded”. A growing number of choreographic artists employ this adjective to describe diverse compositional practices that are linked to structures and strategies that stem from dance studies, but may transpire in unexpected contexts and forms, shifting and challenging our perception of corporeal representation as we know it. At a moment in time when the Expanded Cinema movement was at its peak in the United States during the 1970s, Amy Greenfield, for example, spoke of how the kinesthetic possibilities of dance were present in her moving images without resembling choreography that would be recognized as stage dance. Choreography might refer to movement compositions found within the editing and camera work, a concept that remains at the root of contemporary screendance practices. To provide another recent example, William Forsythe’s exhibition of “choreographic objects” are movement compositions in and of themselves, but also inspire a choreographic interaction on the part of the viewer. Expectations of where and how the choreography is formulated are called into question. Choreographer Nora Chipaumire recently informed me during an interview that for her, members of the audience are the performers and that she is the creator of the situations in which they find themselves performing. Xavier Le Roy’s recent series of touring exhibitions for museum spaces, including Retrospectiveand Untitledpresent live moving bodies in gallery spaces, but question temporal, situational, and social structures, borrowing concepts from other art forms and contexts.

WhenRetrospective was presented in Barcelona in 2012, an international conference on expanded choreography was held at MACBA to mark the occasion. Entitled “Expanded Choreography: Situations, Movements, Objects…”, the museum stated:

In the last few years the term choreography has been used in an ever-expanding sense, becoming synonymous with specific structures and strategies disconnected from subjectivist bodily expression, style and representation. Accordingly, the meaning of choreography has transformed from referring to a set of protocols or tools used in order to produce something predetermined, i.e. a dance, to an open cluster of tools that can be used in a generic capacity for both analysis and production.

Etymology

What exactly do we mean by the word “expanded”? Its linguistic roots are found in botany to reference an organism that is wider, transversally, at its base than at its height. Definitions of the word are regularly described in liberating terms, rendering something “wider” or “larger”. Examples include “expanding the imagination, sensitivity, areas of knowledge, one’s horizon, one’s views, a debate”, underscoring Youngblood’s research not simply on expanding visual techniques and materials, but their capacity for expanding sensory perception and experience. The above descriptions fit perfectly with approaches found in expanded choreography that seek to distance themselves from rigid expectations of the dancing anatomical body. Gilles Deleuze proposed the term a “body without organs”, first used to describe the work of Antonin Artaud, who equated a body without organs to freedom. Similar to Michel Bernard’s use of “corporeality” to frame the body as a network of the senses, expanded choreography is not simply composed of an anatomically structured body or bodies, but of the senses and the possibilities of interfacing with an infinite number of stimuli, including environmental, temporal, and situational.

For some, these discussions require a distinction between the definitions of dance and choreography, and according to this camp, choreography does not necessarily result in dance. The subject is far vaster than the space that this short article will allow, but as a counterargument, one might consider Paul Valéry’s definition of dance, in fact, a series of definitions, one of which includes the argument that when a member of the public is placed in a situation that allows for a new corporeal state to transpire in response to organized movement of any sort, a dance has occurred.

Questioning

But is the use of the word “expanded” necessary to describe a choreographic practice that does not resemble an existing form of dance? Is it a pseudo-radical label in the sense that it gives the impression of innovation, without taking into consideration a crossover of historic avant-garde practices across creative disciplines, including discussions held over 40 years ago regarding post-modern dance or performance art? Heated debates on these forms of creation read so similar to discussions of expanded choreography today that it is not a leap to suggest their ongoing lineage informs or have even triggered expanded choreography practices. Is not the distinction of “expanded” simply the continuation of art history and its constant evolution? Has not the term choreography itself expanded considerably and with regularity since it was first committed to paper centuries ago? Or, conversely, is the word “expanded” still necessary to underline the evolutionary nature of the arts and the birth of new practices? In applying the label “expanded”, are choreographers making an apology of sorts for engaging with less conservative approaches or techniques in response to public or institutional expectations that might not consider their choreography to align with established notions of the art form? Finally, for whom is the word expanded important? For the public? Curators? The artists themselves? As many questions as there are answers…

Marisa C. Hayesis a Franco-American scholar and artist. She has published books and articles about dance for a variety of print and electronic media for Dance Magazine, The Society of Dance History Scholars, and The International Journal of Screendance, among others. Currently editor in chief of the French dance journal Repères, cahier de dansepublished by the National Choreographic Development Center of Val-de-Marne near Paris, Marisa also co-curates the International Video Dance Festival of Burgundy and teaches the Erasmus+ university summer dance program in Paris. Initially trained in classical ballet and contemporary dance techniques in the United States, Marisa also studied butoh in Japan with Kazuo Ohno. She holds degrees in interdisciplinary arts, dance history, and visual studies from Goddard College (Vermont) and the Sorbonne in Paris.

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28.3.2019, 0:37:13 | Photo: Lorenzo Conti | Category: Dramaturgy, Space & context, Interdisciplinarity, Process of making

Audience development

Key words:

YOUTH EDUCATION AND PARTICIPATION, DOC Dance On Critics project, DANCE CARD

Choreography forum which takes place also this year during Czech dance platform invites Lorenzo Conti - professor of History of Theater and Performance on Academy of Susanna Beltrami in Milan in Italy to be one of two moderators discussing and reflecting current palpable themes in contemporary dance creations. His current research is focused on Audience development and we are glad to share his paper which will be part of his upcoming publication.

“ARTISTS, just as researchers, build the stage where they frame the story of a new adventure in a new idiom.

The effect of the idiom cannot be anticipated. It calls for SPECTATORS who are active as interpreters,

who try to invent their own translation in order to appropriate the story for themselves and make their own story out of it.

An emancipated community is in fact a community of storytellers and translators.”

Jacques Rancière, “The Emancipated Spectator”

Nowadays, contemporary dance is undergoing a new process of development and diffusion within the Italian territory. Even though performing arts are gaining higher attention as ways of enhancing the cultural and artistic heritage of our country and abroad, dance is still underestimated by the majority of the public. Very often the greatest recognition comes from a small audience, educated and deeply interested in this art. Special Eurobarometer 399 report (2013)revealed that the main barrier to access the participation in dance performances in Italy is the lack of interest(55%). I prefer to talk about the lack of education and culture.

Over the last years, to boost and enhance the sector, several Italian dance organizations have started to introduce audience development strategies, to improve and foster their current audience and to identify new public to engage in their dance activities. First and foremost, the cases of Lavanderia a Vapore/Piemonte dal Vivo and CSC – Centro per la Scena Contemporanea Bassano Del Grappa, both of them members of the European DanceHouse Network. Despite efforts made by organizations to try new approaches for growing their audience, one thing remains constant; overall there is a need for younger audiences.

Working in the field of communication and education and studying the connections between young audience and dance, in 2016 I designed, together with the critics of the cultural association STRATAGEMMI Prospettive Teatrali, the “DOC - Dance On Critics”project. It consisted in a two-year training program promoted by the National Dance Production Center DANCEHAUSpiùthat involved both dance students and university students. This educational project had a double direction and aimed at fostering the fusion of different audiences and stimulated a confrontation between various perspectives. On the one hand, it gave the opportunity to DanceHausstudents (from Accademia Susanna Beltrami and Accademia Kataklò) to approach present-day theatre and dance in all its forms.On the other hand university students, performing the role of critics (from Università degli studi di Milano) were introduced to the activities of the DANCEHAUSpiù.More specifically, 10 dance students and 10 university students formed an itinerant editorial staff*that took part in recurring lessons and meetings in different places (DanceHaus Susanna Beltrami and Triennale Teatro dell’Arte).In these sessions, attendees were asked to reflect and make observations regarding both 12-15 theatrical performances of the Milanese season and dance activities and productions related to DANCEHAUSpiù. At the same time, the students had the opportunity to meet the artists and interview them or to take part in the rehearsals and get a behind the scenes look of the performance. The final output was the DOC newspaper, divided into 3 numbers available in January, March and May, both online and in paper version, distributed in the most important cultural hub of Milano.

During the first meeting, the editorial staff decided the features of each issue, such as interviews, reviews and in-depth analysis. In each section, different themes had to be elaborated according to those emerged from 4 or 5 theatrical performances and 3 or 4 dance events related to DANCEHAUSpiù, to which the DOC participants had attended. Within the 2-years length of the project, participants’ approach to the performing arts as audience has changed: they have improved their writing skills, they have sharpened their critical eye and their willingness and desire to actively participate in a long-term period has increased. Moreover, during Dance On Critics, the university students were able to participate in dance lessons held by the dancers involved in the project; these was a useful way for them to concretely understand the physical commitment of a dancer and the many efforts and sacrifices they are asked to make in order to pursue a professional career in the performing arts.

The main beneficiaries of the Dance On Critics project were the young dancers, aged 18-25, from the various Academies within the DanceHaus environment. This choice of focusing on these young talents is due to the fact that, at national level, even though dance students are actively participating in the production of a dance performance, few of them are interested enough to be involved as an audience member, few of them know about the national and international dance scene or about history of dance.

Starting from this, we can say thatyouth education and participation could help future generations of dance audiences, because the younger are more than otherattached to the concept of community and belonging. They are eager to create bonds with peers and to be part of a group sharing the same values and ideas.Therefore, a young audience seeks a similar relation with the performing artist, that enable a long-lasting engagement with the artistic company. Building relations is a great reason for young audience members to go to see a dance performance; in order to build trust, it is important for dance organizations to take time to know these attendees and their need to understand current social situations.

This specific issue has been tackled during the meeting “AUDIENCE // Pratiques en tournant” held in July 2018, at ZONA Kin Milan. The talk was organized by DANCEHAUSpiùand STRATAGEMMI Prospettive Teatrali, following the 2-years DOC project. The overall discussion was built around youth audience development strategies: the various participants (MilanOltre, Festival Exister, Triennale Teatro dell’Arte, Teatro Franco Parenti, Mare Culturale Urbano, DanceHaus Susanna Beltrami) were asked to reflect on how to draw the youth generation nearer to the performing arts, especially to the dance disciplines. This was a first attempt to create a network, but also to figure out any need, any problematic, and any possible future strategies, wondering about the communication methods and the tools used in promotion and training paths

A great problem perceived by the meeting attendees was a general sense of dismay within the young people participating to dance performances, as it seems they are not able to fully understand a piece where no words are involved. Education was one of the main focus of the meeting: a need of educating the public has emerged as a fundamental tool to involve the youth in participating in the performing arts not only attending theory class but also practical sessions. Education is a key tool to foster the youth participation in the performing arts; it is a crucial process to increase youth awareness in the dance field, decreasing the severe lack of interest in this sector that is afflicting our country.Schools at all levels - primary, secondary, high school and universities – should be targeted: arts and music lessons could be implemented to connect students to the performing arts world. At the same time, this approach could be adopted also by the countless dance schools (In Italy about 17,000 attended by over 1.4 million students)that could both pursue a physical training and cultural teaching of dance.

Networking was the other important keyword of the meeting: the cooperation between organizations from various cultural sectors (art, music, dance, theatre, etc.), with foreign institutions, and the partnership between private and public entities (municipality, university, museums). On this basis, 13 dance organizations** based in Milano and in the Regione Lombardia, among Festivals, Theaters, Recidencies and Centers, are now cooperating together for the very first time to create a common action to promote dance and its audience through the usage of a card, named MILANO DANCE CARD. This would give to its possessor reductions on tickets price and facilities on other dance activities (lessons, masterclass, seminars…) organized by the partners. They would offer their audiences a more accessible and cheap way to enjoy shows, together with the opportunity to meet artists who probably would have never met before. This initiative concerns both the ticketing offers and the marketing dynamics. It represents an innovation not only at the city level, but also at the national level.

The major goals are:

® To build a viewing program for dance shows throughout the year

® To promote the dance initiative on the ground and to facilitate the conditions of audience participation, starting from the cost of the ticket

® To weave the communities of reference of the single partner and help the interpenetration of the audiences

® To reach a much wider audience, thanks to the sharing of resources and skills coming from different contexts and experiences

® To form new communities of spectators, with special attention to young people and to Dance Schools students

® To create a cultural habit for the fruition of dance shows

® To strengthen the spread of a culture of dance at all the levels of our society

*DOC DANCE ON CRITICS

Project Coordinator:Lorenzo Conti

Education Coordinators:Maddalena Giovannelli, Francesca Serrazanetti

Editorial Coordinators:Camilla Lietti, Corrado Rovida

Students in the editorial staff:Stefano De Luca, Arianna Guaglione, Silvia Nigretti, Alessandra Pasina, Elena Perota, Carlotta Poggi, Benedetta Rizzi, Alessia Smorta, Alice Cheope Turati, Giada Vailati,Silvia Baldo, Chiara Carbone, Niccolò Catani, Federica Franzini, Arianna Guaglione, Mara Lambriola, Diego Luinetti, Andrea Malosio, Lidia Melegoni, Federica Monterisi, Alessia Obinu, Erika Ravot, Clara Maria Sozzi

**MILANO DANCE CARD

Partners: DANCEHAUSpiù, Milanoltre Festival, Teatro Fontana, Triennale Teatro Dell’Arte, Danae Festival, Fattoria Vittadini, Più che danza, CRO.ME – Cronache e memorie dello Spettacolo, CLAPS – Spettacolo dal vivo, Did Studio, Pim OFF, Festival Danza Estate (Bergamo) e Teatro Amilcare Ponchielli (Cremona)

Lorenzo Conti is currently teaching History of Theater and Performance on Academy of Susanna Beltrami. He has worked as a communication manager in the press office at DANCEHAUSpiù, one of the four National Production Center of Dance, based in Milano. He has been carrying out audience development projects collaborating with Theaters and Festivals. In partnership with the critical review Stratagemmi - Prospettive Teatrali. He has designed and promoted, DOC – DANCE ON CRITICS, a workshop program focusing on contemporary dance and theatre writing, addressed to young dancers and university students. His research is based on “Audience development strategies for dance audiences”. Since 2017 he has been curator of the annual date, DANCE MEETINGS, a series of panel discussion and round tables focused on the organisation, distribution and promotion of dance in Italy, conducted by qualified representatives of the sector and addressed to the young generation of artists.

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28.3.2019, 0:13:29 | Photo: Zuzana Žabková | Category: Dramaturgy, Space & context, Interdisciplinarity, Process of making, Art & Society

Using dance

Key words:

KEY WORDS : USELESS DUETS, CARDS, CHOREOGRAPHIC TOOL, MEETINGS

The night long reading performance Useless lands by Catalina Insignares and Carolina Mendonca, which is a compilation of fictional and theoretical texts that speak about a pre-industrial-revolution world takes place in the Music school in Žďár nad Sázavou on Friday 29th of March 2019 from midnight till the morning in the frame of the interdisciplinary residency Incubator organised by centre of choreographic development Se.s.ta in the castle in Žďár nad Sázavou. In order to introduce the way how both artists think choreography and why they consider expanded choreography as a tool to gather and act, we introduce the excerpt of their interview which was released in Watt - contemporary dance magasine in 2018 and which can guide you in the process of their thinking.

Catalina Insignares is a Colombian choreographer and dancer living between Paris and Giessen (Germany where she studied in the famous Choreography and Performance Master, just as Carolina Mendonca, choreographer and ramaturg from Sao Paolo. They met in Impulztanz (Vienna) during the 2014 danceWeb Scholarship program. us as a useless duet is the first piece that Catalina Insignares who often works in collaboration with other artists, signs as an individual author and it is Carolina Mendonca, with whom she collaborates in different ways since 2014, who assumes the interviewer’s role to explore the question of the how.

Carolina Mendonca : OK, I am recording

Catalina Insignares: OK

CI: Hello Carolina

CM: hello Catalina. Thank you for coming to my lovely garden. So we are here to talk about the project us as a useless duet and the ideas that surround it, trying to unfold the ideas that are related to the work. So maybe we start describing a bit what is us as a useless duet.

CI: It’s a place that comes from a practice. And this is one of the questions that i still have. What it is or what it should be. What is more operational for it to be. Itś a piece where we meet together to dance. Each of us will prepare something, will bring a proposal and we will both negotiate if we both want to do this proposal and then we do it. We also commit to meet for five weeks, once a week for two hours. So It takes this rhythm that is kind of closer to other practices like your weekly yoga or your weekly therapy or something like this. Even if the meeting happen again and again the point is not that they develop into something. After they are finished, they are what they are. It’s a way for us to meet, each other, to know each other in some way, in some sort of knowledge through dance.

CM: One thing that i find quite interesting is that the duets started from this interest you had of meeting new people but willing to find other ways of meeting them, and dance became a tool to create a different frame for this meeting. i have the invitation test here maybe i can quote you:

“I want to dance with you. I want to see you dancing and I want you to see me. I want us to dance together and at the same time as well. After a dance, I want to know more about you then before. This you can be a new one every time we enter the space. I want you to propose things that you desire to do, however simple, extreme or absurd they might appear. I want us to use dance’s capacity to let us be an unintelligible, unapologetic, whatever you.”

So somehow there is an ttemp to distance yourself of one idea of dance that you had before. Do you agree with that?

CI: If am distancing myself from one idea of dance that I had before?

CM: I was thinking about your training. You started training as a more classical dancer, then you went to university and then to a Choreography master program and my feeling is that when you started to create your own work somehow there was a shift in relation to the way your body was trained. Do you feel that?

CI: In the duets you mean?

CM: Yeah, in this proposition of using dance as this specific tool.

CI: Ah! I am not sure, how I saw it was like I was missing dance when I wanted to do this and I did t because I was missing dance. i missed the tools that I used to use but what I didn’t miss was the context where these tools where used. Yeah, you are right that there is a break because there is a break in the way these tools are used and the ideology in which they are normally prescribed, but at the same time there was a missing of the tools themselves in my life.

CM: How was the structure nd how did you organize the meetings?

CI: First there were these topics or titles that came to frame the meetings and that became these cards, which Zuzana Zabkova made. Because I felt when it was super open just like “do whatever you want” it became a bit too much of a creativity exercise, also because some of the people with whom I was doing it had no tools in dance. They had never experienced this so it felt like we needed experienced this so it felt like we needed something else in common to give us a base to imagine something to do with the body together. This is why these cards with these titles appeared. The titles were duets figures so that we would somehow be able to have a base to imagine and also to imagine in a way that was already common. The cards allow me to encounter the people before in front of a table and talk about what might happen without saying “you can do this” or “you can do that” but already talking through the cards, allowing us to start imagining together. We choose five cards from these duet cards, and we both agreed on the fact that we liked them or not. Then I gave the titles to the card and told them to the person. I asked them to tell me what they saw in drawings and I also said what I saw in them, this way we built a sort of common poetics. then we decided a “dramaturgy” or an order in which we would use the cards: each one of the five cards would correspond to one of our meetings. Every week before we met we had to spend maximum 20 minutes deciding what we wanted to propose to do to the other person, this proposal would have something to do with the title and the card of the day.

……. you can find more in WATT #2

link to order WATT #1 : http://w-a-t-t.eu/?p=116

link to order WATT #2 : http://w-a-t-t.eu/?p=118

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27.3.2019, 23:53:11 | Photo: Andrej Žabkay | Category: Dramaturgy, Space & context, Interdisciplinarity, Process of making, Art & Society

Demanding the void

Key words:

INSTANT COPYING, WEARY, INDECISIVE DANCE, SYMMETRY, ARCHITECTURE, LABOUR, GAZE

The centre for choreographic development Se.s.ta within its residency program in the castle Žďár nad Sázavou established last year a cooperation with a new partner institution - centre for contemporary art and residency house Meetfactory in Prague. Both institutions are hosting artists, choreographers, thinkers, performers, musicians, writers and people with interest to explore their research in the city of Prague and in the bucolic industrial environment of baroque castle in Žďár nad Sázavou in Czech republic in the frame of newly established residency program Choreographic studio. During November 2018 Swedish choreographer based in Germany Else Tunemyr was the first resident who took part in both residencies.

The initial idea of how to think the residency was to create a space for invitation, to take part in the process of making of a dance movie with hosts and guests, to read together Satanic feminism by Per Faxneld, to be in sync in kaleidoscopic glimpse of time.

Demanding the void is a dance film which was created during the residency in the castle in Žďár nad Sázavou as a collaboration of invited artists and presented later during the open studios in Meetfactory in Prague. Demanding the void is a symmetrically synchronized slowed down choreography perceived by three cameras - three gazes which are intimately guiding us through elastic time. Demanding the void is the reference to the performance Demanding the invisible of artist Katarina Morháčová – Kata Mach, who unexpectedly died this winter. Demanding the void is a honor to her work which was always acting honestly against patriarchal supremacy and which emphasises feminist understanding of community, horizontality, agency, commitment and act as an invisible revolt shouted out loud.

Z.Z.

DEMANDING THE VOID

During my residency I was working together with Zuzana Žabková with the aim of making a dance film. We started by getting to know the space by quite simply walking around the castle and its surroundings to find places and architecture that interested us in an intuitive, energetic, aesthetic or historical way.

After some days making ourselves at home in the castle we created a score to reflect and correspond to a specific painting in the ceiling. We had a wish to let the movement reflect the architecture and as such becoming part of the space. Choreographically the material were dealing with slow, mostly close to the floor material, choreographed around words such as hesitate, pause, fluctuate, delay, doubt, dwell, linger, stutter, stumble, fumble, hang: states which are not considered productive, secure and strong but rather withdrawn, depressed, unsure. These kind of states contrast the grandiose building and puts emphasis on the weariness of the body.

At the end of the week we invited three residents from the Meetfactory Prague: Kata Mach, Arthur Poutignat and Andrej Žabkay. Without showing them the material beforehand we asked them to film it in ways that they found compelling. They all used different phones and cameras so the material has a kind of DIY feel to it which again contrast the space. The bodies of the three filming becomes part of the choreography as they are walking in and out of the shot which brings a question about labour and work into the otherwise slick surrounding.

E.T.

SCORE

1. INSTANT COPYING. With some divine features. Becoming the same body. Feeling the sensation of the other person’s body through moving. Blurring the limits of body sensation, self or other.

2. AKTERLAND SLOW-MOTION. Ready-made. Allowing for the spectator to really see the details of the work of Anna Theresa de Keersmaeker.

3. WEARY. Explore somatic practices to see if, when following the body and its functions as an initiative to move, from e.g. the skin, the heartbeat or organs, these movements can appear so organic that they come across as non-human

3. LUPE. Ready-made, tempo change. Working with platform of a square. It rotates. Diagonals different directions of circles. Grotesque and trashy, outsider. Curved. Whore and cleaning lady.

4. Indecisive dance. Movement that never becomes full. Almost reaches but does not produce. Hesitations, dwelling, falter, paus, delay.

Whole article...

14.12.2018, 21:41:08 | Photo: Viktor Čech | Category: Dramaturgy, Space & context, Interdisciplinarity, Process of making

Postmodern dance today

Key words:

POSTMODERNISM, JUDSON DANCE THEATER, EVENT, FLUX, TRIO A

Curator and art historian Viktor Čech develops the meaning and the impact of the postmodernism in relation to the history of dance. Which position takes the postmodern dance in regard to the modern dance? Trio A as critic of production. How are the histories of visual art and dance merging together? What is happening and who is Czech postmodern scene?…

Published in Ateliér no. 13/ 2013 p. 13

Significant developments in the American cultural scene of the 1960s were not limited to fine art, music and society. The decade also saw radical shifts in the field of dance art. The importance of this period extends beyond the creators themselves and is notable for the interesting way in which the work of dance artists came into contact with concurrent activities in other artistic disciplines. A consideration of this era can enrich our understanding of contemporary minimalist or performance work.

The ideas of John Cage were a key inspiration for the community of creatives that coalesced around New York’s Judson Memorial Church in the early 1960s. The events that took place there from 1962-1968 under the name Judson Dance Theater catalysed a number of crucial shifts in the role of the dance maker as artist. Key initiators included John Dunn, a student of Cage, and a number of significant dance artists such as Yvonne Rainer, Trisha Brown, Steve Paxton, Simone Forti, Lucinda Childs and Deborah Hay, who transported the traditional “theatrical” position of dance to a completely new context. An interdisciplinary collective of individuals including fine artists such as Robert Morris, Robert Rauschenberg and Carolee Schneeman also played a role. Particularly at the outset, when a desire to integrate non-dancers was at its height, artists from both camps often crossed paths and shared collective working processes. For a number of artists, this ultimately led to their first interventions in a second medium. Robert Morris’s choreographic work (see his performance Site, 1964) exemplifies this, as does the moving image work of Yvonne Rainer (see Hand Movie, 1966). Morris’s work at Judson Dance evidently had a significant influence on his minimalist installations. One of his first works with “blocks” - the performance The Column (1961) - was created with repurposed blocks originally intended for Rainer’s The Bells (1961). It’s no coincidence that the concept “object as body”, or its opposite, “body as object”, is of great significance to both artists. Morris’s understanding of minimalist installation as spatial composition, in which the viewer moves like an object among other spatial entities, casts a literal sheen on Michael Fried’s accusation of “theatricality” in Morris’s work.

Reliance on discipline-specific understandings in both fields, with their focus on contact and exchange, risks an oversimplification of the situation at the time. A large number of the above-mentioned artists frequently repositioned themselves within artistic spaces which reflected their interest in creative approaches from drawn from professionally differentiated fields. The evolution of Simone Forti serves as an example. At the start of her career, Forti vacillated between painting and dance. While the influence of her teacher, Anna Halprin, ultimately let her to choose dance, it’s possible to detect in her work a strong engagement with artistic techniques such as drawing, or the concept of work with the body as akin to many artistic actions (as in her choreography Huddle, 1961). Meanwhile, some of the most essential works of the Judson Dance circle, such as Yvonne Rainer’s The Mind is a Muscle (1968), or Trisha Brown’s Homemade (1966) incorporate not only the “task-based” approach derived from the work of Cage, but also video. In the case of Rainer, interest in this medium ultimately led her to abandon her dance career and redirect her interests to the field of experimental cinema. Meanwhile, a number of Trisha Brown’s events (such as Walking on the Wall, 1971), characterised by a shifting application of physical principles and an emphasis on effort, were framed as performance, rather than dance, and presented in public spaces or galleries.

In the Czech context, awareness of this work remained quite peripheral for many years and, where it existed at all, constituted merely knowledge of snapshots or descriptions of the work. The close relationship of 1960s dance art to the Minimalists, or artists engaged in performance or associated with Fluxus, was also largely ignored by Czech theoreticians, despite the canonical position of these movements. The international art world’s retrospective interest in the dance art of the 1960s has been palpable for a number of years and has manifested in such events as the re-staging of Brown’s Floor of the Forest (1970) for the Kasseler Dokfest in 2007, as well as a number of recent exhibitions in London and New York devoted to considering the relationship between dance and fine art.

This trend has been slow to reach the Czech Republic, and so it is with a sense of gratitude that we acknowledge that the impetus and most interesting domestic opportunity to consider this work has come, perhaps surprisingly, from the dance field itself. Under the title “Postmodern Dance Today”, the organisation SE.S.TA., which focuses on production and educational activities in the field of choreography, organised a pair of dance workshops and performances in the Small Lobby of Prague’s Trade Fair Palace and in the lobby of Brno’s House of Arts. The events took place under the leadership of American choreographer Martha Moore, who presented work from the Judson Dance Theater circle.

The Judson Dance tradition and “Event” - Martha Moore

Martha Moore continues the Judson Dance tradition by framing her presentation of some of the group’s key choreographies as “events” that emerge primarily from experimental concepts. This follows the ethos of such works as Rainer’s Continuous Project - Altered Daily (1969-70) and The Mind is a Muscle (1966-68), as well as works by Simone Forti, Trisha Brown and others, which culminated in the activities of the improvisational group The Grand Union (1970-76). Moore put her direct experience of work with these choreographers to use in the Prague and Brno “events” (a name which recalls the somewhat earlier activities of the New York group Fluxus), employing “task” strategy.

An important aspect of task-based work is a degree of casualness and chance, which affords performers a certain amount of freedom to respond within the confines of a given task. The simple tasks, which performers are assigned at the beginning, include a number of “natural activities”, such as running or interacting with other performers by following them, for example. The resulting event has the appearance of a dynamic field of play, which, complemented by the blurred borders created by spectators standing or seated at the edges of the space, suggests something between a collective happening and a dance event. Objects, too, play a role, often functioning as objets trouvés and connecting, via their improvised use, to the unfolding of the event in time and space. The entire event is based on the assemblage of parallel activities taking place across time. Performances generally occur in gallery-like spaces, which lack the typical theatrical division of stage and auditorium, and combine both mutual interaction and work the spatial properties and possibilities of the site itself.

The specificity of the performance site plays a key role, as a comparison of the Prague and Brno events demonstrates. In Prague, the performers worked in the spacious, rectangular space of the Trade Fair Palace’s Small Lobby with a discernibly Cartesian system of coordinates. Their movements and interactions created something which could be (somewhat inappropriately) likened to a football pitch, except in this instance, the individual spectator determines where the ball - or the centre of the action - is, based upon his or her position. In the Brno space, which is divided both horizontally and (at higher levels) vertically by columns, the performers’ activities became a play with the architectural properties of the space and the different points of view resulting form the various positions of the spectators.

In relation to the contemporary dance scene, the free behaviour of the performers in these events, who do not pursue dance so much as the authentic execution of the given physical tasks (which themselves are not strictly mimetic in relation to the events of everyday live), runs the risk of confusing the spectator at the outset, due to the sheer variety and number of tasks. However, sustained attention is rewarded with the unveiling of a delicate balance between freedom and system, between the agency of individual actors on their “playing field” and the rules of the game. As a result, both events produced an unexpectedly fresh impression that allowed spectators to breath the fresh, creative air of the 1960s for awhile.

Trio A

The Brno programme included a performance of Rainer’s Trio A by Zdenka Brungot Sviteková and Anna Sedlačková. This choreography lasts less than 5 minutes, so three repetitions with variations takes no more than twenty minutes to perform. Today, Trio A is considered one of Rainer’s most iconic works, and a seminal work of 1960s choreography in general. It was most famously performed in Rainer’s above-mentioned The Mind is a Muscle (1966-1968). The not-too-physically demanding sequence is characterised by its emphasis on smooth, continuous movements, devoid of static poses. There is no repetition or variation; the movements flow continuously until they reach their end. The expressivity of individual movements is articulated through their unforced naturalness and largely avoids conventional dance vocabulary. Among the movements used, it is possible to discern a number of dance-specific postures, or gestures recognisable from daily or working life. However, the given movement is never mimetic. It is autonomous movement, meaningful only in itself. The dancer, according to the choreographer\'s instructions, avoids eye contact with the audience, constantly averting the gaze to avoid an encounter.

The three repetitions of Trio A in Zdenka Brugot Sviteková and Anna Sedlačková\'s performance carry the spirit of Rainer\'s own work on different variations of the choreography. First, one performer dances and then the second follows, during which the first dancer tries to catch her eye as she follows her physically. In the third version, both dance, this time with background music, thanks to which another aspect of the work is brought to the fore: Rainer’s emphasis on the execution of each given movement at its natural tempo. Thanks to this, there are constant shifts as the performers fall in and out of synch. The time frame is independent of the music, which ends during the dance, allowing the last moments to take place in the resumed silence.

In the history of dance Trio A is considered an iconic work of dance minimalism due to its suppression of the dancer’s psychological expressivity and the removal of narrative references, traditional forms and mimetic actions. It is further characterised by moderation in performance, based on the natural expenditure of energy adequate for each given movement, as opposed to straining towards dramatic gestures, and by the unchanging flow of the dancer’s energy from beginning to end. The spectator cannot discern any clear postures, or static gestures, which might also be considered an embrace of the un-spectacular. The impression of lightness and simplicity in the work comes primarily from movement based on “pacing” – a continuous state of flow that could be described as “arriving, but leaving”, which facilities a continuous shift from moment to moment. On one hand, we are talking about set physical structures, which, with the exception of the work’s independence of music, carries all the hallmarks of artistic dance, and is thus able to function more conventionally than some of Trisha Brown’s or Simone Forti’s work. On the other hand, however, the above-mentioned properties imbue Trio A with a radically civil character and distance it from the pathos of Cunningham’s virtuosic forms or the artistic spectacle of some of Trisha Brown’s events. Rainer doesn’t cross the borders of her “medium”, but nor does she lead it towards neoclassical abstraction.

We must search for the transformation she brings in the paradigmatic of art dance itself, which has its origins in seventeenth-century ballet. The concept of representation is the subject of much discussion among art theoreticians, particularly as it concerns Velazquez’s painting Las Menimas, which can be taken as an important point of departure for questions of interpretation. For Michel Foucault, this painting was a model example of classical representation (for the purposes of this discussion, we will disregard later critical evaluations of his thesis, such as Svetlana Alpers’). The gestures and gazes of the figures in the painted scene establish contact with the viewer, which in the context of the given relationship and proxemics we could consider reciprocal. This reciprocity is found in a whole number of works and, in this case, determines the spectator’s power over the scene (if we substitute him for the owner of the work – in this case the king and queen, visible in the mirror). In this classic concept of scene, where the actors serve as means of representation for the spectator, it is the gaze and the expressivity of the face, whether direct or stylised, together with the associations carried by the poses and gestures, which serve as the essential means of expression. In contrast, the performer of Trio A avoids these means of expression, becoming an autonomous actor, who executes the choreography as if she is doing the entire activity for herself alone.

On the other hand, we must not suspect Yvonne Rainer of taking an absolutely “autistic” position. In this case, we’re dealing with a certain form of representation: an individual, who completes their action as an independent activity, non-hierarchically shared with the spectator. Such a reading speaks to the popularity Trio A has enjoyed from the outset; during course of the 1960s it became a favourite in a number of reinterpretations. Today, however, Rainer will only authorise its presentation by performers who have undergone careful instruction.

Both Sviteková and Sedlačková studied Trio A in the United States under the leadership of Pat Catterson. The moment when dance achieved a restrained form, associated primarily with the execution of “actions”, has been posited as part of a Marxist-orientated interpretation of such practices as a critique of capitalist work processes, in which the dancer’s movements are autotelic and independent of any “production”. However, this is a somewhat extreme reading, which does not correspond to the author’s intention. In the Brno performance of Trio A, the pair of performers brought a particular character to the work (even despite Rainer’s very precise and detailed conditions for its performance) thanks to their individual dynamics and personal movement signatures.

In contrast with the above-mentioned events led by Moore, the performance of Trio A can seem a more traditional experience, however the particular character of the work cannot be ignored. Its fundamental dance-ness unmoors it, to a certain extent, from the context of dance theatre and fashions of it an autonomous work, which ignores the classical boundaries between media. After viewing it, it is difficult to imagine the context of performance work at that time without it.

Conclusion

The international art world’s current and renewed interest in dance can be seen in a number of artist’s works (see Kelly Nipper, Pablo Bronstein, Sharon Lockhardt and many others) and curatorial projects (such as Move: Choreographing You at London’s Hayward Gallery, curated by Stephanie Rosenthal in 2011). Recently, this trend has also been possible to observe in the Czech context, in the work of Aleš Čermák, Dominik Gajarský and others, or in the 2012 curatorial project Pohyb v místě (Movement in Place). These developments demonstrate the importance and necessity of addressing the relationship between contemporary art and contemporary dance in a wider historical context, in order to shed light on the ties that bind these two distinct, evolving fields.

Viktor Čech

Thanks to Zdenka Brungot Svitekova for consultation on Trio A.

Viktor Čech

Thanks to Zdenka Brungot Svitekova for consultation on Trio A.

Original version in czech here https://arthasnohistory.com/2013/05/21/postmoderni-tanec-dnes/

Postmoderní tanec dnes

Článok z archívu teoretika a kurátora Viktora Čecha rozoberá význam a dopad postmoderny v ďalšom vývoji tanca a umenia . Ako sa posmoderný tanec vymedzuje voči modernému? Ako postupne splývajú hranice medzi výtvarným a tanečným umením. Čo sa v tom období odohráva na postmodernej českej scéne? Trio A ako kritika produktu…

Období šedesátých let nebylo v americkém kulturním prostoru spojeno jen s velkým rozvojem ve společenské, výtvarné a hudební oblasti, ale také s radikálním posunem v oblasti uměleckého tance. Ta byla zásadní nejen pro tuto tvůrčí oblast o sobě samotnou, ale zajímavými způsoby se rovněž dostala do kontaktu s některými aktivitami v ostatních uměleckých oblastech. Pohled na tuto tvorbu nám také může obohatit naše chápání soudobé tvorby z oblasti performance či minimalismu.

Především myšlenkami Johna Cage inspirované tvůrčí vření, které bylo od počátku šedesátých let spojeno hlavně s prostorami a názvem Judson Memorial Church v New Yorku, kde v letech 1962-68 probíhaly aktivity posléze spojené s názvem Judson Dance Theater, sebou přineslo i v mnohém zásadně posunutou roli tvůrce tance jakožto umělce. Osobnosti jako iniciátor těchto aktivit a žák Johna Cage John Dunn a nejvýraznější autoři jako Yvonne Rainer, Trisha Brown, Steve Paxton, Simone Forti, Lucinda Childs či Deborah Hay, postavili dosavadní „divadelní“ pozici tance do úplně nového kontextu. Svou roli v tom hrál i mezioborový kolektiv osobností, mezi nimi také participujících umělců, jako byli Robert Morris, Robert Rauschenberg či Carolee Schneeman. Hlavně v počátcích, kdy vrcholila inovativní snaha o zapojení netanečníků, se tvůrčí přístupy obou skupin často i v rámci kolektivního pracovního procesu protkly. V případě některých tvůrců dokonce došlo i k přímým tvůrčím zásahům do druhého oboru. Tak tomu bylo u choreografických prací Roberta Morrise (např. jeho představení Site, 1964) a videí Yvonne Rainer (např. Hand movie, 1966). Pro Morrise měla jeho práce v rámci Judson Dance evidentně zásadní vliv na vznik jeho minimalistických instalací. Například jedna z Morrisových prvních prací s „bloky“ – performance The Collumn (1961), vznikla znovupoužitím bloku určeného pro práci Yvonne Rainer The Bells (1961). Nejedná se jistě o náhodu, jelikož blízkost pojetí „objektu jako těla“ či naopak „těla jako objektu“ má u obou tvůrců své úzké souvislosti. Morrisovo chápání minimalistické instalace jako prostorové sestavy, v níž se divák pohybuje jako objekt mezi dalšími prostorovými entitami, díky těmto faktům vrhá i vlastně doslovnější smysl na jeho slavné obvinění od Michaela Frieda z „divadelnosti“.

V odděleném chápání obou oborů, založeném jen na pouhém kontaktu a výměně, bychom však mohli uvíznout na značném zjednodušení tehdejší situace. Umělecká pozice velké části výše zmíněných osob se často pohybovala v prostoru, který v sobě spojoval zájem o tvůrčí přístupy, spadající do obou profesionálně oddělených oblastí. Jako příklad stačí uvést třeba vývoj Simone Forti, která ve svých uměleckých počátcích váhala mezi malířskou a taneční kariérou a i přes následný, její učitelkou Annou Halprin ovlivněný příklon k tanci, lze v její tvorbě sledovat silný akcent na problematiku blízkou výtvarným technikám (kresba), či pojetí práce s tělem blízké v mnohém spíše umění akce (třeba její choreografie „Huddle“, 1961). Naopak některé zásadní realizace okruhu Judson Dance, jako The Mind is a Muscle (1968) Yvonne Rainer, nebo Homemade (1966) Trishy Brown do své koncepce zapojily nejen ono „úkolové“ pojetí odvozené ze strategií Johna Cage, ale i práci s videem. Zájem o toto médium vedl v dalším vývoji Yvonne Rainer až k opuštění taneční kariéry a přesunu tvůrčích zájmů do oblasti videa a experimentálního filmu. Naopak řada akcí Trishy Brown se svým založením na posunuté aplikaci fyzikálních principů a na zdůraznění potýkání se s nimi dostala spíše do kontextu performancí, realizovaných ať již ve veřejném nebo v galerijním prostoru (Walking on the Wall, 1971).

Povědomí o této tvorbě v českém prostředí bylo dlouhá léta jen velice okrajové, a pokud vůbec existovalo, zůstávalo v poloze pouhé znalosti snímků a popisů. Daleko od oblasti zájmu teoretiků byl i blízký vztah těchto aktivit k i u nás kanonické a „učebnicové“ tvorbě minimalistů či tvůrců performance a Fluxu. Zpětný zájem o tuto tvorbu z oblasti uměleckého světa lze ve světovém kontextu sledovat již několik let. Za příklad lze zmínit re-inscenaci díla Floor of the Forest (původně 1970) od Trishy Brown v rámci expozice předminulé (2007) Dokumenty v Kasselu a řadu aktuálních výstav v Londýně či New Yorku, věnovaných vztahům této tvorby a výtvarného světa.

V českém prostředí má tento trend jisté zpoždění. Lze proto vzít s povděkem, že podnět k nejzajímavějším a také ojedinělým domácím aktivitám tohoto druhu přišel kupodivu spíše z tanečního prostředí. Sdužení SE.S.TA., zabývající se prezentací a pedagogickou činností v choreografické oblasti, zorganizovalo v prostorách Malé dvorany pražského Veletržního paláce a v dvoraně brněnského Domu umění dvojici tanečních workshopů a představení „Post modern dance dnes“, vedených americkou choreografkou Marthou Moore, které prezentovaly tvorbu z okruhu Judson Dance Theater.

Tradice Judson Dance a forma „Eventu“ – Martha Moore

Martha Moore navazuje na tuto tradici, jak prací s jednotlivými zásadními choreografiemi okruhu Judson Dance, tak také výslednou prezentací „eventů“, které vycházejí především z experimentálních koncepcí, jaké byly Continuous Project – Altered Daily (1969-70) a Mind is a Muscle (1966-68) Yvonne Rainer a předchozích prací Simone Forti, Trishy Brown a dalších, vrcholících v aktivitách improvizační skupiny The Grand Union (1970-76). Svou přímou zkušenost s těmito pracemi choreografka zúročila v oněch „eventech“ (toto pojmenování nám ne náhodou připomene poněkud starší aktivity okruhu newyorského Fluxu), využívajících „task“ strategii.

Důležitou složkou těchto událostí je i míra přirozenosti a náhody, která aktérům dává jistou volnost konání v rámci daných úkolů. Jednoduché úkony, které si na počátku aktéři rozlosují, obsahují řadu „přirozených“ aktivit, jako je běh, interakce s dalším aktérem, založená například na jeho následování apod. Výsledná akce má podobu velice dynamického „pole dění“, které se svými rozostřenými hranicemi, tvořenými diváky posedávajícími a postávajícími na okrajích prostoru, připomíná něco mezi místem kolektivního happeningu a improvizační taneční akcí. Svojí roli zde má i využití předmětů, se kterými je často operováno jako s „objets trouvés“ improvizačně zapojovanými do časoprostorového vývoje akce. Celá událost je založená na sestavě paralelně i časově za sebou probíhajících aktivit. Provedení probíhá v prostoru, který má obvykle charakter galerijní haly, tedy místa postrádajícího obvyklé divadelní členění na jeviště a hlediště a spojuje jak vzájemnou interakci, tak především práci s kombinatorikou prostorových možností samotného místa.

Specifičnost místa zde jistě hraje svou roli. To dobře vyniklo při srovnání pražského a brněnského eventu. Zatímco v Praze aktéři operovali v prostorné obdélné Malé dvoraně jako na karteziánsky vnímatelné prostorové veličině, kde jejich pohyb a vzájemné vztahy vytvářely něco, co by šlo poněkud nepatřičně srovnat s fotbalovým hřištěm, kde ale divák sám dle svého zaměření na danou situaci rozhoduje „kde je míč“ – tedy centrum dění. V brněnské dvoraně, která je členěná sloupy jak horizontálně, tak několika výškovými úrovněmi i vertikálně, se stala z jejich činností hra s vlastnostmi dané architektury a i s rozdílným vnímáním průběhu z pozice různě umístěných diváků.

I na poměry současné taneční scény volné chování aktérů, kteří se vlastně nevěnují tanci, ale autentickému vykonávání daných fyzických aktivit (které ale nejsou vyloženě mimetické ve vztahu ke konání běžného života) může diváka při jejich množství v jeden okamžik zpočátku až uvést ve zmatek, při delším sledování se ale postupně odhaluje ona křehká rovnováha mezi volností a systémem, mezi svobodou jednotlivých aktérů na jejich „hřišti“ a řádem díla. Ve výsledku proto obě akce působily nečekaně svěžím dojmem, který divákovi na chvíli umožnil dýchat onen svěží tvůrčí vzduch šedesátých let.

Trio A

V rámci brněnské realizace tohoto projektu se svým představením Tria A od Yvonne Rainer připojily i Zdenka Brungot Sviteková a Anna Sedlačková. Tato choreografie, odehrávající se v průběhu necelých pěti minut, i ve své třikrát s variacemi opakované variantě tedy nezabrala více než dvacet minut. Toto dílo je dnes pokládáno za jednu z nejzásadnějších prací své autorky i choreografie šedesátých let vůbec. Její nejznámější podání bylo realizováno v rámci zmiňovaného širšího autorčina díla Mind is a Muscle (1966-1968). Fyzicky vlastně nepříliš náročná sestava je příznačná svým důrazem na kontinuitu vláčně navazujících pohybů, zbavenou statických póz. Nedochází zde k opakování, ani k variaci, proud pohybů kontinuálně plyne až ke svému konci. Výrazový rejstřík jednotlivých pohybů působí svou nenucenou přirozeností, vyhýbající se většině konvencí taneční řeči. V použitých pohybech nalezneme jistě několik podrobných tanečním pózám i plno dalších, které nám mohou asociovat běžné denní či pracovní pohyby. Nikdy však daný pohyb není mimetický. Jedná se o autonomní pohyb, smysluplný jen sám o sobě. Tanečník se dle instrukce autorky vyhýbá očnímu kontaktu s publikem, v každé fázi odvrací pohled, aby nedošlo k setkání.

V podání Zdenky Brungot Svitekové a Anny Sedlačkové se trojí opakování neslo v duchu, odvozeném z toho, jak s ním pracovala v různých variacích i sama autorka. Poprvé tančí jedna interpretka, následuje tanec druhé, při němž se snaží první tanečnice „chytat“ její oční kontakt a fyzicky ji přitom sleduje. V třetí verzi tančí obě tentokrát už s hudební kulisou paralelně, díky čemuž vynikne další aspekt díla, jímž je důraz autorky na to, aby každý prováděl dané pohyby, v jemu přirozené rychlosti. Díky tomu dochází k neustálým posunům v souhře a nesouhře obou interpretek. Časovým rámcem není ani hudební kulisa, ta končí ještě během tance, jehož poslední pohyby jsou předvedeny v opět nastalém tichu.

Trio A se stalo v dějinách tance ikonickým dílem tanečního „Minimalismu“. Potlačení psychického výrazu tanečníka, zbavení narativních referencí, tradičních forem i mimetických akcí. Střídmost provedení, založená na přirozeném výdeji energie adekvátnímu daným pohybům, nepřepínanému do fyzicky vypjatého dramatického gesta a neměnném proudění energie tanečníka od počátku do konce. Divák se nemůže chytit ani jasné pózy či statického gesta, což by šlo považovat i za důraz na nonspektakularitu. Dojem lehkosti a jednoduchosti dílu dodává především práce s pohybem založená na „pacingu“- neustálém plynutí, jinak charakterizovaném jako „arriving, but leaving“, tedy neustálém posunu mezi jednotlivými pohyby. Na jedné straně se jedná o uzavřenou pohybovou formu, která s výjimkou nezávislosti na hudebním projevu nese všechny znaky uměleckého tance, a v tomto ohledu může působit daleko konvenčněji než některé práce Trishy Brown či Simone Forti. Na straně druhé naopak výše zmíněné vlastnost dodávající dílu dávají radikálně civilní charakter a distanci od patetičnosti Cunninghamovy virtuózní formy i až artistického špektáklu některých akcí Trishy Brown. Rainer nepřekračuje hranice svého „média“, ani ho nevede k novoklasicizující abstrakci.

Proměna, kterou přináší, musíme hledat v samotném paradigmatu uměleckého tance, které má své kořeny v baletech 17. století. Pojem reprezentace, nad nímž se rozvinula bohatá diskuze v teorii umění především nad Velasquezovým obrazem Las Menimas, lze jde pokládat za důležité interpretační východisko. Pro Michela Foucaulta byl právě zmíněný obraz modelovým případem klasické reprezentace (pro naši potřebu pomineme pozdější kritické zhodnocení jeho teze, např. od Svetlany Alpers). Gesta a pohledy účastníků scény zde navazují kontakt s divákem, který bychom v rámci daného aranžmá mohli pokládat za vzájemný. Tato vzájemnost definuje celý řád díla a v tomto případě ustanovuje i moc diváka nad scénou (pokud si za něj dosadíme majitele díla – tedy krále a královnu, viditelné v odraze zrcadla). V tomto klasickém pojetí scény, kde aktéři slouží jako média reprezentace pro diváka, je právě pohled a výraz tváře, ať již cílený či stylizovaný, spolu se zaujatou pózou a gestem základním výrazovým prostředkem. Aktér Tria A se ovšem právě těmto výrazovým prostředkům vyhýbá, stává se autonomním aktérem, který jakoby celou „činnost“ prováděl jen sám pro sebe.

Na druhou stranu jistě nemusíme Yvonne Rainer podezřívat z vyloženě „autistické“ pozice. I v tomto případě se jedná o jistou formu reprezentace, ale jedince, který realizuje svůj akt jako samostatnou činnost, nehiearchicky sdílenou s divákem. Pro tento výklad mluví i dobová velká popularita Tria A, které se průběhu sedmdesátých let stalo oblíbeným v řadě reinterpretací. V současnosti ale autorka jeho provedení autorizuje jen po schváleném vyškolení interpretů. Obě interpretky nastudovaly Trio A za svého amerického pobytu pod vedením Pat Catterson. Onen moment, kdy tanec svou zdrženlivou a uzavřenou formou asociuje především provádění nějaké „činnosti“, se stal již i cílem marxisticky orientované interpretace díla jako kritiky kapitalistického pracovního procesu, kde tanečník realizuje autotelickou činnost nezávislou na „produkci“. To je ale poněkud extrémní výklad, plně asi neodpovídající autorčinu směřování. V brněnském provedení Tria A rovněž díky dvojici interpretek silně vynikl onen individuální moment, určující výslednou podobu díla (i přes velice precizní a podrobné nároky autorky na jeho provedení), kde hraje roli již zmíněná individuální dynamika a osobní fyzické dispozice.

Oproti výše probíraným eventům se provedení Tria A může jevit jako více tradiční záležitost, nicméně nelze nepostřehnout onen zvláštní charakter této práce, jež ji přes její bytostnou tanečnost do jisté míry vyvazuje z kontextu tanečního divadla, a dělá z ní autonomní dílo ignorující klasické hranice médií. Po jehož zhlédnutí lze bez jeho znalosti těžko představit kontext tehdejší performační tvorby.

Závěr

Současný obnovený zájem o svět tance lze na světové umělecké scéně sledovat v řadě prací umělců (Kelly Nipper, Pablo Bronstein, Sharon Lockhardt a mnoho dalších) i kurátorských projektů (např. Move: Choreographing You v Londýnské Hayward Gallery, kurátorka Stephanie Rosenthal, 2011) a v poslední době se začal objevovat i v českém kontextu. Stačí zmínit práce Aleše Čermáka, Dominika Gajarského a dalších, z kurátorských akcí zatím jen vyjímečně, např. autorem textu kurátorovaný projekt Pohyb na místě (2012). Právě proto se ukazuje nutnost se s problematikou vztahu současného umění a současné tance zabývat i z širších historických hledisek, odhalujících společné vazby těchto dvou dnes do značné míry ve vzájemné distanci se vyvíjejících uměleckých oblastí.

Viktor Čech

děkuji Zdence Brungot Svitekové za konzultaci a rady ohledně Tria A

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10.5.2018, 14:07:16 | Photo: Dorota Kluská | Category: Dramaturgy, Space & context, Interdisciplinarity, Process of making

Spiral reports from one week long juicy entropic journey in the castle

Key words:

CIRCULATION, CIRCLE, SPIRAL, LABYRINTH, ENTROPY, REPETITION, LOOP, OUROBOROS, BLOOD, BEETROOT, TRANSFORMATION, TRANSGRESSION, HOME, ISLAND, NO CENTER

Six artists one scientist and one architect together with three lecturers and three guides were part of this year Interdisciplinary Incubator which took place in residency Zámek Žďár and Sázavou. During the week 11th -16th of March 2018 they were all together elaborating the notion of circulation through the scope of different fields. Sharing experiences, work in progress, political and cultural loops, conventions and transgression beyond them. What stayed was a circle without center lot of pointless traces and relations on the mind maps, touched and sweaty rooms in the castle. Here are some of the testimonies from the participants who had will to take part and came to the center of Santini’s gothic-baroque land and shared their work and themselves in the loop of this ongoing spiralling.

Trailer from Incubator

Creating concepts is no less difficult than creating new visual or aural combinations, or creating scientific functions. What we have to recognise is that the interplay between the different lines isn’t matter of one monitoring or reflecting another. A discipline that set out follow a creative moment coming from outside would itself relinquish any creative role. You’ll get nowhere by latching onto some parallel movement, you have to make a move yourself. If nobody makes a move, nobody gets anywhere. Nor is interplay an exchange: it all turns on giving or taking.

Deleuze (Negotiations, Colombia University Press 1990, p.127)

Spiral report from Matej Hývl - Physicist, Departement of thin films and nanostructures, Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences

Behind the brown gate and triple blue bars, you can find home.

If you would ask Mr. Fourier, he would tell you that you can describe any function in a form of a trigonometric series. That is – you take anything; heat, movement, sound or light, and in you find the right ends of the right threads and pull long enough, you will end up with just a bunch of bare sines and cosines. Sins and cosins. Signs and cosigns. In Žďár, I managed to stumble upon some of the threads I didn’t even know I had in this tangled bundle of joy I call myself. And all that thanks to the most wonderful group of the weavers from all around the world.

The waves were omnipresent – I still surf on some of those created by our splash in Žďár, Van Cittert and Zernike would be proud. And what a splash! No wonder, given the size of that lake. The deer head – trophy and a rack – certainly not the smallest of the stones from that mosaic; the waves from it are small and odd. The lion statue and carefully counted baroque curves, the stars, Huygens silently nods.

The waves of sound and common movement, combined to make a circle again, or other marvelous shapes, took me to places I never hoped to go. And after a good night sleep (Alas! Just one.) in the yellow flat, cold like my childhood house, I felt like I was leaving home, not going there.

Spiral report from Bari Kim - Artist, writer, choreographer and dancer / Korea

One fine day, I arrived at the castle, Zámek Žďár in Czech republic. One fine day, I arrived at the island, home, rural cottage of Korea.

One fine day, I arrived at the spine, column, center, the place where spinal cord lives in.

Today, which is also one fine day, I arrived at the musical rhythm of rib cage with spiral pathway.

Whenever I arrived at somewhere,
There are only constant flows which make everything change.
I like to leave because I like to arrive and vice versa.
I want to remind that I am in the flow from leaving and arriving. Literally, going and coming is circulating.

My arterial and venous blood is coming from and to the heart circulating all the body. I can only be in the circulation. Cannot be elsewhere.

One fine day, I arrived at the blood vessel, especially capillary. There are stillness.

I sat on the very low chair and closed my eyes thinking of moments in incubator residency with circulation at Zámek Žďár.

It was very strict, free, passionate, loving, generous, strange, intimate, supportive, stubborn, friendly, profound, light, serious, playful, artistic, organic, rational, irrational, crazy, devoted, philosophical, rich, variable and more .
There were full of brain storming, full of curiosity, full of ideas, full of wills, full of optimism, full of fatigue and full of joy with full stomach.

What a crazy, unforgettable, fulfilled 7 days!
Infinite questions we brought.

-What is the circulation?
-How can we make the circulation?
-Is it circle or not?
-Circulation has a structure or any specific visible form?
-Is there start and end in the circulation?
-What if the circulation cannot be defined as a visible form, How can we perceive it? -Infinity is the one of the main character of circulation?
-Is there relationship between spiral and circulation? If so, what is it?

And now, do I have an answer for those questions after the incubator? No. not about the answer.

But yes, I could have more questions and consciousness about the circulation. When I think of circulation, It became much more colourful than before. Circulation was more neutral term. But now Circulation is truly personal and also collective experienced term not only as a term, but also as a rich experience.

Now, In my circulation world, There are amazing people, art, the castle, baroque, gothic, architect, history, museum, invisible stars, shining stars, stars of the church, smoke of cigarettes, coldness, Czech local beer, tombs, chairs, big table, broken dish, good luck, coffee and tea, food which is
not Czech traditional style, windows, deers, gardens, cakes, Unesco, spiral stairs, tower, lake, tourists, sharing, introducing, explain, land art, natural light, futurism, movable architecture, keys, locked doors, open doors, rain, snow, house plan, symbols, symmetric structure, statue, experimentations, words, translations, exhibition, installations, videos, recordings, projections, performances, improvisations, tries, vulneralbilities, care, support, hearing, smile, hands, faces, moi, hosa in the hosu and warm heart.

Warm heart is constantly circulating warmly. Hosa is in the hosu.
Moment is shining in the moment.
As a deep gratitude of life.

Thank you so much for your warm loving heart!

Spiral report from Namo - Artist, choreographer and dancer living / Korea

When I returned to the island, I felt that the feel of the island had changed.

In the taxi when i was going back home, I got a call from the person who is usually not connected.

When I returned home, the house had a different appearance.

The door of the house yard looked like they changed to the dark and dull wood.

The land around the the house was laid, the grasses were gone, and it was hardened by the come out as a face without make up.

The persimmon tree in front of the house looked like a dead tree and became a thiner then it was before. The stones that were placed on the evenly way to the house rolled here and there and continued to hit the foot as they walked.

The hair of our dog ccama was hair full of knots and tangles.

The inside house felt like transformed huge existence being independent from people that were living there originally. Sunshine in the window of the house seemed to have nothing to do with me.

Many things have changed. It seems that they were worried about how to accept me in their flow.

But they did not have to worry. I was already in the flow.

I also changed.

And again we all changed.

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5.11.2018, 0:40:35 | Photo: Jordi Galí | Category: Dramaturgy, Space & context, Interdisciplinarity, Process of making, Art & Society, Other

Performing Community in Curves

Key words:

ARCHITECTURE, SPIRAL, GESTURE, COMMUNITY, PROCESS

At the end of September 2019, SE.S.TA Centre for Choreographic Development in collaboration with Prague City Gallery presented the installation Pavillon Fuller in the form of a performance. Pavillon Fuller performs the interaction of dance, space and architecture. It investigates their relationship through a simple installation built of wood and a light rope system, which remains in the Troja Palace gardens as part of the exhibitions and as an invitation to dialogue and encounter. Pavillon Fuller references the work of Richard Buckminster Fuller, architect and the founding father of tensegrity, the principle applied in the Pavillon’s construction. What does choreographer and dancer Jordi Galí, creator of the project, have to say about Pavillon Fuller and other subjects?

Performing Community in Curves

What is the main aim of the Pavillon Fuller project?

Alongside my work as a performer and creator, I have long been engaged in pedagogical activities and in the last few years, the connections between experience and research, and between artistic creation and pedagogy have become the most interesting to me. The work we do is slow, it takes quite a long time to build something, to construct, to master it. This style of work requires automation. It is thus quite difficult to transfer it to a group that doesn’t have experience with it yet. In the context of the Pavillon Fuller project, I wanted, first of all, to introduce people to the questions of practice that I’ve been working with for a long time. We create a shared time between the team and participants, who concentrate on concrete and poetic assignments.

Why is community an important part of the creation process?

I wanted to create a simple structure that would work with materials that are available and easy to work with. The goal was to assemble a group of people and to allow them to go through a staged process of creation during which we would collaboratively create a monumental, ephemeral structure. In the context of such a process, we encourage solidarity, the ability to listen and collaborate in a group. The idea of assemblage is thus present in all layers of the working process. How can we create complexity - which creates another, new meaning - by connecting simple, unified materials? How can we foster esprit de corps and community feeling in an individualistic environment? It would be easy to argue that the capacity of the group's thinking exceeds the growth of its competences.

A Reflection on Discussions at the Choreographic Forum, Czech Dance Platform 2018

Key words:

SPACE, DRAMATURGY, PLACE, SITE, FIELD, CAMP, CHOREO, BALLET, MODERN, POSTMODERN DANCE, NEW DRAMATURGY

Marie Kinsky, who organised, moderated and created the concept of the Choreographic Forum held during CDP, stated that the aim of the forum was not to critically evaluate performances, but to take them as reference points to better understand how we work as artists and how we communicate with the spectator. In other words, what tools do today’s artists use to express themselves and communicate with spectators, why are these the tools in use and via what means does communication take place?

…It’s often possible to detect resistance or disinterest in debates of this type among many Czech dance artists, dramaturgs, supporters and producers, as well as among critics (not a single Czech dance critic was in attendance). Without judging the legitimacy of their position, which exceeds my brief, I can at least join Pierre Bourdieu in asking “Why such implacable hostility to those who try to advance the understanding of the work of art and of aesthetic experience…? Why, in short, such resistance to analysis…? Against all those defenders of the unknowable…I would oppose this…thought of Goethe’s…: ‘Our opinion is that it well becomes man to assume that there is something unknowable [here regarding artistic works], but that he does not have to set any limit to his enquiry’” (xvii).

Bourdieu then also observes, that love (for art or dance), “…feels founded in its object. It is in order to convince oneself of being in the right in (or having reasons for) loving that such love so often has recourse to commentary […] which, as well its minimal effect of redoubling his or her belief may also awaken and summon others to that belief” (xix). That is all that I would like to add in defence of the discussion and debate of art; it’s also appropriate to thank the Centre for Choreographic Development and Marie Kinsky in particular for their long-term efforts on behalf of such reflections on dance.

The main guests participating in the Choreographic Forum included Roberto Frantini Serafide and Maria Serina. From the beginning, Serafide was the dominant voice in the discussion and commanded the discursive field. Well-practiced in expressing himself precisely, he moved from the analysis of specific performances to an in-depth analysis of the evolution of dramaturgy in dance performances against the historical-cultural backdrop of the 20th century…

Author: Hana Polanská

Reference:

Bourdieu, Pierre (1995) The Rules of Art. Trans Susan Emanuel. Stanford, CA: Stanford UP.

Thoughts on the Theme of Circulation

Key words:

PROCESS, RESINANCE, CHOREOGRAPIC MOMENT, MENTAL MAP, REPRESENTATION, LABYRINTH

It’s obvious that the Centre for Choreographic Development is about creative, rather than presentation, strategies. It has long concerned itself with creativity and the process of artistic creation, without emphasis on a performance or a resulting product. The aim thus becomes creative process itself, which can be used in the longer-term development of the artist’s work. SE.S.TA is aware that phenomenon of innovation is the result of investment in the individual and has long brought this neoliberal idea, which is part of the cultural and educational policies of all developed countries, to the Czech dance environment. Interdisciplinary Incubator: SE.S.TA Centre for Choreographic Development, 11.3-16.3.2018, Žďár nad Sázavou.

The Interdisciplinary Incubator follows the influential thought of French philosopher Gilles Deleuze, famous for his creative approach to philosophy. As he writes in his Negotiations: “What I’m interested in are the relations between the arts, science, and philosophy. There’s no order of priority among these disciplines. Each is creative. The true object of science is to create functions, the true object of art is to create sensory aggregates, and the object of philosophy is to create concepts. From this viewpoint, given these general heads, however sketchy, of function, aggregate and concept, we can pose the question of echoes and resonances between them […] Creation’s all about mediators…I need my mediators to express myself, and they’d never express themselves without me: you’re always working in a group, even when you seem to be on your own” (1995: 123, 125).

Three carefully chosen pairs took part in the Interdisciplinary Incubator: Bari Kim & NAMO, Howool Baek and Matthias Erian and Denisa Švachová and Lucie Doležalová. These artists operate not only in the sphere of choreography but also in sound (music) and visual art. This led to a rare situation where the artistic and human maturity of all participants was very high and was complemented by excellent expert guests and a very well-prepared programme from the organisers, all of which had a positive influence on the overall quality of the creative workshop.

…the fact that the Centre for Choreographic Development didn’t select only artists from the field of dance for its workshop is evidence that the phenomenon of dance can be perceived in a broader art-historical context. Namely, in recent decades, we have seen a fair number of visual artists work with dance or choreography in a contemporary art context; as a result, we’ve seen that choreography speaks significantly to the discourses of contemporary art…

The various types of mind maps created naturally drew my thoughts to Umberto Eco’s general definition, which distinguishes three possible types of circulatory movement in a labyrinthine environment, which reveal both the diversity of structure in the world and in the history of thought.

The first is the classical, one-way labyrinth, where a single path leads from the edges of the labyrinth to its centre and back out again. The second type is the maze, where the paths continue to branch, abruptly end and require us to retrace our steps until we find the right one.

The third type of labyrinth is the network, where any point in the system can be connected to any other point and where neither centre nor edges, interior or exterior exist.

Circulation is thus the ceaseless movement of our world and retains a magical quality, despite scientific advances. Engaging with the theme of circulation thus becomes indispensable for art and creativity.

What did I take from the School is Dancing Seminar? How did it enrich me?

Key words:

KEYWORDS: PROJECTS FOR SCHOOLS, CHOREOGRAPHY, SENSES, HUMAN BODY, MATHEMATICS, CRAFTS, EDUCATION, CHILDREN, PEDAGOGY, ANDRAGOGY

Seminar for pedagogues as part of the project School is Dancing took place in autumn 2015. The project itself then took place in the third grade of a rural school where one of the participants and teachers Petra Vykydalová Kupková applied methods gained during the seminar. Here we share her questions and report from the seminar.

I attended again in autumn 2016 and this time the seminar was somehow more meaningful to me, more graspable, more in-depth…it added pieces to the mosaic, allowing me to visualise the whole of the project: its intention, the people who do it, their reasons for doing it and the great opportunity to bring something to school education that is both “different and at the same time something as natural as movement and the perception of ourselves and the others, with whom we spend some much of our lives…I needed to gain experience in working with children and choreographers. I was lucky…to find both an excellent dance guide (Jan Bárta) and wonderful children from the Bobrová School. Thank you for this opportunity.

What did the seminar bring to me and how was I enriched? Above all, it confirmed for me many things that I had perceived and already knew somewhere inside myself, namely, that it is good:

• to be guided and inspired by children

• to co-create

• to work with what the children bring, what they are currently going through and what the group dynamics will support

• to not be afraid to exceed your own borders and limitations

• to not be afraid that something will be bad

• to not be afraid to step outside the frame of the lesson plan

• to not fear otherness

• to be absorbed in the authenticity of children’s movement

• to be alone

I wish us all the flavour and joy of movement. Let the schools dance!

Space and Circulation for Pedagogues

Key words:

CHOREOGRAPHY, SENSES, HUMAN BODY, PEDAGOGY, ANDRAGOGY, ARCHITECTURE, SPACE, CIRCULATION, DANCE, INSPIRATION

February’s Dance Pedagogy Workshop (seminar) from SE.S.TA Centre for Choreographic Development was dedicated to the theme of space and circulation within it. It brought together novice and experienced dance teachers from art schools, as well as dancers and choreographers - aspiring pedagogues - with French dancer and dance pedagogue Sophie Billy, dancer, choreographer and pedagogue Mirka Eliášová, architect Dorota Kluska and a coach - myself. Interdisciplinarity and a wealth of experience and approaches to the theme underpinned the days we spent together. The main themes were dance, pedagogy, space and circulation. Space and circulation were considered from the point of view of dance

We asked ourselves questions.

The seminar had two avenues of interest, formulated into two questions: What is space for dance and how can it be used? What are pedagogical activities and what are their aims?

The circle of participants were first asked to respond to different, introductory questions: What does circulation mean to you? What does pedagogy mean to you? The clarification of what was said gradually became another underlying theme of the seminar.

The following responses were registered on the theme of circulation: vortex; cycles; the release and return of energy in space; internal and external communication; new beginnings; the release of air in space; blending or interweaving; movement in space; the creation of shapes; free and open circulation; infinite circulation; circle and movement and media; the movement of people in space; breath; transformation between flow, space and people; transformation at the level of body and thought; circulation and dissemination of thoughts and emotions in dialogue…

The architecture of the dance lesson

Sophie Billy then introduced dance practice. Sophie proceeds step by step in her lessons and builds them as their own type of architecture. She raises various themes. For example: Awakening sensorial perception. Awareness of one’s own body. The moment two dancers meet in the space, coming closer to one person and moving further away from another. Dynamics. Energy. Movement. Space. We go towards someone and then we leave someone. Attention. Sophie asks questions: What happens in the body when we meet someone? What happens between the head and the chest? How is the view of the other linked to the movement of the body? Encounters with furniture deployed in space. Moments of decision. Examination of the illuminated space and the imaginary space of darkness; the creation of two worlds: an illuminated world for encounters with others and an unknown world of darkness, where we encounter ourselves. To feel in the body what happens in these two worlds. The idea of walls in the space - an individual builds architecture with their imagination. Moments of surprise. Encounters with internal space. Encounters with others in space. How does furniture in the external space influence internal space? How does internal space influence imaginary walls? The transition between two imaginative spaces. Sophie finishes with the sentence, “find an ending.”

Sophie’s session as perceived by an external observer: First, the establishment of a shared space. Clear instructions. A gradual loss of order and transference of greater responsibility for what happens in the room to the dancers. This appeared to increase their energy, creativity and enjoyment of dance.

Through breath

Mirka Eliášová’s lesson for seminar participants was based on the internal space of the body and progressed from here to the external space. She began with breathing individually, then breathing in pairs. Listening and observing the space of the other. “Perceive what your partner needs. Support them in what they are making,” said Mirka. She was also concerned with how to make a safe space for the other in dance. Dance with closed eyes. Activate the internal space. Circulate in a circle. Break the circle. Breathe in pairs - the activation of rhythm and elements of time. Exploration of external space. Phrasing. Influence of the partner’s timing in pairs - leading, following…

Eva Orcígrová

Zatanči mi katedrálu… …a postav mi tanec

Key words:

CHOREOGRAFIE, SMYSLY, LIDSKÉ TĚLO, PEDAGOGIKA, PLÁN, ARCHITEKTURA, PARTITURA, CIRKULACE, TANEC, INSPIRACE, DYNAMIKA, SITE SPECIFIC

Na úplném začátku, kdy jsem vstoupil na, pro mě málo známou taneční palubu tohoto workshopu, jsme vymýšleli různé konstrukce a paralely mezi architekturou, prostorem a tancem. Vznikly při tom dvě krásné cesty vzájemné konfrontace těchto dvou disciplín. Jedna směřovala od architektury zaznamenané ve formě plánů a výkresů do tanečního, respektive tancem vyjádřeného prostoru a druhá šla opačným směrem, kdy jsme vytvářeli základní taneční typologii pomocí grafického záznamu primárních tanečních prvků, ze kterých se následně stavěly „architektonické“ kompozice.

Za všemi těmito vibrujícími úvahami mi však pořád rezonoval, pro mě, tance ne toliko neznalého, jeden problém. Architektura je z podstaty věci statická záležitost. Život a pohyb se do nich vlévá pomocí světla, díky lidské přítomnosti a činnosti, která do ní vpisuje vlastní příběhy. My ale stáli před úkolem, jak statickou kompozici architektonické stavby vyjádřit v pohybu, tedy tancem. Byla to pro mě největší otázka a zároveň obava a nesmírně jsem se těšil na výsledky, které dílna ukáže.

A ty výsledky byly ohromující. Začaly mě napadat paralely, kdy tanečnice, jako tužka klouzající po papíru, vykresluje pohybem prostor. Uvědomil jsem si, že podobně jako prostor zaznamenáváme kresbou, ale také modelováním či jinou technikou – tedy vše jsou to na pohybu založené techniky - podobně i tělo tanečníka vytvářející trajektorie v prostoru může popsat stavbu, může ji zatančit, popsat.

Bylo krásným uvědoměním, že proces vyjádření stavby může mít nekonečno rovin.

Začínali jsme od prostého až popisného vyjádření půdorysné kompozice vycházející z plánů…. Dále se pokračovalo více a více abstraktními formami, čtením jednotlivých typologických částí staveb. Účastníci zcela přirozeně a citlivě začali plány cítit a hledat v nich anomálie a odchylky, začali je třídit. Třídili významy uvnitř grafických záznamů výkresů… a reagovali na ně tancem. Bylo to vzrušující.

Začal jsem si uvědomovat, jak nekonečná a bohatá je cesta tohoto srovnání, začal jsem si představovat například úkol: vytvořte tři elementy (ze svých těl), kterými budete definovat stavbu. Budiž to hmota jako materie, budiž to světlo, které hmotu popisuje svými stíny a budiž to život, který v prostoru tepe…

Vzrušení, nadšení, očekávání… pocity, které mě doprovázeli před, během i po této skvělé dílně… rád bych zůstal i nadále v procesu.

Pedagogický seminář a dílny: Členění prostoru v pedagogice tance – architekturální přístup

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23.3.2020, 13:38:48 | Photo: Zuzana Demlová | Category: Interdisciplinarity, Process of making, Education, Art & Society

Useful references from Jean-Christophe Paré and Anka Sedlačková

Key words:

SPECTATOR, OPEN WORK, POETRY, LOGIC OF SESNE, PHENOMENOLOGY OF PERCEPTION, SEMIOSIS, INTERTEXTUALITY, BMC

Pedagogical seminar took place this spring from 6th–8th of March 2020. The seminar was intended for all teachers who are interested in further development of their skills, methods and approaches to teaching and learning. Participants were mutually sharing tools for analysis and comparison of divers pedagogical approaches, systems and philosophies. Seminar was led by Anna Sedlačková (SK/CZ) a Jean-Christophe Paré (FR). Both of them are sharing references related to their know-hows on our blog.

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5.5.2020, 1:38:45 | Category: Education, Art & Society

Hapticality or Love

Key words:

TOUCH, UNDERCOMMONS, LOVE, POLICY, PLANNING, DEBT, CREDIT, GOVERNANCE, LOGISTICS

How do we care for each other in these times of pandemic isolations? When the borders and social distancing are locking us in our own bodies forced to be detached in the small bordered units prohibiting us to meet the other. Hapticality is denied by the only contact we have through screens. We need to touch, to feel the other and through the other. In their book Undercommons Fred Moten and Stefano Harney draw on the theory and practice of the black radical tradition as it supports, inspires, and extends contemporary social and political thought and aesthetic critique. Or as Denise Ferreira da Silva writes : "In this intimate and intense example of affected writing—writing which is always already other, with an other—Harney and Moten dare us to fall." Rereading Undercommons in isolation is to recall the hapticallity within the other.

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8.4.2019, 16:44:11 | Photo: Zuzana Žabková | Category: Dramaturgy

What is the role of the coach during the process of coaching?

Key words:

COACH, WITNESS, GUIDE, COMPANION, TUTOR WRITING PROCESS, THE STYLE OF CHOREOGRAPHER, IMAGINARY TRAVELS, INTERPRETATIVE JOURNEYS

A few ideas around the figure of the coach within the residency programme offering guidance in the process of choreographic invention by Jean Christoph Paré, choreographer, dancer, Étoile at the Paris Opera, teacher, researcher in Mouvemnt Analyses, ex- director of Conservatoir de Paris and last but not least the coach who is part of the Residency with coaching in Prague since its beginning.

A question of terminology

Regarding the english term “coach1”, it is useful to point out immediately that in the context that is relevant to us - that of guidance in the process of choreographic invention - its use is unsatisfactory. Other terms have been used elsewhere, by artists in various situations seeking to define this unique figure, such as: “mentor”, “tutor”, “guide”, “companion”,… In addition, we will be suggesting that they do not refer, from one culture to another, to the same representations and connotations. Nevertheless, it is indeed “coach” that I will use here as, from a pragmatic point of vue, it is the one that currently appears to be the most evocative for the greatest number of people, especially in the context of a residency with European dimensions like the one at SE.S.TA.

I furthermore suggest that these labels also lack the association of other expressions that would better explain the position, the mission and the nature of the presence of the coach beside the artist. We can say, for instance, that it is a question of a “person in interrelation” with another, himself involved in a unique being that summons his author’s spirit from deep within. It is also possible to perceive this person as a partner associated to the choreographer during the internship. If we think of the coach as an observer-advisor bound to the side of the artist to deepen his knowledge of choreographic writing, then we will see a person meant to provide a more technical assistance. Interpretations of what the figure of coach and his action can be are numerous.

Various notions of coaching coexist at SE.S.TA

With the support of the director Marie Kinsky, every coach leads the exchanges within the project she/ he is supporting according to her/his own observational clues. He brings his own personal experiences, his relationship to the dance, to choreographic writing. He recalls his sources of interest, especially the extra-choreographic ones, and his general culture. In short, everything from his personal existence that can be useful is welcome. Although the principle of coaching is revealed from the beginning of the residency and regularly revisited during it’s time, there is no “fixed” concept of the processes in question and of the people in charge of them. Among the coaches, this freedom of action leads, in turn, to the need to be very attentive to other points of view during the discussions about the projects - particularly during the open sessions where all the other participants are present. During these sessions, the choreographers naturally discover other methods of writing. They find themselves facing issues singling out their particular approaches as authors, or in others that are, on the contrary, common to all. Thus, conditions are met so that a kind of a detachment from their own inspiration2 as authors is born, a form of “oxygenation” of the spirit. In these moments of sharing, sometimes similar to the dynamics of an artistic collective, I also see a prototype of a school of creation.

Before everything else, it remains essential to consider that each tandem choreographer-coach is the starting point of a unique adventure. The choreographer is waiting for a support at his side while he tackles the aspects of his writing process, the paths of which are yet to be discovered. For his part, the coach adjusts his mode of intervention and his strategies by discovering his terrain of action: the profile of the choreographer, her/his personal conceptual tools, the progress of her/his project, the know-how she/he engages in. Going from simple advice to methodological illuminations, from the stimulation of artistic enquiry through dialogue to recollection or transmission of composition styles, there is a potential for many paths to open.

Thus to state what would be essential for forming a creative artist can not be definite, so numerous are the ways of learning and questioning. Below, for instance, I focus on three of these. They are omnipresent in studio work. They relate 1) to the style of the choreographer, 2) to what we call choreographic writing, 3) to the relationship that the artist maintains with meaning.

The style of a choreographer - it’s the corporeality of her/his authorship

As a dancer, I particularly liked observing the choreographers when they were not performing the action that’s most familiar to them: in the most basic day to day life where the movement is functional, in a very strict meaning of the term, where she/he simply responds to a need to move hers/himself in space. I was curious to see how they move outside of the choreographic code (walking, taking a seat, grab an object, sketching a movement), how they engaged in speech. All the little bursts of life that I could seize helped me to better understand how they gradually introduced themselves into the very matter of their dance in order to create their choreographic text3.

The common idea to all these movements of the moment is that they reveal, if not the body of the choreographer, then, in any case, his physical signature. This body that participates in the decision or its abandonment, in the will or the uncertainty, the desire and the rejection, tells us something about the artist at work. The place of the germination of the danced movement of the choreographer - the “style” of the author, R.Barthes tells us4 - is his body. I have discovered this informal gesture through functional analysis of the body in the danced movement. There are many keys to use in its decoding. This level of analysis reveals a choreographer\'s phrasé: his musicality, breath, temporality, spatiality, his relationship to the force of gravity, his states of tension and the pattern of his energetic flow. This “interior chant”5, this musicality of acts is the best indicator of the choreographer\'s story and, most certainly, of her/his way of grasping the world, of extracting from it that what concerns her/him, of abstracting himself from it in style, by writing her/his own narrative.

To enter into writing is to name the dance. In return, they say something to us.

As a young dancer I only understood a few aspects of the creative process through dialogues with the choreographers about my interpretations. But there was still not enough clarity. Confused, I observed that they did not proceed the same way in the invention of their dance. I needed to know more. That is how I gradually focused my attention on their methods6. Curiously, I also knew that when dancing, being free of the elements of meaning provided by the choreographers left me free to do my movements and did not prevent them at all from seeing in my actions what interested them. On the other hand, I remember that the states of my body were filled with the palette of sensations chiseled by the transposition of their requests. What makes sense, for the interpreter and the choreographer, is not necessarily in correlation. Meaning is not an existing entity. It’s a product7.

Since then I’ve discovered just how much one of the big pitfalls of choreographic writing lies in escaping the impossibility of seeing the elements of the “raw material”. In fact, the movement of a dance that is still “glued” to the envelope of reality is too fugitive, too complex to decipher in the very moment of its projection into space and time. The adventure of the writing of movement is played by numerous reiterations of it, but above all by the shifting of intentions and sensations that we bring into it. These shifts are a reinvestment. The matter is reinvested by a look that transforms it, look and words placed between the perceptible and the comprehensible.

I direct my attention more significantly onto the various levels of experience where choreographers produce speech: production of phrasing, organic micro-compositions, macro-composition, writing methods … The words distinguish and allow to isolate the components of the danced material. They are manipulations, the games in and around the meaning. These games are useful because the subject of dance is paradoxical: it disappears. The choreographer is thus confronted with the necessity to design protocols of production of movement. In fact, to not pre/contemplate anything about the movement to be born will not make it possible for it to find its true semantic volume when it materialises. A contrario, mulling it over excessively produces the risk of getting lost in a forest of directions of meaning. The choreographer must therefore seek the right distance between his desires, intuitions and reflections.

The movements delivered by the dancers are of very diverse nature. Some examples: in “open” improvisation, they are in a mode of first appearance/final disappearance; in repeated improvisation with progressive clarification of the motives of conduction of the movement: in appearance/disappearance/impressionist memorising mode; in structured improvisation that includes playing with spatial, temporal, gestural, relational constraints of action: in a mode of partial appearance / disappearance / partial memorization of the situations crossed. During the development of choreographic phrasing (juxtaposition of gestural flows incorporating the dynamics of impulses experienced in their energetical characteristics): in a mode of expected reappearance/completed memorization. Short of elaborating beyond these few temporary states of the movement, it should be noted that they are also conditions of a moving matter in transformation. At this point, the choice of orientation of these transformations is clarified when the choreographer deploys his own color chart of qualifiers to name the substance of the matter. Thus he creates the crossings between the physical and mental forces8. The active transition of matter from one state to another offers a new potential for deployments of meaning and for syntactic manipulation. At this stage, dance becomes the generative material of combinatorial games to explore. The material thus continues its journey of transformation from invisibility to visibility and readability.

The imaginary travels, that’s the artist in the vicinity of nonsense

The appointment of the material is played out during a particular journey: that of the imaginary9. In fact, in its first reality, matter does not evoke and remains in its superficial appearances. This plane of interpretation is not enough for the choreographer to be intimately concerned. What is watching him?10 Here, subjectivity plays at full speed. The whole vibration of the author\'s inner world awakens. And, in the depths of self, the point of the pre-established logic too. When the choreographer at work remains silent, the acceleration of his thought shakes it, or passes from a descriptive word of the matter of the movement to his personal stories, moving through his critical discourse on world he floats on the foam of a world that remembers him. There is a reversal: it is the work that works him. By releasing words with different statuses: from the description of the matter through the stories he sees in it (narrativity) to his discourse in front of the world11 he gives himself the chance to thicken the semantic and expressive presence of the matter he is producing. He connects between themselves the different registers of view and “anatomises” his thought (and not only the theme he is treating) by projecting it into the matter. Thus, the author finds his profound values there, the ones he knows he can not depart from.

Another issue around the production of meaning, and not an insignificant one, is that in the end it is not the logical sense that interests the artist, but rather the displacement of meaning, its upheaval, its deconstruction. The steep slopes of nonsense12 are the biotop of the artist. Analysis of works reveals that there are always many registers of meaning. These directional lines, almost like an orchestral score, allows for nonsense to trespass into what seems logical. These other hypotheses of unfolding of meaning, of inverted meaning, opposite meaning, diverted meaning, are those which make it possible to re-imagine the real, to confront it. Meaning in movement, without an announced destination, is the most confident friend of a poet - the one who spends his life kneading the dough of the world through his metaphorical games.

Company, support the other on their interpretative journeys

What the choreographer and the coach/spectator have in common is that they can only advance in the study of choreography by embarking on interpretative paths13. That is where lies the most significant point of convergence of the two. Although the roles are different both are drawn by interpretative thought. The writing process is a path of rereading and reinterpretation. A necessary journey into the substance of the choreographic text where, for the author, rereading means self-interpretation. An earnest journey for the coach-spectator where rereading is a door to open to try to get a little closer to the story of the other. Yet, the passage from unsaid to say reveals the artist to himself. Here, there is no access for the coach. Here, the coach and the choreographer can not understand each other, otherness wins. On the other hand, the negotiation, the discussion, the languages games, the manipulation of the concepts are the many linguistic thresholds that open the horizon of the work’s meaning. The work of art exists only because it is interprete. This is where, without a doubt, the encounters between the choreographer and the coach take place: it creates the possibility of new interpretations.

My own (current) definition of the coach\'s actions emerges

Return to the field of action. The complexity of the exercise of creation leads to a need for great attention to not take over what the choreographer is living. The emotional currents that he goes through while he moves to action, his intuitive listening to the moment, his dives into his own thoughts, this state of a hypnotic wake in the face of matter, requires a great acuteness in recognising the moments when contact can be established. It is important for me to maintain a certain number of methodological references so as not to go beyond the frame of my intervention:

Find the right dosage of immersion into the situations of observing the everyday work
Be discreetly present
Not having a priori as to where the level of the artist’s experience lies (amateur practitioner, originally from a non-choreographic field, professional choreographer,..)
For each one, measure where is the place of the test, there where he has an effort to make; see how the author prepares and how he engages with the unknown,
Observe how the choreographer negotiates his ideas with the interpreters and, following the phases of co-production of meaning, see how he extracts, completely autonomously, his lines of attention, questioning, curiosity,
Refrain from any judgment on the value of the expressiveness produced while remaining demanding about the possible degrees of reading, coherence and interpretation within what is being developed.
Recall referents to share with the choreographer: bodies of works, texts, documents, reference works etc. belonging to fields of knowledge and practices that correspond with the content,
Be genuinely involved, concerned by the situations encountered without appropriating the project of the other14,
Listen to the moments when the choreographer is in demand for feedback, wait for the moments when he will be receptive, respect his autonomy.

An unresolved reflection, more than a conclusion

My personal vision of the coach tries to make coexist two natures of involvement: 1) being an immersed companion, by the choreographer, in the pragmatics of her/ his art: my mission is to propose, at the heart of the action, hypotheses of denouement, by reflexive effort, resistance to the emergence of meaning that I can identify. 2) being in the process of deepening of theoretical knowledge related to those of the art of dance:

my act of the observer thus integrates a process of verification of my new keys of reading in situ. We will never exhaust the subjects the hyper-complexity of the creative process, particularly in dance. On the other hand, it seems essential to me never to forbid ourselves from proposing new routes of explanation. In this regard, the encounters with the choreographers often present to me the opportunity to discover work methods in making. They are also the teaching that I receive from them and that moves me forward.

Jean-Christophe Paré

Footnotes and references

There are various definitions of the terms coach and coaching that corresponding to specific fields: psychology, the corporate world, sport… The specifics of intervention vary from one field to another. In the professional sphere “operational support” is also used. Outside of the strictly professional area, it can be a “personal support in change”. Different techniques can be involved, such as NLP, Transactional Analysis etc.
M. Blanchot – Space of literature - The first characteristic of inspiration is infinity. (...) There is a point at which inspiration and the lack of inspiration fuse, an extreme point (...) that calls itself aridity (...) where inspiration becomes a norturnal state, both wonderful and desperate.
The notion of “text” gains considerable freedom at the end of the 20th century insofar as it results from a finite construction. It becomes an object in productivity, a process of producing any object that carries meaning. This concerns literature and writing in all its forms as well as works of art. R. Barthes: Le bruissement de la langue – essais critiques IV (chapter : La guerre des langages)
R. Barthes – Writing Degree zero - chapter: What is writing?
I am borrowing this expression from the american choreographer Simone Forti.
Particularly the design of ateliers or creative work sessions of A. Degroat, M. Cunningham, L. Childs, F. Verret, D. Larrieu.
G. Deleuze – Logic of sense: for a deeper understanding of the matter of the production of meaning.
Bachelard – Earth and reveries of will
I am borrowing this expression from M. Blanchot - The book to come. There he describes the “the journey of the imaginary”, drawing on the journey of Ulysses and the moment where he tries to approach the sirens to hear them sing.
Concerning the reversal of the relationship of the author and his text (the material linking the author with his autobiography): G. Didi-Huberman – What we see looks back at us.
PA semiotic process described Greimas and picked up by J.J. Boutaud – Sémiotique et communication / du signe au sens.
G. Deleuze – Logic of sens
F. Rastier – Arts et Sciences du texte
J.J. Boutaud – Sémiotique et communication / du signe au sens

Original version of the text here

Quelques idées autour de la figure du coach dans le cadre du stage d’accompagnement au processus de création chorégraphique

Question de terminologie

Concernant le terme anglais « coach1 », il convient de signaler d’emblée que dans le contexte qui nous intéresse - l’accompagnement au processus de création du chorégraphe - son utilisation est insatisfaisante. D’autres termes ont d’ailleurs déjà étaient utilisés par les artistes en diverses situations pour tenter de définir cette figure singulière tels que : « mentor », « tuteur », « témoin », « accompagnant », « compagnon »… On avancera en outre qu’ils ne renvoient pas, d’une culture à l’autre, aux mêmes représentations et connotations. Néanmoins, c’est bien celui de coach que j’utiliserai ici, car de façon pragmatique, il apparaît actuellement comme le plus évocateur pour le plus grand nombre, notamment dans le cadre d’un stage à dimension européenne comme celui de SE.S.TA.

De ces termes, j’avance en outre qu’ils leur manquent toujours l’association d’autres vocables pour expliciter la position, la mission et la nature de la présence du coach auprès de l’artiste. On peut par exemple dire qu’il s’agit d’une « personne en interrelation » avec une autre, elle-même impliquée dans un agir singulier qui convoque son être profond d’auteur. Il est aussi possible de l’envisager comme un « partenaire » associé au chorégraphe le temps du stage. Si l’on pense au coach comme un « observateur-conseiller » attaché à l’accompagnement de l’artiste pour approfondir sa connaissance de l’écriture chorégraphique, on y verra alors une personne sensée apporter une aide plus technique. Les interprétations de ce que peut être la figure du coach et son action sont nombreuses.

Diverses conceptions du coaching coexistent à SE.S.TA

Avec le soutien de la directrice Marie Kinsky, chaque coach anime les échanges autour du projet qu’il accompagne à partir de ses propres clés d’observation. Il y apporte ses contenus d’expériences personnels, son rapport à la danse, à l’écriture chorégraphique. Il convoque ses sources d’intérêt, notamment extra-chorégraphiques, sa culture générale. Bref, tout ce qui peut être utile, émanant de son vécu personnel, est la bienvenue. Bien que le principe du coaching soit exposé dès l’ouverture du stage et régulièrement retraversé durant celui-ci, il n’y a pas de concept « arrêté » des processus engagés et du rôle des personnes qui en ont la charge. Entre les coach, cette liberté d’action induit en contrepartie, lors des débats sur les projets, la nécessité d’être très à l’écoute des autres points de vue. Particulièrement lors des débats en séance plénière où tous les participants au stage sont présents. Les chorégraphes découvrent naturellement au fil de ces séances d’autres modalités d’écriture. Ils se retrouvent dans des problématiques singularisant leurs démarches d’auteurs ou au contraire communes à tous. Les conditions sont ainsi réunies pour qu’une forme de distanciation avec leur propre inspiration2 d’auteurs se mette en place, une forme d’ « oxygénation » de l’esprit. Je vois d’ailleurs à travers ces moments de partage, parfois proches de la dynamique du collectif artistique, un prototype d’école de création.

L’essentiel reste avant tout de considérer que chaque tandem chorégraphe-coach constitué est le point de départ d’une aventure singulière. Le chorégraphe est en attente d’un soutien à ses côtés, lorsqu’il aborde des aspects de son processus d’écriture pour lesquels des pistes sont encore à découvrir. Pour sa part, le coach ajuste son mode d’intervention et ses stratégies en découvrant son terrain d’action : le profil du chorégraphe, son outillage conceptuel personnel, l’état d’avancement de son projet, les savoir-faire qu’il engage… Allant du simple conseil en composition, aux éclairages méthodologiques, de la stimulation du questionnement artistique par le dialogue à l’éventuel rappel ou la transmission de modes de composition, il y a ainsi potentiellement de nombreuses voies à ouvrir.

Énoncer ce qui serait l’essentiel pour former un artiste créatif ne peut donc être clos, tant les voies de lecture et de questionnement sont nombreuses. Ci-dessous, pour exemple, j’en dégage plus particulièrement trois parmi d’autres. Elles sont omniprésences dans le travail en studio. Elles ont trait 1) au style du chorégraphe, 2) à ce qu’on nomme l’écriture chorégraphique, 3) à la relation que l’artiste entretien avec le sens.

Le style du chorégraphe, c’est sa corporéité d’auteur

Danseur, j’aimais particulièrement observer les chorégraphes là où il s’absentaient de leur propre geste : dans le quotidien le plus basique où le mouvement est fonctionnel, au sens strict du terme, où simplement il répond à un besoin de se déplacer dans l’espace. J’étais curieux de connaître comment ils se mouvaient hors du code chorégraphique (marcher, s’asseoir, prendre un objet, esquisser un mouvement) comment ils s’engageaient dans la parole. Tous les petits éclats de vie que je pouvais saisir m’aidaient à mieux comprendre comment ils s’introduisaient progressivement dans la matière même de leur danse pour en faire leur texte3 chorégraphique.

Le point commun à tous ces gestes de l’instant est qu’ils dévoilent, sinon le corps du chorégraphe, en tout cas, sa signature corporelle. Ce corps qui s’engage dans la décision ou sa suspension, dans le vouloir ou l’incertitude, le désir et le refus nous « dit » quelque chose de l’artiste à l’œuvre. Le lieu de germination du mouvement dansé du chorégraphe – le « style » de l’auteur nous dit R. Barthes4 – est en son corps. Ce geste non formel, je l’ai découvert avec l’analyse fonctionnelle du corps dans le mouvement dansé. De nombreuses clés de lecture existent pour le décoder. Ce niveau d’analyse révèle le phrasé du chorégraphe : sa musicalité, son souffle, sa temporalité, sa spatialité, sa relation à la force gravitaire, ses états tensionnels et le régime de son flux énergétique. Ce « chant intérieur »5, cette musicalité du geste est le meilleur révélateur de l’histoire du chorégraphe et, assurément, de sa façon de se saisir du monde, d’en extraire ce qui le concerne, de s’en abstraire avec style, par l’écriture de son propre récit.

Entrer en écriture, c’est nommer la danse. En retour elle nous dit quelque chose

Jeune danseur, je ne comprenais que quelques aspects du processus de création par le biais des échanges avec les chorégraphes à propos de mes interprétations. Mais il restait cependant trop d’implicites. Je voyais confusément qu’ils n’avaient pas tous la même façon de procéder pour inventer leur danse. Il me fallait en savoir plus. C’est ainsi que j’ai progressivement porté mon attention sur leurs méthodes6. Curieusement, je savais aussi qu’à l’heure de danser, être dégagé des éléments de sens dispensés par les chorégraphes me laissait libre de mes mouvements et n’empêchait nullement qu’ils voient dans mes gestes ce qui les intéressaient. En revanche, j’ai le souvenir que mes états de corps étaient emplis de la palette des sensations ciselées par transposition de leurs demandes. Ce qui fait sens, pour l’interprète et le chorégraphe, n’est pas nécessairement en corrélation. Le sens n’est pas une entité existante. C’est un produit7 ».

J’ai découvert depuis en quoi l’un des grands enjeux de l’écriture chorégraphique est précisément d’échapper à l’impossibilité de voir les constituants de la « matière première». En effet, le mouvement de la danse encore « collé » à l’enveloppe de la réalité est trop fugitif, trop complexe à décrypter à l’instant même de sa projection dans l’espace et le temps. L’aventure de l’écriture du geste se joue par de nombreuses réitérations de celui-ci, mais surtout par les déplacements d’intentions et sensations qu’on y dépose. Ces déplacements sont un réinvestissement. La matière est réinvestie d’un regard qui la transforme, d’un regard et de mots posés entre sensible et intelligible.

Je porte plus particulièrement mon attention sur les divers paliers d’expérience où les chorégraphes produisent de la parole : production du phrasé, micro-compositions organiques, macro-composition, modalités d’écriture… Les mots distinguent et permettent d’isoler les composantes de la matière dansée. Ils sont des manipulations, des jeux autour du sens. Ces jeux ont leur utilité car la matière de la danse est paradoxale : elle disparaît. Le chorégraphe est ainsi confronté à la nécessité de concevoir des protocoles de mise en production du mouvement. En effet, ne rien pré/méditer à propos du geste à naître ne donnera pas la possibilité qu’il trouve son véritable volume sémantique lorsqu’il sera matérialisé. A contrario, le préméditer exagérément fait courir le risque de se perdre dans une « forêt » de directions de sens. Le chorégraphe doit ainsi rechercher la bonne distance, entre ses désirs, intuitions et réflexions.

Les gestes délivrés par les danseurs sont de natures très diverses. Quelques exemples : en improvisation « ouverte », ils sont en mode première apparition/disparition définitive. En improvisation réitérée avec clarification progressive des motifs de conduite du mouvement : en mode apparition/disparition/mémorisation impressionniste. En improvisation structurée, avec jeux de contraintes d’action (spatiales, temporelles, gestuelles, relationnelles etc.) : en mode apparition partielle/disparition/mémorisation partielle des situations traversées. Lors de l’élaboration de phrasés chorégraphiques, (juxtaposition de flux gestuels incorporant des dynamiques d’élans éprouvés dans leurs caractéristiques énergétiques) : en mode réapparition attendue/ mémorisation accomplie. Sans développer au-delà de ces quelques états temporaires du geste, il est à noter qu’ils sont autant de statuts d’une matière gestuelle en transformation. À ce stade, les choix d’orientation de ces transformations sont clarifiés lorsque le chorégraphe déploie son propre nuancier de qualificatifs pour nommer la substance de la matière. Il crée alors des croisements entre forces physiques et psychiques8. Le passage motivé d’un état de la matière à un autre offre de nouvelles potentialités de déploiements de sens et de manipulations syntaxiques. À ce stade la danse devient matière générative des jeux combinatoires à explorer. La matière poursuit ainsi son parcours de transformation de son invisibilité vers sa visibilité et sa lisibilité.

L’imaginaire en voyage, c’est l’artiste à proximité du non sens

La nomination de la matière se joue lors d’un voyage particulier : celui de l’imaginaire9. En effet, en sa réalité première, la matière n’évoque pas et reste dans ses apparences de surface. Ce plan de lecture n’est pas suffisant pour que le chorégraphe soit intimement concerné. Qu’est-ce qui le regarde10 ? Ici, la subjectivité joue à plein régime. C’est toute la vibration du monde intérieur de l’auteur qui s’éveille. Or, dans les profondeurs de l’être, point de logique préétablie. Lorsque le chorégraphe au travail reste muet tant l’accélération de sa pensée l’ébranle, ou passe d’une parole de description de la matière du geste à ses histoires personnelles, en passant par son discours critique sur le monde, il vogue sur l’écume d’un monde qui se rappelle à lui. Il y a renversement : c’est l’œuvre qui le travaille. En libérant des mots aux statuts divers : depuis la description de la matière en passant par les histoires qu’il y voit (narrativité) jusqu’à son discours face au monde11 il se donne la chance d’épaissir la présence sémantique et expressive de la matière qu’il génère. Il relie entre eux ses divers registres de regard et « atomise » sa pensée (et non seulement le thème dont il traite) en la projetant dans la matière. Ainsi, l’auteur y retrouve ses valeurs profondes, celles auxquelles il sait ne pas pouvoir déroger.

Une autre problématique autour de la production de sens, et non des moindres, est qu’en définitive, ce n’est pas lui, le sens logique qui intéresse l’artiste, mais bien le déplacement de sens, son bouleversement, sa déconstruction. Les pentes abruptes du non-sens12 sont le biotope de l’artiste. L’analyse des œuvres nous fait découvrir que toujours coexistent de nombreux registres de sens. Ces lignes directionnelles, telles une partition d’orchestre, permettent l’intrusion du non-sens au cœur de ce qui semble logique. Ces autres hypothèses de déploiement du sens, le sens inversé, le sens contraire, le sens détourné, sont celles qui permettent de ré-envisager le réel, de lui tenir front. Le sens en déplacement, sans destination annoncée, est le plus sûr ami du poète, qui passe sa vie à étirer la pâte du monde par ses jeux métaphoriques.

Accompagner, soutenir l’autre dans ses chemins interprétatifs

Le chorégraphe et le coach/spectateur ont ceci de commun qu’ils ne peuvent avancer dans l’étude de la chorégraphie qu’en s’engageant dans des chemins interprétatifs13. Là est probablement le point de convergence le plus fort entre eux. Bien que les rôles soient différents, tous deux sont aspirés par la pensée interprétative. Le processus d’écriture est un chemin de relecture et d’interprétation. Voyage nécessaire dans la substance du texte chorégraphique où, pour l’auteur, la relecture est l’interprétation de soi. Voyage passionnant pour le coach-spectateur où la relecture est une porte à ouvrir pour tenter de s’approcher un peu de l’histoire de l’autre. Cependant, le passage du non-dit au dire révèle l’artiste à lui-même. Ici, le coach n’a pas accès. Ici, coach et chorégraphe ne peuvent plus s’entendre, altérité oblige. En revanche, la négociation, la discussion, les jeux de langages, la manipulation des concepts, sont autant de seuils langagiers ouvrant l’horizon de sens de l’œuvre. L’œuvre d’art n’existe que parce qu’elle est interprétée. C’est sans doute là que la rencontre entre coach et chorégraphe opère : elle crée la possibilité de nouvelles interprétations.

Ma propre définition (actuelle) des actes du coach se dégage

Retour sur le terrain de l’action. La complexité de l’exercice de création conduit à la nécessité d’une grande attention à ne pas détourner ce que vit le chorégraphe. Les flux émotionnels qui le traversent lorsqu’il passe à l’action, son écoute intuitive de l’instant, ses plongées dans ses propres pensées, cet état de veille hypnotique face à la matière, obligent à une grande acuité d’appréciation des moments où le contact peut être établit. Il m’importe de maintenir un certain nombre de repères méthodologiques afin de ne pas outrepasser mon cadre d’intervention :

Trouver le bon dosage d’immersion dans les situations d’observation du travail au quotidien,
Être discrètement présent,
Ne pas avoir d’a priori quant au niveau d’expérience où se situe l’artiste. Pratiquant en amateur, chorégraphe issu initialement d’un domaine hors chorégraphique, chorégraphe professionnel,
Pour chacun, mesurer où se situe l’endroit de l’épreuve, là où il a un effort à produire. Voir comment l’auteur se prépare et s’engage vers l’inconnu,
Observer comment le chorégraphe négocie ses idées avec les interprètes et, suite aux phases de co-production de sens, voir comment il dégage en toute autonomie ses lignes d’attention, de questionnement, de curiosité,
Sortir de tout jugement de valeur sur l’expressivité produite tout en restant exigeant quant aux degrés de lecture, de cohérence et d’interprétation possibles de ce qui est en élaboration,
Convoquer des référents à partager avec le chorégraphe: corpus d’ouvrages, de textes, de documents, d’œuvres repères etc. appartenant à des champs de connaissance et de pratiques en correspondance avec les contenus,
Être véritablement impliqué, concerné par les situations rencontrées14 sans pour autant s’approprier le projet de l’autre,
Être à l’écoute des instants où le chorégraphe est en demande de retours, attendre les moments où il y sera réceptif, respecter son autonomie.

Une réflexion en suspens, plus qu’une conclusion

Ma vision personnelle du coach tente de faire coexister deux natures d’engagement. 1) être un accompagnant immergé, auprès du chorégraphe, dans la pragmatique de son art : ma mission est de proposer, au cœur de l’action, des hypothèses de dénouement, par effort réflexif, des résistances à l’émergence du sens que je peux repérer. 2) être dans une démarche d’approfondissement de connaissances théoriques connexes à celles de l’art de la danse : mon acte d’observateur intègre alors un processus de vérification de mes nouvelles clés de lecture in situ. Jamais on n’épuisera les sujets face à l’hyper-complexité du processus de création, particulièrement en danse. En revanche, il me paraît essentiel de ne jamais s’interdire de proposer de nouvelles pistes d’explicitation. A ce propos, les rencontres avec les chorégraphes sont souvent pour moi l’occasion de découvrir des modalités de travail en cours d’invention. Elles sont aussi la part d’enseignement que je reçois d’eux et qui me fait avancer.

Jean-Christophe Paré

Notes diverses et renvois bibliographiques

Il existe diverses définitions des termes coach et coaching, (qui sont en français des anglicismes) correspondant à des domaines spécifiques : en psychologie, dans le monde de l’entreprise, du sport… Les modalités d’intervention diffèrent d’un domaine à l’autre. Dans la sphère professionnelle, il est dit « accompagnement opérationnel ». Hors de la sphère strictement professionnelle, il est un « accompagnement personnel au changement ». Diverses techniques peuvent intervenir telles que la PNL, l\'Analyse transactionnelle…
M. Blanchot – L’espace littéraire - « Le premier caractère de l’inspiration est d’être infinie (…) Il y a un point où l’inspiration et le manque d’inspiration se confondent, un point extrême (…) qui prend le nom d’aridité (…) où l’inspiration devient état nocturne, à la fois merveilleux et désespéré ».
La notion de « texte » s’émancipe considérablement à la fin du 20e siècle, de l’écrit en tant qu’il résulte d’une construction achevée. Il devient objet en productivité, processus de production de tout objet véhiculant du sens. Il concerne tout autant la littérature et les écrits sous toutes leurs formes que les œuvres d’art. R. Barthes – Le bruissement de la langue – essais critiques IV (chapitre : la guerre des langages)
R. Barthes – Le degré zéro de l’écriture - chapitre : Qu’est-ce que l’écriture ?
J’emprunte cette expression à la chorégraphe américaine Simone Forti.
Plus particulièrement les façons de concevoir leurs ateliers ou séances de travail en création d’A. Degroat, M. Cunningham, L. Childs, F. Verret, D. Larrieu.
G. Deleuze – Logique du sens : pour un approfondissement de la question de la production du sens.
Bachelard - La terre et les rêveries de la volonté
J’emprunte cette expression à M. BLanchot – Le livre à venir. Il y décrit « le voyage de l’imaginaire » en s’appuyant sur le récit du voyage d’Ulysse où celui-ci tente d’approcher les sirènes pour entendre leur chant.
Concernant ce renversement du rapport entre l’auteur et son texte (la matière reliant l’auteur à son autobiographie profonde) : G. Didi-Huberman – Ce que nous voyons, ce qui nous regarde ».
Processus sémiotique décrit par Greimas et repris par J.J. Boutaud – Sémiotique et communication / du signe au sens.
G. Deleuze – Logique du sens Deleuze
F. Rastier – Arts et Sciences du texte
J.J. Boutaud – Sémiotique et communication / du signe au sens

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2.10.2018, 15:33:33 | Category: Space & context, Interdisciplinarity, Process of making

O absurditě, dvojznačnosti a grotesce, rozhovor s Jeanem Gaudinem

Key words:

ambivalence, dvojznačnost, absurdita, groteska, andělé, ráj, kruh, katedrála

Rozhovor s francouzským choreografem Jeanem Gaudinem, který kromě toho že dlouhodobě spolupracuje s choreografickým centrem Se.s.ta jako kouč během Rezidence s Koučinkem pravidelně na konci Srpna se také tvořivo podílí na vzniku několika uměleckých projektu v Čechách i zahraničí. Zajímalo mě jaký je jeho pohled na otázky choreografie a tvorby samotné.

Přišli jsme do malé kavárny na Malostranském náměstí a povídali si o absurditě, dvojznačnosti a grotesce, které prostupují metodologii choreografa, kouče, tanečníka a umělce Jeana Gaudina – autora site-specific představení Everything is Nice in Paradise, které mělo loni premiéru na festivalu KoresponDance a reprízu 14. dubna v Praze ve Studio Alta. Pařížský choreograf byl také jedním z koučů na etablované mezinárodní rezidenci
s koučinkem v Praze, kterou již po jedenácté organizovalo Centrum choreografického rozvoje SE.S.TA.

ZŽ: Jaká historie tě spojuje s Prahou?

JG: Je to pár let, co jsem byl pozván Marií Kinsky na festival KoresponDance, kde jsem vytvořil několik choreografií – vždy ve spolupráci s dětským pěveckým sborem Žďáráček, podobně jako tomu bylo nyní v Praze. Zúčastnil jsem se také choreografického fóra, projektu organizovaného SESTOU, které bylo součástí festivalu Česká taneční platforma. Každé ráno jsme měli setkání s veřejností, během něhož jsme si navzájem vyměňovali názory, rozvíjeli kritické myšlení a jeho formulaci ve skupině. Každá diskuse měla své téma, které nám umožňovalo reflektovat například problémy dramaturgie, světelného designu, interpretace, používání prostoru... Zároveň je to už několik let, co jsem zván SESTOU, abych koučoval a setkával se s domácími a mezinárodními choreografy. Praha se stala díky všem těmto projektům místem, které mě v mnohém zajímá profesně i lidsky. 9. a 10. dubna jsem měl workshop pod záštitou Studio Alta a SESTY s několika choreografy, tématem byl prostor. Říkal jsem si, že workshop, který se zakládá na společné výměně zkušeností je v podstatě inspirován těmito setkáními, i když je mnohem více techničtější. Šlo o příležitost vidět proces choreografické kompozice propojený s prostorem.

ZZ: Během představení Everything is Nice in Paradise ve mně rezonovali humor a groteska, které jsou přítomné ve tvém choreografickém myšlení. S jakou atmosférou, celkovou náladou jsi chtěl pracovat? Je vtip součástí tvé práce?

JG: Je to součást mého stylu, který často vysvětluji dvojznačností. Můj rukopis, kterému jsem porozuměl po několika letech zkušeností v tvorbě, je založený na systému vytváření vrstev situací, které umožňují publiku si je propojovat. Na základě těchto situací – jak říkáš groteskních, dvojznačných, neočekávatelných, které se potkávají na jednom místě, vyhledávám napětí a snažím se ho dále rozvíjet. A právě procházením mezi těmito vrstvami vzniká humor, absurdita a nesoulad událostí, které jsou ale ve vzájemném vztahu.

ZZ: Zajímavým momentem bylo, když se jedna z tanečnic, Jana Tereková, transformovala prostřednictvím pohybu a hlasu do bizarní bytosti. Jak byl vytvořen materiál pro toto sólo?

JG: V Everything is Nice in Paradise Jana představuje charakter, který se zdá být nekontrolovatelný. Osobu, která se odváží vrčet během toho jak tančí. Snažil jsem se najít cestu k tomu, aby porušila své taneční konvence, aby je převrátila ve svobodu a humor. Jana prošla velmi zajímavou evolucí počínaje představením ve Žďáru. Ve Žďáru byla stále vázána na svůj taneční slovník. V Praze interpretovala. Objevila se groteskní dimenze, kterou jsme hledali. Důsledná interpretace vyžaduje čas!

ZZ: Děti, andělé, ráj. Kontrast v performativitách. Co bylo předtím, než vznikla partitura. Kde jsme?

JG: Pro tebe, kde jsi byla ty?

ZZ: Bílá a černá, dva kruhy, něco jako katedrála a podzemí...

JG: To je příklad té dvojznačnosti, o které jsme mluvili předtím a která je součástí mého stylu. Někdy se diváci ptají, jaký je odkaz představení. Nemám pro ně odkaz. Dramaturgicky komponuji situace, které ponechám publikum k volné interpretaci. Choreograf a diváci jsou si navzájem komplici. Každý na své straně imaginace. Choreograf spouští představivost diváka a ten vychází ze své vlastní interpretace, na základě toho, co vidí a pociťuje. Často i bez přítomnosti logiky, na kterou jsme zvyklí.

více na www.tanecnizona.cz 2/3/18

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18.6.2018, 14:59:03 | Photo: Noam Hamou, David Kaplan | Category: Dramaturgy

Potrebujeme si vytvárať vlastné svety

Key words:

SÚČASNÝ TANEC, GEOPOLITICKÝ KONTEXT, MULTIDISCIPLINARITA, ABSTRAKCIA, KONCEPT, PODPORA UMENIA, POLITICKÁ SITUÁCIA IZRAELA, KONFLIKT, SPOLUNAŽÍVANIE, SPOLUPRÁCA

Časopis Vlna o súčasnom umení a kultúre vo svojom čísle 74. uvádza rozhovor Petry Fornayovej s Izraelskou choreografkou Renanou Raz, ktorá skrz svoju tvorbu a skúsensti reflektuje situáciu súčasnej izraelskej tanečnej scény.

Izraelská scéna je iná. Táto veta mi – priznávam, spočiatku nepodporená racionálnymi argumentami rezonovala v hlave po celý čas pobytu na Izraelskej tanečnej platforme (Israeli Exposure of Contemporary Dance) v Suzanne Dellal Centre v Tel Avive. Postupne som sa pokúšala argumenty nachádzať a verbalizovať: Nedá sa tu hovoriť o prevahe konceptuálnych predstavení, nenájdeme tu šokantné novinky, ani diela, kde hľadanie spojitosti s tancom a pohybom prebieha viac na úrovni logickej a teoretickej (čo ja skôr oceňujem ako zatracujem). Zažijeme tu pôžitok z pohybu, uvidíme tanec, ktorý vyjadruje primárne emócie (čo za normálnych okolností pre mňa zaváňa nudou a strateným časom). Bolo by však chybou očakávať len dokonalé gymnastické cvičenia, hoci tanečníci sa svojou dokonalosťou ku gymnastom naozaj blížia. Génius choreogra, akým je nepochybne nielen Ohad Naharin, umelecký vedúci ikonickej Batsheva Dance Company, ale aj Noa Shadur, Inbal Pinto, či Da Altabeb, tí všetci predviedli prostredníctvom svojich skupín explóziu nápadov a formálnej zručnosti, obrovskej energie a vášne. Áno, nechala som sa na svoje vlastné prekvapenie strhnúť len „čistým“ tancom, prúdom pohybu v jasných kompozíciách, ktorému na prvý pohľad chýbal jasný obsah, no po neskoršej analýze a akom-takom „ohmataní“ kontextu sa javil ako presná abstrakcia života, dosť výrazne vzdialeného od komfortu Strednej Európy. Treba podotknúť, že tanečná scéna v Izraeli je neskutočne rozmanitá, čo primárne nepomáha nijakej generalizácii, no ak si ju s dovolením čitateľa na chvíľku doprajeme, tak tu na poli súčasného tanca existujú dva základné „tábory“: Na jednej strane veľké súbory s tanečníkmi na fantastickej interpretačnej úrovni, s inscenačne náročnými a technicky prepracovanými produkciami, a na druhej strane komorné projekty so silnejším konceptom, kde elementy predstavenia – obsah, interpretácia a technické inscenovanie variujú od slabej úrovne cez stredný štandard, až po diela hodné času a úvah. K tým posledným rozhodne patria predstavenia Renany Raz.

Je jednou z vedúcich osobností mladšej generácie izraelských choreografov, známa aj ako filmová a te- levízna herečka. Na javisku pracuje vždy na pomedzí žánrov, vytvára prekvapivé spojenia obsahu a formy. Ako nezávislá choreografka začala tvoriť v roku 1999, jej diela sú pravidelne uvádzané doma aj v zahraničí. Okrem iných ocenení získala v rokoch 2002 a 2003 Cenu ministra kultúry pre mladých choreografov. Od roku 2012 je Renana Raz umeleckou riaditeľkou projektu Contact Point, ktorý zastrešuje Izraelské múzeum v Jeruzaleme.

Renana, si tanečnica, choreografka, herečka, máš rodinu. Je pre teba náročné „prepínať sa“ medzi týmito rolami? Vnímaš vôbec rôzne roly ako odlišné svety? Ak áno – aké silné a fixné sú hranice medzi nimi?

Rada by som sa domnievala, že v umeleckom svete, ktorý som si rokmi pre seba vytvorila, nie sú hranice. Multidisciplinarita bola odjakživa časťou mojej DNA. Tvorím a tvorba bola základom a miestom stretáva‐ nia sa všetkého, čo ma zaujíma. Pokiaľ som v tvorivom procese, nikdy nemyslím na vymedzenie, žáner či smer. Ponechávam priestor pre ideu. Myšlienka diela určuje prostriedky, ktoré potrebujem. Vždy je silno prítomná sloboda výberu prostriedkov. Ak na seba myslím ako na mamu... To je iný príbeh, je to výzva. Myslím, že zlaďovanie rodičovstva a umeleckej kariéry je u mňa v neustálom procese. Každopádne to lepšie funguje, ak nevymedzím presnú čiaru medzi týmito dvoma pozíciami, stáva sa to ľahším a dokonca inšpiratívnym pre oba svety. V posledných rokoch často uvažujem o prepojení umenia a života v tom najprozaickejšom zmysle slova.

Situácia s podporou umenia v Izraeli je zvláštna – minimálne pre mňa ako externého pozorovateľa. Ako príklad môže slúžiť selekcia diel na minuloročnej izraelskej platforme v Tel Avive, ktorá prezentuje podľa názoru viacerých odborníkov to najlepšie a najreprezentatívnejšie zo súčasného tanca v Izraeli za uplynulú sezónu. Na začiatku prehliadky mal príhovor predstaviteľ izraelského Ministerstva zahraničných vecí, v ktorom promotérom z celého sveta ponúkal podporu a pomoc pri prezentovaní izraelského umenia v zahraničí. V roku 2017 sme pozvali na Nu Dance Fest izraelského choreografa Nadara Rosana, ktorý otvorene vyjadruje svoje politické postoje a prezentovali sme aj lm Mr. Gaga o Ohadovi Naharinovi, jednej zo súčasných najväčších svetových choreograckých hviezd, ktorý doslovne kritizuje vašu vládu. Obe prezentácie boli podporené Izraelským veľvyslanectvom na Slovensku, čo sa mi zdá byť skvelé a zároveň hodné otázky.

Myslím, že opisuješ zdravé a správne vzťahy medzi štátom a vládou. Sú to podľa mňa dva takmer nezávislé systémy. Ako umelkyňa, ktorá je podporovaná počas celého roka zo strany štátu, vravím: Áno, štát by mal rozhodne využívať jeho rozpočet pre kultúru na podporu umelcov bez ohľadu na ich politické názory. Osobne si myslím, že politika izraelskej vlády je veľmi zlá v takmer každom ohľade a ako občianka a umelky‐ ňa pociťujem povinnosť protestovať proti nespravodlivosti. Nanešťastie, atmosféra v Izraeli, ktorá panuje okolo premiéra a aj ministra kultúry, je nepriateľská voči umelcom, ktorí kritizujú vládu – akoby boli zradcovia. Výsledkom je autocenzúra a strach o slobodné vyjadrenie názoru. Ľudia na ministerstve zahraničných vecí robia skvelú prácu, myslím, že dokonale chápu dôležitosť prezentácie izraelských umelcov, ktorí slobodne vyjadrujú svoje názory. Každopádne situácia s vývozom umenia nie je úplne taká, ako to bolo podané na otvorení platformy.

Tvoje dielo WART je bodom stretnutia – ako sama vravíš – dvoch pólov ľudskej činnosti: vojny a tvorby. Slovná hračka nás uvádza do predstavenia, ktoré hyperbolizuje, využíva sarkazmus a iróniu na dokázanie nezmyselnosti vojny. Scénéria vojnového konfliktu sa stáva scenériou pre rozprávku, objaví sa princezná s korunkou z nábojov. V predstavení WART používaš videoprojekcie, zobrazujúce notoricky známe tváre, konflikty, situácie... Asi všetci súhlasia s názorom, že vojna je absolútnym opozitom tvorenia. Ale existuje (nielen) teória, že len vojnový systém vytvára umelý dopyt, ktorý nadväzne žiada väčšiu produkciu, čím sa stáva stabilnejším a viac efektívnym, minimálne z vyššej perspektívy.

{...vojna je tiež len výtvorom ľudského druhu. Vojna má svoju drámu, svoju estetiku, svoje farby…}

Na jednej strane – vojna a tvorba sú skutočne absolútnymi protipólmi, ale na strane druhej nemôžeme obísť fakt, že vojna je tiež len výtvorom ľudského druhu. Vojna má svoju drámu, svoju estetiku, svoje farby, zvuky, terminológiu, istú charakteristiku. Je to desivý výtvor, ale stále výtvor. Ako Izraelčanka som zažila viacero vojen, už ako malé dievčatko. Táto násilná a nepredvídateľná realita ma skutočne výrazne ovplyvnila a zanechala vo mne veľmi hlboké stopy. Ako umelkyňa som cítila vždy obrovskú frustráciu, pretože v tom momente, kedy vojna vtrhla do môjho života, tvorba musela byť odsunutá nabok a len čakala, kým bude po všetkej tej hrôze. Toto ma prinútilo rozmýšľať o prepojení medzi vojnou a tvorením. WART je pokus zaoberať sa vojnou v mojom teritóriu, ktorým je svet umenia a vystaviť ju iným pravidlám a predpokladom. Prispôsobiť tento agresívny svet pravidlám iného sveta, to pre mňa znamená akt slobody.

Spolunažívanie a konfrontácia Arabov a Židov je základom pre mnohé umelecké diela. Na platforme sme videli predstavenie Sahar Damoni, ktorá hovorila o postavení ženy v arabskej spoločnosti. Prezentovanie jej choreogra e evidentne nebolo len umeleckým, ale najmä politickým rozhodnutím. Aké je každodenné spolužitie palestínskych/arabských a židovských umelcov? Predostierajú nám médiá opäť niečo horúcejšie, než to v skutočnosti je (nehovorím o politikoch a politickej situácii)?

Treba rozlišovať arabsko‐izraelských a palestínskych umelcov. S palestínskymi umelcami, ktorí žijú v štáte Palestína, nemáme takmer žiadne spojenie. Neexistujú vzájomné platformy pre spoluprácu. Na ich strane je silno prítomná agenda BDS (Boycott, Divest and Sanction Movement – Hnutie za bojkot, stiahnutie investí‐ cií a sankcie proti Izraelu, pozn. red.), čo znamená, že nebudú v žiadnom prípade v nijakom smere spolupracovať so štátom Izrael. Takže ani so mnou, keďže mňa štát Izrael podporuje. S arabsko‐izraelskými umelcami, ktorí žijú v štáte Izrael, je to inak. Existujú prípady spolupráce, ale, aspoň podľa mňa, je to skôr výnimka ako pravidlo.

Otázka z trošku iného súdka: Tel Aviv, jedno z najmladších hlavných miest na svete, založené v roku 1909, je nádherné živé mesto, s prekrásnou zónou viac ako 4000 domov v štýle Bauhasu. Zóna je vyhlásená za Svetové kultúrne dedičstvo a chránená UNESCOm. Podľa nej sa mesto nazýva aj Bielym mestom. Genius loci umelcov kdekoľvek a v akejkoľvek dobe vždy inšpiroval. Myslíš, že diela, ktoré vznikajú v Tel Avive, sú ovplyvnené estetikou a lozo ou Bauhasu?

Nanešťastie myslím, že ani nie. Čo sa týka samotnej architektúry, vidím, že prebiehajú isté rekonštrukčné práce na budovách, ktoré sa zachovali, ale nevnímam žiadne dominantné tendencie udržať alebo rozvinúť tento špeci cký štýl. Myslím, že na hlbšej úrovni sa tento stav dotýka neschopnosti izraelskej kultúry uchovávať tradície.

Izrael nie je veľká krajina, no má pomerne veľkú a rôznorodú tanečnú scénu. Máš pre tento, povedzme pozitívny nepomer, vysvetlenie? Je to spôsobené or- ganickým vývojom alebo niekto osvietený si v jeden deň uvedomil nedocenený potenciál tanca?

Izraelská tanečná scéna je presne týmto jedinečná – je veľmi malá, no zároveň živá, silná, prosperujúca. A áno, dosť rôznorodá. Očakávalo by sa, že v rámci takej malej scény sa veci budú na seba podobať, tanečníci sa budú hýbať podobným štýlom, všetci sa budú navzájom silno ovplyvňovať. No je tu mnoho choreografov a tvorcov, ktorí prichádzajú s vlastným originálnym štýlom a zanechávajú po sebe jedinečnú umeleckú stopu. Počas rokov vznikali viaceré platformy pre prezentovanie, podporu a rozvoj novej generácie choreografov. A skutočne to pomohlo. No myslím, že najdôležitejším bola každopádne vôľa a chuť samotných choreografov. Izraelská realita a politická situácia sú tak komplikované, častokrát bez priameho riešenia, mnohokrát deprimujúce a smutné, že umelci majú naliehavú potrebu vytvoriť si vlastné alternatívne svety. Možno nie všetci, ale rozhodne to takto vnímam ja – umenie a tvorba je priestorom, kde cítim slobodu a ovládanie – dve veci, ktoré v Izraeli nezažívame tak často, ako by som si želala.

Izrael, rovnako ako Slovensko, čelí problému úbytku populácie. Iris Erez vo svojom diele local/not easy hovorí veľmi otvorene, že je efektívnejšie mať deti (so štedrou podporou štátu) ako byť choreografkou. Samozrejme, ide o sarkastickú generalizáciu. Existuje však prognóza, že Palestínčania prevýšia židovskú populáciu už v roku 2020. Na Slovensku máme podobné predpovede – zníženie počtu slovenského obyvateľstva bude vyrovnané „novými Slovákmi“, ktorí prichádzajú ako imigranti, čo samozrejme spôsobuje veľa emócií, najmä strachu a nenávisti, je príčinou politických hier a manipulácií.

Podľa môjho skromného názoru, demograFIcká hrozba je aktuálna, a preto je veľmi dôležité vyriešiť pretrvá‐ vajúci konfliikt vytvorením dvoch štátov. Mám pocit, že pravé krídlo izraelskej politickej scény ignoruje tento problém a každé nimi navrhované riešenie – napríklad okupácia – vážne poškodzuje židovský a demokratický charakter Izraela.

V roku 2013 si dielo YouMake ReMake, ktoré bolo prezentované ako formát v mnohých krajinách, uviedla aj s tanečníkmi elledanse company v Bratislave. You- Make ReMake otvára okrem iných otázok tému virtu- álneho priestoru, ponúkajúceho možnosti, ktorých hranice a aspekty si nevieme ani celkom predstaviť. Niektoré vízie hovoria o postupnom zániku divadla, lmu, tanca či tlačenej literatúry – o zániku sfér, kde žijeme. Ako vidíš budúcnosť – ako distopický obrázok alebo ako utopický raj?

Myslím, že akokoľvek sme technologicky vyspelí, nikdy nebudeme ochotní a schopní zameniť nič za zázraky, ktoré nám dáva javisko. Jeden človek, herec či tanečník, stojí tvárou v tvár druhému človeku – divákovi. Delia sa o rovnaký priestor. V rovnakom čase. To je niečo nezameniteľné a nenahraditeľné. Budúcnosť preto nevidím pochmúrne. Myslím, že v napätí medzi dystopiou a utópiou leží reálny svet. A myslím, že aj v You- Make ReMake, prostredníctvom virtuálnej platformy, ide o skúmanie ľudskej podstaty a kultúry. To je to, čo stojí v centre pozornosti aj pre budúcnosť.

Ďakujem za rozhovor.

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1.9.2016, 18:45:36 | Photo: Archiv SE.S.TA | Category: Dramaturgy, Space & context

Dramaturgie, prostor, čas, fragmentace a kompozice

Key words:

KOMPOZICE, DRAMATURGIE, ČAS, PROSTOR, CHOREOGRAFIE, FRAGMENTACE

Hlavním tématem Choreografického fóra, které organizovalo Centrum choreografického rozvoje Se.S.Ta. na České taneční platformě 2016, byla dramaturgie tance. Jako k zastřešujícímu tématu se k ní vztahovaly všechny tři moderované diskuse. Fóra se spolu s (především zahraničními) hosty České taneční platformy zúčastnili novinářka a dramaturgyně Mara Serina (Itálie), teoretik a taneční dramaturg Roberto Fratini Serafide (Iálie / Španělsko) a tanečník a taneční kritik Kristóf Farkas (Maďarsko).

Podtématem první diskuse byl prostor (ve vztahu k dramaturgii tance). Analytická diskuse se vedla o představeních Devoid (Nanohach), Dogtown (Prague Pride) a Sniper´s Lake (Spitfire Company).

Diskusi otevřela možnost pro každého účastníka říci jedno slovo, jednu rychlou asociaci k tématu dramaturgie – prostor a v souvislosti s uvedenými představeními. Objevila se slova jako: atak, hlas, rytmus, tělo, zpověď, architektura, divadelní, světlo, člověk, hněv, proslov, umělecký... A následovaly otázky: Co znamená pro dramaturgii prostor? Co je to dramaturgie tance sama o sobě? Jestliže je prostor tématem dramaturgie, kdy, v jakém momentu se tématem dramaturgie stává? Jaký je rozdíl mezi prostorem (space) a místem (place)? Podle Roberta Fratini Serafide je prostor modernistickým konceptem, prostor je absolutní a prázdný; místo je postmodernistickým konceptem, místo je relativní vzhledem k osobě, která ho zabydlí, neexistuje samo o sobě před námi ani po nás. Až ve chvíli, kdy se v posledních 40 letech změnil v tanci koncept prostoru na koncept místa, kdy přestal být „prostor“ abstraktní, začal být podle Serafida jako „místo“ problémem dramaturgie. Debata se odvinula směrem k dalším možným označením, specifikacím místa – pole (field), flek (spot), prostředí (environment), krajina (landscape)... - a k vývoji divadelního prostoru od black boxu (od iluze prázdného prostoru) k white boxu (otevřenému místu; přechodovým stádiem je pak grey box), k tématu otevřeného, soukromého versus veřejného prostoru i k úvahám o vědomém a nevědomém užívání prostoru v tanci. Zmínka o prázdném prostoru vedla k diskusi o tom, čím vším je možné prostor zaplnit – nejen tancem, tělem samotným, ale také například slovy. Prostor může být plný slov, která přicházejí z vnitřku prostoru (jako v Dogtown) nebo z vnějšího prostředí (jako v Devoid). Prostor mění kontext, mění význam. Dalším tématem souvisejícím s prostorem je vztah tanečníka a publika, vztah (i hranice) mezi distancí a blízkostí. Tanečník a choreograf Jaro Viňarský: „Space has no meaning as it is void and without memory but it is full of accidents of meanings.“

Podtématem druhé diskuse byl čas (ve vztahu k dramaturgii tance). Analytická diskuse se vedla o představeních As Long As Holding Hands (Peter Šavel, Tereza Ondrová), Tranzmutace (Andrea Miltnerová, Jan Komárek), Chybění (VerTeDance) a Guide (Věra Ondrašíková).

Diskusi opět otevřela možnost pro každého účastníka říci jedno slovo, jednu rychlou asociaci k tématu dramaturgie – čas a v souvislosti s uvedenými představeními. Objevila se slova jako: flow, zámotek, objekt, balanc, ticho, efekty, iluze, cokoliv, čistota, rozmanitost, neočekávané, přítomnost, pohyb, záblesk... Čas a prostor jdou ruku v ruce. Jak dlouho to trvá, když jsme v přítomnosti? Staří Řekové rozeznávali různé formy času. Kronos je podle nich čas jako oceán, nekonečnost, spirituální čas, mateřský princip. Aion je podle nich bežný čas, čas jako řeka, otcovský princip. Čas (různé časy) má (mají) různé kvality. Krajina (landscape) je prostor, kde se děje čas v procesu sedimentace, usazování - dílo jako sedimentace mnoha vrstev, dílo jako struktura, dílo jako kompozice, dílo jako systém. Systém se organizuje, umělec / dramaturg musí vědět jak se organizuje. Guide demonstruje prostorovou ideu času. Dramatugie vytváří ekosystém významů, je to živý systém, z něhož vyrůstá a jehož důsledkem je krajina díla. Jakou roli hraje publikum? Umělec by měl být k publiku loajální. Je možné sledovat, že čas představení a čas publika (respektive prožívání času na jevišti a v hledišti) se liší. Roberto Fratini Serafide připomněl s nadsázkou tři klíčové důvody vzniku díla: peníze, čas, nápad. Tvořit taneční dílo je jako psát, komponovat poezii – tak vzniká struktura díla; nacházíme věci a věči nacházejí nás. Taneční dramaturgie je tichá dramaturgie. Dramaturgie není nutně narativní. Divák podniká s dílem svou osobní cestu a hledá možnosti, jak v díle objevit místa, která jeho osobní cestu otevřou a umožní. Která pro něj poslouží jako pootevřená okna, kterými může nahlédnout.

Podtémata třetí diskuse byly fragmentace a kompozice (ve vztahu k dramaturgii tance). Analytická diskuse se vedla o představeních Entropy #224 (Jiří Bartovanec) a Odtržení (Farma v jeskyni).

Diskusi do třetice otevřela možnost pro každého účastníka říci jedno slovo, jednu rychlou asociaci k tématu. Objevila se slova jako: hudba, segmentace, sekvence, smrt může tančit, stop, detaily, kusy, zázrak, prostor, hra, organizace, struktura, existence, místo, distance... Do diskuse se znovu vrátily základní, zastřešující i úvodní otázky: Co je dramaturgie? A jaký je rozdíl mezi dramaturgií v divadle a v tanci? Co se nachází mezi publikem a představením? Diskutovalo se o dekonstrukci a dekompozici, o sekvencích a fragmentech (stylů, jazyků, jiných děl...), o ideji juxtapozice, o neshodě, o kontinuitě versus diskontinuitě, o materiálu, který je ve své podstatě rozporuplný, o nestabilitě i o konceptu já podobném cibuli, z níž se dají odlupovat jednotlivé vrstvy... jako o jedněch z možných principů využívaných v dramaturgii tance. Ale mluvilo se také o širším kontextu – o médiích a mediální manipulaci a o vztahu mezi vlastním životem jednotlivce a mediálním životem.

Whole article...

7.10.2016, 14:49:24 | Photo: Archiv SE.S.TA | Category: Process of making, Art & Society

Jako obalená ve vatě

Key words:

REZIDENCE, KOUČINK, INSPIRACE, PROCES, CHOREOGRAFIE, TANEC, VÝVOJ, BAROKNÍ TANEC

S tanečnicí a choreografkou Andreou Miltnerovou jsme se sešly v době, kdy za sebou měla rezidence s maďarskou tanečnicí Ritou Góbi na zámku ve Žďáru nad Sázavou. V době, kdy vznikala jejich společná inscenace Kontrapunkt (premiéra 4. a 5. září 2016), na níž spolupracovali i se zvukovým a světelným designerem Janem Komárkem. Andrea vzpomínala na začátky svého setkávání se SE.S.TA a hovořila o tom, jak ve Žďáru vytvářely společný svět s tanečnicí Ritou.

Jak začaly tvé kontakty se sdružením SE.S.TA?

Nejdřív jsem začala chodit na hodiny Marie Kinsky, která SE.S.Tu založila, tehdy zaměřené hlavně na současný tanec, protože jsem hledala (a pořád hledám) možnosti tréninku. Pak jsem zjistila, že mají Marie a SE.S.TA i další aktivity. To bylo kolem roku 2000. Na workshopech SE.S.Ty. jsem se setkávala se zajímavými lidmi a vždycky jsem se něco nového a neobvyklého naučila. Už v té době jsem se zajímala o barokní tance a Marie pozvala do Česka choreografku Béatrice Massine, aby připravila workshopy barokního tance. To pro mě bylo velké lákadlo, protože v té oblasti a na tak vysoké úrovni je tu málo možností. Setkání s Béatrice pro mě bylo z tvůrčího hlediska důležité. Během svých hodin mi hodně pomohla s technikou. A otevřela mi nový taneční svět.

V Česku se ale přes SE.S.Tu. objevili i další úžasní lidé – třeba Jean-Christophe Paré, velmi inteligentní umělec, který umí pro každého zvlášť otevřít nové pohybové možnosti. Což vlastně odpovídá tomu, jak se Marie snaží pracovat. Chce otevírat horizonty a ne lidi posílat určitým předem daným směrem. Ze začátku nabízela spíš taneční semináře a tréninky, později se její práce přiklonila ke koučinku. Takový vývoj mi vyhovoval, tak jsem to i já sama potřebovala. Zpočátku jsem totiž na vlastní tvorbu nebyla připravená. Trénink je příprava těla, aby se z něj stal co nejdokonalejší nástroj. A koučink je pro mě spíš přípravou hlavy, přístupu k tvorbě. Pro samostatného tvůrce je potřeba obojí.

Máš nějaký příklad toho, v čem pro tebe byl koučink přínosný?

Vzpomínám na spolupráci s Jean-Christophem Paré. Jen mi nabízel možnosti. To bylo všechno. A i když jsem se třeba nakonec vrátila k tomu, co jsem chtěla dělat původně, cestou spolupráce s Jean-Christophem se ve mně něco změnilo. Podporoval mě, abych zkoumala různé možnosti a způsoby vyjádření, abych měla z čeho vybírat a hned na začátku se neuzavřela do jednoho směru. Je to způsob, jak může choreograf zjistit, jestli to, co dělá, je správné vzhledem k tomu, co chce vytvořit, způsob, jak může získat nadhled. Jean-Christophe přitom nikdy neřekl, jestli je něco dobře nebo špatně, to je v koučinku důležité.

Přitom pro mě je choreografie intuitivní věc a až zpětně zjistím důvod, proč jsem něco udělala. Mentální rozbor pro mě není na prvním místě. V tom spočívá magie tance – napojíme se na nějaký tvůrčí zdroj, na jiné smysly, než používáme běžně. V dnešním světě jsme naopak zvyklí všechno dělat přes hlavu, přes mozek. Tanec je zajímavý, protože to tak v něm být nemusí. S ním se dostáváme k věcem, které jsme schopní dělat, ale možná jsme je do určité míry zapomněli. V tanci využíváme schopnosti, které v běžném životě pravidelně nepoužíváme.

Nejdříve tréninky, pak workshopy, koučink a nakonec jsi měla rezidence na zámku ve Žďáru nad Sázavou, kde vznikala tvá nová inscenace Kontrapunkt. V čem pro tebe byly rezidence s Ritou přínosné?

Tak jak SE.S.TA postupně nabízí různé možnosti pro umělce, vyvíjím se i já. Když jsem potřebovala trénovat technické věci, nabízela se taková možnost. Když jsem se potřebovala vyvíjet v choreografické práci, objevil se koučink. A v době, kdy existovala nabídka rezidencí, jsem potřebovala rezidenci. Svou první intenzivní rezidenci jsem měla ve Žďáru v červenci 2015. Předtím jsem se toho bála, měla jsem strach, že bych neměla tanečníkům co nabídnout, ale možná to byl příliš intelektuální přístup. Přitom často říkám, že člověk musí poslouchat intuici. Ve Žďáru jsem pak měla svou první rezidenci vůbec a hned s tanečnicí, kterou vůbec neznám – s Ritou Góbi, se kterou jsem předtím strávila dohromady možná dva dny. Nakonec to pro mě byla osvobozující zkušenost.

Měla jsem předem připravené nějaké koncepty a vágní nápady, co bych chtěla dělat, ale ne příliš konkrétní, což bylo naprosto správné. V létě na zámku skoro nikdo nebyl, mohly jsme zkoušet kdykoliv jsme chtěly. Hodně jsme pracovaly, protože Rita je velký dříč, ale atmosféra byla tak volná, že mi připomínala dovolenou. Marie nám štědře nabídla, že si můžeme cokoliv vzít ze zahrady, rajčata, maliny, rybíz... Cítila jsem se jako obalená ve vatě, jako v sedmém nebi. Byl to ráj. Mohly jsme s Ritou jenom vyzkoušet, jestli spolu můžeme pracovat. Nebyly jsme pod tlakem, že musíme vytvořit představení. Věděly jsme sice, že spolu chceme něco udělat, ale kdyby z toho nic nebylo, vůbec by to nevadilo. A myslím si, že to také bylo pro naši psychiku dost důležité. Pro zkoušení jsem zvolila freskový sál, což bylo inspirativní. Je to pozitivní místo. Předtím jsem zkoušela v prostorách, kde je tma a najednou jsem pracovala v místnosti s krásným výhledem na sad a na pole. Na návštěvu k nám chodili brouci a venku zpívali ptáci.

V následujících rezidencích jsme se pak snažily uchopit, co vznikalo. Práce s Ritou byla úžasná. Má takové tělo a takovou inteligenci, že dokáže vstoupit do světa, který chci tvořit a umí se v něm vyvíjet. Vždycky jsem řekla, co hledám a Rita po nějakém čase chytila, co chci, a posouvala to dál. Nebo mi naopak dokázala technicky pomoci. Byla to zkušenost intenzivní a velmi obohacující.

Při prezentaci výsledků rezidence pro veřejnost mě zaujalo, když jste mluvily o tom, že jste si nejdřív musely vyvinout svůj pohybový slovník.

Jsme s Ritou hodně odlišné. Když řeknu, že musíme najít společný slovník, možná to vypadá, že musíme najít prostor, v němž se obě cítíme dobře. Ale to vůbec není ten případ. To, co děláme, je pro nás obě výzva. Obě navzájem jsme se tlačily někam, kde jsme ani jedna ještě nebyly. Na neznámou půdu. To mě na naší společné práci fascinuje. Najít stejný slovník znamená, že nám šlo o to, abychom byly ve stejném světě, abychom se doplňovaly, i když jsme tak odlišné a nemáme stejnou kvalitu pohybu. Rita je malinká, rychlá, bystrá a já jsem dlouhá a pomalá.

Na stejném místě ve Žďáru jste pracovaly v různých ročních obdobích. Vstoupila proměna přírody do vaší práce?

Určitě vstoupila do naší práce skrz naše tělo. Jsme ovlivnění ročním obdobím, ať chceme nebo ne. V zimě je tělo línější, na jaře se chce víc hýbat. A my jsme při jarní rezidenci začaly skákat. Vypadá to jako banální věc, která by ale asi v zimě nepřišla. Spousta věcí vstoupí do naší práce, ale my o tom ani nevíme. Možná na to přijdeme později. Na konci letní rezidence Rita přišla s momentem ponoření do vody. Nevymyslela to hlavou, prostě jsme šly jeden večer plavat. Rita je také hodně vnímavá, má ráda přírodu, takže jsme pozorovaly, co se kolem nás děje. A pro mě je naše choreografie dost insektoidní. Nemůžu vědět, jestli by to nebylo podobné, kdybychom zkoušely v divadle, ale myslím, že by se to tímto směrem tolik nevyvíjelo.

Jak vlastně jako choreografka vnímáš, když prezentuješ po rezidenci materiál, nehotovou práci? Ovlivňují reakce lidí další pokračování tvé tvorby?

Když jsem tvořila v Praze, nikdy jsem nechtěla prezentovat work-in-progress před veřejností. Jsem opatrná, když mám prezentovat něco, co není z mého hlediska připravené k prezentaci před lidmi. Nevadí mi pozvat lidi, jejichž zpětná vazba mě může posunout dál. Ale pro veřejnost je, myslím, hrozně těžké rozlišovat work-in-progress od představení. I pro mě samotnou je to složité, když jsem v roli diváka – work-in-progress je stejně svým způsobem představení.

Při první rezidenci ve Žďáru jsem měla na výběr, jestli chci prezentovat nebo připravit workshop. Vybrala jsem si workshop a přišly na něj úžasné ženy. Při druhé rezidenci už bylo přání Marie, aby byla veřejná prezentace, silnější. V Praze bych možná řekla ne. Ale ve Žďáru, ve freskovém sále, jsem měla pocit, že se lidé mohou podívat, jak se „vaří“, co se při rezidenci děje. A že je jasné, že to, co prezentujeme, není dodělané dílo. Názory mě zajímají, mohou ověřit, zda něco funguje, nebo ne. Pro nás bylo nakonec dobré, že jsme rezidenci uzavřely prezentací, protože se nám vytvořený materiál dostal líp do těla. Přes nervozitu a tlak jsme musely dát materiál dohromady. To vyžaduje trochu jiné soustředění. A možná to je dobrá příprava na budoucí představení.

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1.9.2016, 18:41:50 | Photo: Archiv SE.S.TA | Category: Process of making

Scénografie a pohyb

Key words:

SCÉNOGRAFIE, ARCHITEKTURA, POHYB

Leitmotivem letošního ročníku festivalu KoresponDance bylo téma scénografie v tanci a pohybu. Scénografii se proto věnoval i druhý festivalový kulatý stůl. Diskutovat přišli například scénografka a choreografka Marie Gourdin, choreograf Jean Gaudin, Pierre Nadaud, pedagog, filozof, tanečník, choreograf a klaun, choreografka Jana Bitterová, choreografka Marie Goeminne a další.

Přístup tvůrců ke scénografii, jako k vytváření prostředí na scéně, je velmi odlišný. Marie Gourdin, která se ve scénografii přihlásila k jednoduchosti a minimalismu, prezentovala svou práci na inscenaci Un, kde vycházela z prostoru a scénografie, která následně ovlivňovala pohyb těla na jevišti. Omezení prostoru spoluvytvářelo pohyb, který se vyvíjel také v improvizacích s prostorem. Choreografie dotváří scénografii. Jak scénografie a pohyb vytvářejí společný smysl? Scénografie je totiž součást jazyka, kterým dílo hovoří.

Jiným přístupem může být tvůrčí cesta, která naopak začíná pohybem, tělem, fyzičností. O té hovořila choreografka Marie Goeminne, jejíž inscenace Lostbox byla součástí festivalového programu. Scénografii, v tomto případě krabici, použila jako předmět, který podporuje a dotváří předem vymyšlený pohyb a který podporuje tělo na scéně. Dál zkoumala, jak se slova, která v představení promítá na tělo performerky a jsou tak v podstatě také specifickým scénografickým prvkem, hodí k pohybu, jak jsou transformována do pohybu. Zajímaly jí polohy těla a moment, kdy vymizí lidský aspekt těla. Chtěla jít do detailů – sledovat, jak se fyzicky projevuje dech, pohyb prstu..., tělo pro ní bylo krajinou, v níž se snažila kombinovat verbální a neverbální jazyk.

Dále se objevila otázka, jak se ke scénografii vztahují interpreti. Marie Goeminne popsala stav interpretky Lostbox, kdy se snaží být maximálně přítomná tady a teď, vnímá publikum a podniká fyzickou cestu skrze představení, přičemž také interaguje s krabicí, s uzavřeným prostorem na scéně. Podle Marie Gourdin je interpret součástí příběhu, takže v Un intenzivně komunikuje se scénografií. Interpret musel zjistit, co fyzicky může na scéně, kterou scénografie strukturuje, dělat z hlediska tělesné akce a pohybu. Interpret si vytváří vlastní příběh. Tělo dělá svá vlastní rozhodnutí a scénografie s sebou nese možnosti, jak jinak pracovat s tělem. Důležité je ale vědět, co chce konkrétním předmětem scénograf říct.

Přísně vzato, architektura se nachází všude – prostor okolo nás, láhev vody, kterou vezmeme do ruky..., to vše nutí tělo reagovat a vytvářet si vždy novou abecedu pohybu. To, co se odehrává na scéně (reakce těla na scénografické řešení, i kdyby jím měl být jen prázdný prostor) tak vlastně známe i z každodenního života. Vždy je to také otázka toho, jak pracovat s tvůrčí intuicí. Scénograf nemá předem jasnou odpověď, jasně daný postup práce. Jinak než v Un Marie Gourdin například jako scénografka pracovala na přípravě inscenace Stabat Mater s choreografem Jeanem Gaudinem ve Žďáru, kdy byly výchozím bodem existující opera a choreografická idea a scénografie na ně musela reagovat. Jako scénografka musela porozumět tomu, co choreograf chce – sám rozhodl o základním pojetí prostoru a o tom, jak se v něm budou pohybovat tanečníci.

Jean Gaudin pak sdílel svou vlastní zkušenost. Přístup k tvorbě z hlediska toho, zda je první choreografie nebo scénografie, u něj bývá různý. Není v tom žádné pravidlo, stejně jako nemá žádné pravidlo v tom, jak pracovat se scénou, s předmětem. Společná práce s Marie Gourdin probíhala tak, že přeložila jeho ideje do obrázků. Práci chorografa se scénografem Jean Gaudin popisuje jako obousměrné vibrace, tvůrčí komunikaci, diskusi, vzájemné ovlivňování. Vždy jde o interpretaci toho, jaký příběh se vypráví. Pracují choreograf a scénograf skutečně na stejném příběhu?

Velkým tématem scénografa je rozhodnutí. Scénograf vytváří koncepce, pracuje s materiály (technická oblast scénografie), s předměty, vytváří kompozice, ideje struktury. Ale nakonec se musí rozhodnout, co použije. Kolik rozhodnutí scénograf při přípravě díla udělá? A jaká mají tato rozhodnutí dopady? Například výběr materiálu zúží významy. Scénograf má sílu vidět věci, jež choreograf vždy nevidí, a vytvářet prostor s nadhledem. Scénograf jako profesionál musí být flexibilní a adaptabilní.

Při site-specific práci diskutuje choreograf s prostorem jako se scénografem, také hledá cesty, jak s prostorem pracovat. Znamená to, že už to je prvotní tvůrčí scénografická otázka – proč chce vlastně choreograf pracovat v divadelním prostoru nebo proč tam pracovat nechce? Všechno má své důvody, které spoluvytvářejí příběh. Výběr prostoru je velké scénografické rozhodnutí. Stejně tak jako odpověď na otázku, zda je třeba cokoliv přinést na scénu – předmět totiž nic nepřidává, musí být součástí díla. Dát toho na jeviště moc znamená nedat tam nic.

Diskutovalo se také o symbolech a o tom, jak s nimi tvůrci zacházejí, jakým způsobem jdou za první čtení předmětu, i o archetypech. V diskusi se objevila také zmínka o neviditelné scénografii, která může i v prázdném prostoru vznikat čistě jen pohybem těla. Jako odpověď na otázku: Jak žijeme prostor? Tělo stále vytváří prostor. Scénograf rozbíjí běžný význam věcí i míst a dokáže jim dát nový, jiný význam. Vidí jinak. Klade otázky. Je také dramaturgem prostoru. V tomto bodě diskuse navázala na témata, která byla předmětem kulatých stolů při České taneční platformě 2016, jež Centrum choreografického rozvoje Se.S.Ta pořádalo a v nichž se věnovalo dramaturgii tance.

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26.3.2018, 12:45:37 | Photo: Dragan Dragin | Category: Process of making, Art & Society

Měnit úhel pohledu: Koučink a Choreografické fórum

Key words:

rezidence, koučink, proces, choreografie, tanec, vývoj, prostor, architektura, paměť

Kouč je partner. Partner, který klade otevřené otázky. Nenabízí odpovědi. Žádné rady. Setkává se s klientem / partnerem / v konkrétním případě s choreografem v bezpečném prostředí – jsou spolu tady a teď, vedou partnerský rozhovor ve sdíleném prostoru a čase. Kouč se napojuje na partnerův svět. Témata, kterým se spolu s koučem věnuje, jsou choreografky / choreografa. Kouč je expert na otázky a koučovací proces, nikoliv nutně na choreografii. Kouč podporuje partnera v rozvíjení partnerova záměru, ve formulaci partnerových cílů, v odkrývání partnerovy síly, talentu a potenciálu ve vztahu k záměrům a cílům, v rozšiřování možností a objevování možností dosud skrytých, v tom, aby možnost proměnil ve skutečnou akci.

Rozvíjet důvěru

Koučink se živí kreativitou a vynalézavostí (například při hledání možností), experimentem (například při zkoušení nově odhalených možností v praxi) a zároveň je praktický, protože vždy směřuje od myšlenky k akci – a i tím propojuje hlavu s tělem.

Při koučování se neakcentuje problém, ale řešení – koučink je zaměřený na budoucnost, jde při něm především o posun na cestě kupředu směrem k vytyčenému záměru / cíli (třeba v kontextu choreografické tvorby).

Koučink není soutěž a kouč neuplatňuje žádnou autoritu. Kouč také nehodnotí. A nepřebírá odpovědnost za partnerova rozhodnutí a řešení. Kouč zodpovídá za koučovací proces, který stále vnitřně reflektuje. Sleduje přínos a užitečnost pro partnera, kterou průběžně ověřuje zpětnou vazbou.

V koučování hraje velkou roli zvídavost.

Myslím, že v Česku žijeme v kultuře, v níž nám vždycky někdo rád udělí nevyžádanou radu nebo nás začne přesvědčovat o správnosti svého názoru. V kultuře přebujelého hodnocení a srovnávání. Jako pravý opak takového přístupu proto je koučování významné a svým způsobem subverzivní – i na poli umění. Kouč totiž dělá pravý opak – důvěřuje v to, že si partner / choreograf /ka poradí sám /a, že samostatně rozhodne, jaký krok je pro něj / ni momentálně v daném kontextu prioritní a správný.

Podlaha je nebe

Na Choreografickém fóru, které se konalo 21. srpna 2016 v pražském Studiu Alta jako součást mezinárodních rezidenčních dílen pro choreografy s koučinkem, připomněla tanečnice a choreografka Dominique Rebaud počátky moderního tance – tabula rasa. Moderní tanec nenavazoval na předchozí vývoj, ale objevoval nové možnosti prostoru, času, formy a pohybu. Další zlom podle ní nastal v padesátých letech 20. století – decentralizace a ústup od tanečního egocentrismu, tanečník přestal primárně ukazovat sebe, ale začal ukazovat tanec samotný, tanečník se stal součástí díla. To je další ukázka schopnosti podniknout tvůrčí změnu, nový krok, přijít s novým pohledem, s uměleckou inovací.

Od dějin tance přešla Dominique plynule k sobě samé. Od oborové paměti k paměti individuální. (Komplikované je to s oběma.) Prováděla své publikum tvůrčími úvahami, které se odvinuly od její otázky: Může v sólech, která udělala za třicet let, nalézt něco jako osobní rukopis? (Na začátku je otázka.) A pak ukázala překvapivé momenty – například dlouhý pás bílého hedvábí jako tanečního partnera a objekt na scéně zároveň; obrat, kdy taneční podlahu začala považovat za nebe, což jí umožnilo změnit své návyky a vystoupit ze své komfortní zóny. (Kde je potom podlaha? - zeptal se později kdosi z publika.)

Jiný pohled

Choreograf Jean Gaudin (a také kouč, který vychází z transakční analýzy) pak na Choreografickém fóru promítl svá tři videa, na nichž ukázal různé způsoby, jak se tanečník a choreograf vztahuje k prostoru a architektuře. Poukázal na různé úhly pohledu. Úhly pohledu, které vytváří prostor. Které přetváří prostor. Jak se například ze čtyřúhelníkového nádvoří s kašnou (viděno zdola) může stát spirála (viděnou z ptačí perspektivy).

Jean připomněl, že člověk myslí duálně (v protikladech – černá / bílá, dobrý / špatný, malý / velký, světlo / tma...), ale zajímavé je hledat třetí možnost. Nebo vytvářet třetí možnost ze dvou existujících. Tak vypadá rozšiřování a změna úhlu pohledu a hledání možností. Na tvůrci samotném pak je, jak s tvořivě objevenou možností skutečně tvořivě naloží.

Měnit a změnit úhel pohledu je přeci součást umělcovy mise.

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26.3.2018, 13:41:24 | Photo: Archiv SE.S.TA | Category: Space & context, Education, Art & Society

Prostor a cirkulace pro pedagožky

Key words:

CHOREOGRAFIE, SMYSLY, LIDSKÉ TĚLO, PEDAGOGIKA, ANDRAGOGIKA, ARCHITEKTURA, PROSTOR, CIRKULACE, TANEC, INSPIRACE

Únorová taneční pedagogická dílna (seminář) Centra choreografického rozvoje Se.S.Ta. se věnovala Prostoru a cirkulaci v něm. Svedla dohromady začínající i zkušené učitelky tance ze Základních uměleckých škol i tanečnice a choreografky – aspirantky pedagogické praxe, s francouzskou tanečnicí a pedagožkou tance Sophie Billy, tanečnicí, choreografkou a pedagožkou Mirkou Eliášovou, architektkou Dorotou Kluskou a s koučkou – tedy se mnou samotnou. Mezioborovost a mnohost zkušeností a přístupů k tématu tak byly podhoubím společně strávených dnů. Hlavními tématy byly tanec, pedagogika, prostor, cirkulace. Prostor a cirkulace z hlediska tance a jeho výuky i z hlediska architektury a koučování.

Klademe si otázky

Seminář měl dva směry zájmu, formulované do dvou otázek: Co je prostor pro tanec a jak ho používat? Co je pedagogická činnost a jaké jsou její cíle?

V kruhu účastnic se však nejprve otevřel prostor pro zodpovězení dvou jiných, úvodních, otázek: Co je pro vás cirkulace? A co je pro vás pedagogika? (Vyjasňování toho, co je řečeno, se ostatně postupně stalo také dalším podstatným tématem semináře.)

Na téma cirkulace zaznělo: vír, koloběh, poudění energie v prostoru a její návrat zpět, komunikace vnitřního a vnějšího, plynutí, propojení, propojení v pohybu, nové začátky, proudění vzduchu v prostoru, prolnutí, pohyb v prostoru, vytváření tvarů, volné a svobodné proudění, nekonečné proudění, kruh a pohyb a média, pohyb lidí v prostoru, dýchání, proměna mezi plynutím, prostorem a lidmi, proměna na úrovni těla i mysli, oběh a proudění myšlenek a emocí v dialogu.

A na téma pedagogika se objevilo: vedení, směřování, poslání, učení, výchova, doprovázení k vlastnímu rozvoji („můžeme učit jen pozornost“), psychologie, sdílení zkušeností, získávání možností, setkávání s lidmi, učení něčemu a zároveň učení sama sebe, doprovázet, být přítomen, předat, otevření očí a myslí dětí i pedagoga, něco získat, vysvobození ze stereotypu, možnost sdílet, vzájemné rozšíření obzorů, výuka a vedení žáků s talentem, předávání znalostí a zkušeností, bezpečí, důvěra, objevování, změna, otázka po svobodě a autoritě a jejich hranicích. Ukázaly se různé přístupy pedagogů k otevírání samotného prostoru, prostoru pro tělo a prostoru tělem.

Architektura taneční lekce

Taneční praxi pak zahájila Sophie Billy. Sophie postupuje ve své lekci krok za krokem a staví ji jako architekturu svého druhu. Nastoluje různá témata. Například: Probuzení smyslového vnímání. Uvědomění si vlastního těla. Moment setkání dvou tanečnic v prostoru – k někomu se přiblížit a od někoho se oddálit. Dynamika. Energie. Pohyb. Prostor. K někomu jdeme a někoho zas opouštíme. Pozornost. Sophie klade otázky: Co se děje v těle, když někoho potkáme? Co se děje mezi hlavou a hrudníkem? Jak je pohled na druhého provázaný s pohybem těla? Setkávání s nábytkem rozestavěným v prostoru. Momenty rozhodnutí. Ohledávání osvětleného prostoru a imaginárního prostoru ve tmě – vytvoření dvou světů, osvětleného světa pro setkání s druhými a neznámého světa tmy, kde se setkávají se sebou. Procítit v těle, co se v těchto dvou světech děje. Představa zdí v prostoru – člověk svou imaginací vytváří architekturu. Momenty překvapení. Setkání s vnitřním prostorem. Setkání s druhým v prostoru. Jak nábytek ve vnějším prostoru ovlivňuji vnitřní prostor? Jak vnitřní prostor ovlivňují imaginární zdi? Přechody mezi dvěma imaginativními prostory. A Sophie zakončuje větou „najděte si konec“.

Sophiina lekce pohledem vnějšího pozorovatele: Nejprve otevírání společného prostoru. Jasné pokyny. Postupné opouštění řádu a přenos větší zodpovědnosti za to, co se v sále děje, na tanečnice - vede to k evidentnímu nárůstu jejich energie, tvořivosti a radosti z tance.

Skrze dech

Mirka Eliášová ve své lekci s účastnicemi semináře vychází od vnitřního prostoru těla a z něj postupuje do prostoru vnějšího. Začíná individuálním dechem, pak dechem ve dvojici. Naslouchají a objevují prostor druhého. „Vnímejte, co váš partner potřebuje. Podpořte ho v tom, co sám vytváří,“ říká Mirka. A zabývá se i tím, jak v tanci vytvářet pro druhého bezpečný prostor. Tanec se zavřenýma očima. Aktivovat vnitřní prostor. Cirkulovat v kruhu. Narušit kruh. Dech ve dvou – aktivace rytmu a časové složky. Prozkoumání vnějšího prostoru. Frázování. Ovlivňování času partnera ve dvou – vedení, následování.

Sophie další den dál rozvíjí vnímání prostoru a orientaci v prostoru se zavřenýma očima a když se ostatní pohybují kolem (zvuky, ruchy, cizí dech...). Orientace podle zvuku, světla, pohybu vzduchu, ozvěny... Sophie také dává pokyn: zaplňte prostor pohybem, pak vyprázdněte prostor zastavením; a naopak – vyprázděte prostor pohybem, pak ho zase zastavením zaplňte.

Dorota se věnuje tématu cirkulace v budově. Proudění lidí, vzduchu, vody, energií, světla, zvuku... Zarezonovalo téma dveří. „Vstup je brána mezi dvěma světy,“ vysvětluje Dorota. Dveře jsou hranice, oddělují svět uvnitř a vně. Budova má svůj střed (například schodiště) podobně jako ho má i tělo. Pak účastnice architekturu ohledávají vlastním tělem.

Po každé lekci vždy následuje otázka pro účastnice semináře: Jak by ony samy převedly, využily absolvovanou lekci do / ve výuky / ce dětí? Řeší se tedy pokaždé přenos do jejich individuální praxe.

Kde se rodí tanec a co je to kompozice?

V průběhu semináře se také objevuje a stále vrací otázka: Kde začíná tanec a kde se rodí? Kde je hranice mezi každodenním pohybem a tancem? Tanec je podle Sophie charakterizován prostorem, časem, kvalitou a vědomím.

Seminářem se jako červená nit vine i hledání akčních slov (pokynů, slov – sloves, která vybízejí ke konkrétní akci). Například: odtlačit, rozvinout, tlačit, skočit, projít, odvrátit se, škřábat, plazit se... Jsou to slova, která rozvíjejí imaginaci a vedou k akci, aktivitě. Slova, která jsou podložím dramaturgie.

Objevuje se téma kompozice a jejích různých forem. Každý uvádí svou definici: struktura, linie od někud někam, celkový obraz toho, co chci říct, pohled na celek, skladba, složení částí z celku, uchopení pohybu a prostoru v čase a podle určitých principů, vztah s něčím, vztahy mezi prvky, situačnosti, když všechno funguje dohromady.

Prostor komunikace

Prostor je ale také prostorem pro komunikaci. Pro setkání lidí a jejich vlastních světů, které se v něčem se shodují, ale v mnohém jsou většinou odlišné. Pro otevřené otázky. Pro myšlení. Pro cirkulaci myšlenek i emocí a také pro jejich interpretaci. Pro cirkulaci, tedy pro pohyb a oběh, pro proudění – versus cyklení v kruhu. Pro hledání možností. V takovém prostoru se otevírá dialog.

Na semináři hovoříme i o tom, jak jazykové prostředky, které využíváme, ovlivňují nás, ostatní a formují situaci. Tím jak myslíme a mluvíme vytváříme svůj svět a ovlivňujeme tím svět ostatních. Svůj svět sytíme smyslovými vjemy, myšlenkami, emocemi (podle Labana přesný pohyb provokuje emoci, pocit), filozofickými koncepty, jazykem... A podobně o svém světě vydáváme zprávu druhým. Při komunikaci je rozdíl, jak do světa druhé vstupujeme: můžeme se vlámat do světa druhého, zaklepat, rozkopnout dveře, pomalu vstoupit, nechat druhého, aby nám sám otevřel dveře... Otevírá se téma autoritativního či demokratického přístupu k lidem v pedagogice a osobního pedagogického stylu. Tématem je i hodnocení, kritika versus nehodnotící zpětná vazba a ocenění studentů či žáků. Účastnice oceňují, že mají možnost sdílet své otázky, zkušenosti, přístupy a vyslechnout to samé od druhých.

Nakonec se dostáváme i k různým známým pedagogickým přístupům, respektive školám. Sophie představila principy Montessori pedagogiky. A já jsem doporučila film Summerhill o demokratické škole (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBjQAeJIa30, http://www.summerhillschool.co.uk/).

A co si účastnice odnesly? - Uvádějí, že: Inspiraci z prostoru. Inspiraci pro přípravu choreografie. Schopnost přesně pojmenovávat. Povědomí o nutnosti dát si cíl. Zaměření na imaginaci. Zjištění, že komunikace různých oborů posiluje taneční svět. Možnost výživně se učit a doplňovat se. Mnoho analogií. Povědomí o tom, že kvalita a přesnost pohybu zcitlivuje i mysl. Důvěru.

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26.3.2018, 13:53:57 | Photo: Archiv SE.S.TA | Category: Space & context, Education, Art & Society

Tanec a architektura na společné téma Cirkulace: Kulatý stůl jako prostor kontextualizace

Key words:

CHOREOGRAFIE, SMYSLY, LIDSKÉ TĚLO, PEDAGOGIKA, ANDRAGOGIKA, ARCHITEKTURA, PROSTOR, CIRKULACE, TANEC, INSPIRACE

Kulatý stůl Tanec, Architektura, Cirkulace, otevřený i pro veřejnost, byl zakončením i shrnutím témat, která se objevila při únorové taneční pedagogické dílně (semináři) věnované Prostoru a cirkulaci v něm. Přinášíme shrnutí diskuse.

Architektura v tanci

Právě v únoru také zahájila Fragnerova galerie spolu se spolkem studentů estetiky Katharsis přednáškový cyklus Estetika prostoru / Prostor estetiky (stále probíhá). Pozice diváka a jeho tělesnost spoluurčují architektonický prostor. Prostor interaguje s lidmi a potřebuje aktivní účast člověka, který do prostoru vstupuje. - Jak uvedla historička a teoretička umění Eliška Koryntová na své přednášce, která cyklus otevřela. Čeští teoretikové podle ní ve svých spisech často přirovnávají architekturu k hudbě a tanci. Citovala například Zdeňka Kalistu, který v knize Tvář baroka píše o plánech architektur, které jsou „zprohýbané do nejrůznějších křivek jakoby v tanci“.

Prostor a tělo jsou ve spojení, vzájemně se ovlivňují a navzájem se zvýznamňují. Sophie Billy řekla na kulatém stole, že si začala všímat architektury, když cítila její vliv ve vlastním těle a měla z architektury přímo fyzický pocit. Historii, i konkrétněji historii architektury nebo umění, lze podle ní vnímat tělem, pochopit ji v těle. Sophie se v tom inspiruje Georgem Balanchinem a především choreografem Williamem Forsythem, který zkoumá gravitaci, strukturu a architekturu prostoru, prostorové výzvy v tanečním kontextu, ale také architekturu v pohybu. Příkladem jeho práce, v níž skloubil zájem o architekturu a tanec, je choreografie One flat thing reproduced, již Sophie doporučuje ke shlédnutí. (Videa z představení se dají shlédnout na YouTube:

One flat thing reproduced on YT I
One flat thing reproduced on YT II
One flat thing reproduced on YT III

Mirka Eliášová navíc připomněla Forsythovu práci se závažími - Nowhere and Everywhere at the Same Time. A také tak zvaný landscape dance, jemuž se věnuje tanečnice Anna Halprin (https://www.annahalprin.org/). Další referencí byl Thomas Hauert, který kombinuje pravidlo a náhodu. Či Beatrice Massine a její Mass B.

Nowhere and Everywhere at the Same Time on YT
Anna Halprin I
Anna Halprin II
Mass B

Prostor a strategie pohybu

Architektka Dorota Kluska upozornila na několik ikonických staveb. Newyorské Guggenheim muzeum, které je průzračným příkladem toho, jak se v architektuře může řešit téma cirkulace lidí. Nebo stavby Franka Gehryho (což je také spoluautor pražského Tančícího domu), který ve svém díle pracuje s tématem znejistění. Protože architektura ovlivňuje lidské chování v ní, pocity, strategie pohybu. Architekt vkládá do stavby i koncept pohybu lidí v ní – a může si s ním hrát, ovlivňovat ho.

Kulatý stůl zviditelnil reference a do větší šíře kontextualizoval vznesená témata (architektura, prostor, tanec, cirkulace). Pokračoval tak v tom, co patří k základním přesvědčením Centra choreografického rozvoje Se.S.Ta. - totiž v mezioborovém přístupu. V myšlence, že nikoliv uzavřenost, ale otevřenost jiným úhlům pohledu, jiným profesím a odlišným myšlenkovým konceptům obohacuje taneční scénu a umění i pedagogickou práci jednotlivců, kteří tuto scénu tvoří.

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26.3.2018, 14:06:07 | Photo: Dragan Dragin | Category: Space & context, Art & Society

Tanec a architektura

Key words:

CHOREOGRAFIE, SMYSLY, LIDSKÉ TĚLO, PEDAGOGIKA, PLÁN, ARCHITEKTURA, PARTITURA, CIRKULACE, TANEC, INSPIRACE, DYNAMIKA, SITE SPECIFIC

Tanec a architektura mají mnoho společného. Především prostor, ale také jednotlivé pojmy, které používáme jak pro tanec tak pro architekturu např. kompozice, objem – hmota, materiál, vnitřní prostor, vnější prostor, rytmus, proporce, zlatý řez, kontrast, symetrie, linie, detail, vertikala, sagitála, horizontála a další.

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29.8.2016, 17:06:14 | Photo: archiv | Category: Education

Kulatý stůl Škola tančí – KoresponDance, 9. 7. 2016

Key words:

projekty pro školy, choreografie, smysly, lidské tělo, matematika, řemesla,

V roce 2016 se projekt Škola tančí konal ve čtyřech základních školách ve Žďáru nad Sázavou, a to vždy formou krátkodobé spolupráce. S dětmi tak pracovaly čtyři páry složené vždy z jednoho choreografa / choreografky (Zdenka Brungot Svíteková, Jan Bárta, Barbora Látalová, Jana Bitterová) a jedné učitelky. Kombinovali umělecký a pedagogický způsob práce s dětmi. Základním rámcem projektu totiž je snaha propojit konkrétní školní předmět nebo vybrané téma, které ve třídě rezonuje, s pohybem a tancem, otevřít ho pro děti jiným způsobem, a to skrze kreativní proces. Projekt se inspiruje ve Francii, kde je podobná spolupráce ve školách běžná (avšak odehrává se na dlouhodobé bázi). Proto se kulatého stolu, který na festivalu KoresponDance reflektoval, co se v těchto čtyřech případech podařilo, zúčastnila také Sophie Billy, která má s podobnými projekty ve Francii dlouhodobé zkušenosti. A své know-how vnesla prostřednictvím workshopů i do Česka.

Šest smyslů

Jan Bárta pracoval s dětmi ze třetí třídy od května do června 2016. Celkem se uskutečnilo sedm zdruba tříhodinových setkání. Tématem bylo pět smyslů i smysl šestý – smysly v pohybu, vědomí vlastního těla. Pracovat na něm začalo 25 dětí, ale v průběhu práce se jejich počet snížil na 15 – nepokračovaly ty, které nechtěly (báze dobrovolnosti, kdy si projekt děti a rodiče ve školách také předem odsouhlasili). Cílem poté byla pro děti spolupráce samotná - vytvořit něco dohromady, rozvíjet vztahy mezi sebou, začít se poznávat, protože právě to se ukázalo ve třídě jako skutečné úskalí. Díky tématu smyslů děti postupovaly od sebe ven ke skupině – nejprve poznávaly sebe samé a pak své spolužáky. Nakonec se tedy projekt stal do jisté míry více sociálním, než čistě pohybovým a tanečním – vycházel ze skupiny a podle toho dospíval ke konečnému tvaru, který bylo možné veřejně prezentovat. Spolupráce tak otevřela i další témata – například otázku inkluze a inkluzivního přístupu ve třídě, nebo problematiku frontální výuky v současné škole.

Lidské tělo

Zdenka Brungot Svíteková pracovala s dětmi z páté třídy, a to během června 2016. Tématem bylo lidské tělo. Výchozím bodem se pro Zdenku stalo studium části učebnice věnované lidskému tělu, podle které se děti učí – klouby, kosti, svaly, krevní oběh, pulz, srdce, látková výměna... S dětmi pracovala intenzivně čtyři vyučovací hodiny týdně, což vyžadovalo od dětí velké soustředění. V počátku musela sladit očekávání dětí s tím, na čem budou společně opravdu pracovat. Další téma vnesla do společné práce dívka na vozíku – bylo tedy třeba společně hledat, jak ji s dětmi pohybově propojit, jak najít pro každého místo ve skupině tak, aby byli všichni rovnocenní, jak se navzájem poslouchat, věnovat si pozornost, jak si navzájem pomoci, jak spolu být; dívka vnesla do dění také jinou kvalitu pohybu. Samotná učebnice se sama o sobě ukázala jako svého druhu návrh na představení, který se pak vyvíjel a zjednodušoval pod vlivem skupiny.

Matematické zlomky

Jana Bitterová pracovala s dětmi také v červnu 2016, dvakrát týdně po čtyřech hodinách; celkem se setkaly šestkrát. Její skupina měla 19 dětí a byla poměrně kompaktní. Dostala konkrétní zadání z matematiky – zlomky. Jana se šla pro inspiraci podívat na vyučování a zjistila, že se téma k tanci ve skutečnosti úzce pojí. V konkrétní práci pak zlomky s dětmi převáděla do pohybu a prostoru – například otočením těla o polovinu kruhu, během do dvou třetin prostoru apod., postupně vznikala spousta nápadů. Na začátku bylo tělo a počítání, které zaměstnalo racionální mozek, ale postupně přibýval pohyb, obrazy, představy, metafory... Protože s dětmi pracovala v areálu žďárského zámku, jednalo se téměř o site-specific postupy, které braly do úvahy konkrétní místa, šestibokou kašnu a podobně. Přínosem pro děti nakonec bylo i to, že z blízka poznaly profesi choreografky.

Řemesla, hlavně skláři

Bára Látalová pracovala v malotřídce, kde byly děti od 1. do 4. třídy a setkala se s nimi celkem čtyřikrát. Měla oživit konec školního roku. Tématem se stala řemesla v návaznosti na Rok řemesel, kterému se ve škole věnovali. Konkrétně se s dětmi zaměřila na skláře, závěrečná prezentace se stala poctou tomuto řemeslu i někdejší lokální sklářské tradici. Bára pojala i tanec jako řemeslo, vrátila se k historickým kejklířům a vedla děti k hravému přístupu k tělu při využití řemeslnické terminologie – tělo otesávaly, pilovaly, hoblovaly, hnětly... Další vývoj nechala na dětech a jejich vlastních nápadech. Vnímala, že se tím posiluje odpovědnost dětí, které si uvědomily, co dokážou. Děti měly možnost učit se o těle a o sobě navzájem. Pohyb jim byl přirozený.

Témata, která se daří otevírat

Je důležité, že pozitivní přínos spolupráce vnímají nejen učitelé, ale také děti, jak tvrdí učitelky a umělci. Některé by si rády podobnou zkušenost zopakovaly, jiné ji braly jako jednorázovou věc, která je nějak obohatila. Ze zkušenosti učitelek, choreografek a choreografa také vyplývá několik okruhů témat, která se daří tancem ve školách pro děti účinně otevírat a posouvat dál:

poznání sebe sama, svého těla, vlastní kvality pohybu, setkání se sebou jako s tvůrčí bytostí, poznání skupiny, třídy jako kolektivu, který spolupracuje, komunikuje, společně tvoří a vytváří závěrečnou prezentaci jako společné dílo, rozvoj sociálního a inkluzivního myšlení, jiný pohled na učení a rozšíření povědomí o netradičních způsobech učení (holistický přístup - prostředkem k učení je celé tělo), větší povědomí o profesi choreografa.

Koresponduje to s tím, co u kulatého stolu přesně vyjádřila Sophie Billy. Podle ní je totiž tanec jakožto umění také médiem, jedinečným a přirozeným prostředkem k dalším cílům.

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Blog o tanci - o tanečním a pohybovém umění pohledem Zuzany Smugalové

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