SODA Works 2020
The publication encourages transversal readings and can be interpreted as a companion to the work of the SODA year group 2018-2020. During the two year process, the students were invited to critically challenge, reflect and develop their artistic practice.
The publication encourages transversal readings and can be interpreted as a companion to the work of the SODA year group 2018-2020. During the two year process, the students were invited to critically challenge, reflect and develop their artistic practice.
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A<br />
AWARENESS 2 / 10<br />
AGENCY 6 / 8 / 22<br />
ALGORITHM 6 / 8 / 22<br />
AMBIGUITY 17 / 25<br />
ARTICULATION 22<br />
ARTIFICIALITY 22<br />
AUTHENTICITY 10 /<br />
18 / 22<br />
B<br />
BODY 10 / 14 / 18 / 26<br />
C<br />
CIRCUS 2 / 18<br />
CHOREOGRAPHY 8 /<br />
15 / 20<br />
CODE 6 / 22<br />
COLLABORATION 2<br />
/ 9 / 10 / 17 / 20 / 22<br />
/ 26<br />
COMPOSITION 27<br />
CONDITION 2 / 15<br />
CONSCIOUSNESS 2 /<br />
10 / 26<br />
D<br />
DEEP LISTENING 26<br />
DANCE 2 / 7 / 8 / 12 /<br />
14 / 20<br />
DRIVE 2 / 10<br />
DIARY 20<br />
DICHOTOMY 17 / 25<br />
DISTANCE 2 / 7 / 22<br />
E<br />
EMBODIMENT 2 / 10 /<br />
15 / 18<br />
ETHERIC ENERGY 2 /<br />
10 / 28<br />
F<br />
FAMILIARITY 10 / 25<br />
FICTIONAL<br />
AUTOBIOGRAPHY 2<br />
/ 22<br />
FIELD 10 / 15<br />
FLOW 2 / 10<br />
G<br />
GAME 21 / 22<br />
GAP 13 / 16<br />
H<br />
HOSTING 21 / 22<br />
I<br />
IMAGINATION 2 / 18<br />
IMPROVISATION 2 /<br />
6 / 12 / 14 / 20 / 22 /<br />
27 / 28<br />
INTERNAL-<br />
ALCHEMY 26<br />
INTIMACY 2 / 10 / 18<br />
INTUITION 3 / 12 / 14<br />
/ 18<br />
J<br />
JUXTAPOSITION 9 /<br />
10 / 17 / 25<br />
L<br />
LANDSCAPE 2 / 8<br />
LIMINAL 10 / 25 / 26<br />
M<br />
MAGIC 4 / 10<br />
N<br />
NONSENS 2 / 25<br />
O<br />
OPENING 2 / 10 / 15<br />
/ 18<br />
ORDER 15<br />
P<br />
PLASTICITY 14<br />
PRESENCE 2 / 12 / 25<br />
PROCESS 6 / 8 / 12<br />
/ 15<br />
PRACTICE 18<br />
R<br />
REAL-TIME 2 / 12<br />
RELATIONALITY 12 /<br />
18 / 25<br />
RECOGNITION 12 / 25<br />
REALITY 10<br />
RHYTHM 14<br />
RITUAL 3 / 13 / 14 / 20<br />
S<br />
SCALE 9 / 24<br />
SELF 13 / 18 / 22<br />
SENSE-MAKING 25<br />
SILENCE 16 / 27 / 28<br />
SOLO 2 / 6 / 8 / 12 / 14<br />
/ 22 / 26<br />
SOUND 12 / 20 / 26<br />
/ 27<br />
SPACE 7 / 14 / 26<br />
SPECTRUM 2 / 24<br />
SPECULATION 2 / 22<br />
SPIRITUALITY 10<br />
STATE / STATES 10 /<br />
15 / 24 / 27 / 28<br />
STORY-TELLING 2 /<br />
18<br />
SYSTEM 8 / 22<br />
T<br />
TRANS-<br />
EXPERIENTIAL 26<br />
TRUST 16 / 21<br />
TUNING 12 / 15<br />
V<br />
VIRTUAL 22<br />
W<br />
WHAT-IS-<br />
ALREADY-THERE 2<br />
/ 9<br />
WRITING 12<br />
Z<br />
ZONE 2<br />
<strong>SODA</strong><br />
2018–<strong>2020</strong>
INTRO DUCTION<br />
“Henceforth the writer [dancer, performer, artist, spectator] is immersed in multilinguism,<br />
which does not mean that he necessarily speaks or writes in different<br />
languages, but that the language and the culture of other languages and cultures,<br />
are always there in their multiple resonances, indispensable, and infusing his own<br />
cultural expression, in one way or another.”<br />
Bernadette Cailler on Édouard Glissant: Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy 19/1, 2011: 145.
This publication comes with a glossary index on its front cover: an unfinished list<br />
and collection of terms and ideas resisting completion - always to be revisited. Some<br />
words might feel familiar, others less so. Either way, during the artistic research and<br />
working processes of Kuba Borkowicz, Bernardo Chatillon, Jorge De Hoyos, Jason<br />
Corff, Ana Lessing Menjibar, Minna Partanen and Rhyannon Styles these words<br />
have gained momentum and been repeatedly identified with increasing specificity<br />
and in this iteration, accompany their final performance presentations for the MA<br />
program. Although the glossary and its alphabetic arrangement might suggest<br />
order, an overview or some kind of proven expertise, much of what it references<br />
lies in between its terms, best experienced fully through physical explorations,<br />
choreographed and improvised movement and embodied experience, focused<br />
theoretical encounters and incommensurable speculations, via small-scale, latent<br />
details of the everyday or strolling the streets together and gathering around food<br />
and drinks. To approach this, the publication encourages transversal readings. It<br />
is more of a companion to the work than a documentation of the two year process<br />
which invites students from diverse backgrounds and disciplines to critically challenge,<br />
reflect and develop their artistic practice. Accompanying those individual<br />
technical and theoretical skills brought into an academic setting, in dialogue with<br />
an international community of peers and teachers.<br />
While the focus of the MA <strong>SODA</strong> program is on the specific, individual<br />
body and movement-based performative practices of all participants, it also<br />
seeks to provide and open up a collective learning and research environment. The<br />
philosopher Édouard Glissant, in conversation with filmmaker Manthia Diawara,<br />
speaks of the necessity to “consent not to be a single being.” 1 His phrase, however,<br />
does not claim consensus and normative imagination, actions, values or rules. It<br />
is not about hasty alignments and quick declarations of sharing and complicity.<br />
Rather, it encourages us – artists, thinkers, audiences and citizens – to question<br />
ever anew what brings and holds our individual bodies together, and what tears<br />
them apart: what defines a body’s singularity while acknowledging its manifold<br />
perceivable and non-perceivable bonds and commitments to the contexts and surroundings<br />
in which it is embedded and in dialogue? The question of how to open<br />
up in our individual dances, performances and writings – which the conversation<br />
at the end of this publication addresses - considers alternative and collective ideas<br />
of agency and responsibility immanently bound to moving, thinking bodies. In<br />
Glissant’s terms, seeking to access a “poetics of relation” 2 , which navigates the<br />
challenge of not reducing other bodies, the body of the other, to existing models<br />
of that which we are ready to recognize.<br />
TO CONSENT<br />
NOT TO BE A<br />
SINGLE BEING<br />
<strong>SODA</strong> (SOLO/DANCE/<br />
AUTHORSHIP).<br />
THOUGHTS FOR THE<br />
GRADUATES 2019/20<br />
1 Édouard Glissant and<br />
Manthia Diawara: „One<br />
World in Relation,“<br />
trans. by Christopher<br />
Winks. Journal of<br />
Contemporary African<br />
Art (2011, 4-19).<br />
2 Édouard Glissant:<br />
Poetics of Relation,<br />
trans. by Betsy Wing<br />
(Ann Arbor: University<br />
of Michigan Press 1997).<br />
Sandra Noeth for the team of the MA <strong>SODA</strong><br />
Prof. Rhys Martin (program leader), Sophia New, Prof. Dr. Sandra Noeth<br />
https://www.hzt-berlin.de/en/courses/study-courses/ma-soda/<br />
1
BERNARDO<br />
CHATILLON WHO AM I?<br />
EMBODIMENT<br />
Embodiment does not<br />
have to do with my human<br />
body but with the<br />
relationship between<br />
my body and other bodies,<br />
whichever matter<br />
they are made from.<br />
Imagination and ideas<br />
are embodied when we<br />
give them a shape, that<br />
is what making staged<br />
pieces is about.<br />
The experience of being Bernardo is a fractal. Dance is an intermediate space for<br />
this fractal to emerge. All intermediate spaces are possible spaces to live in, invisible<br />
and visible. My intermediate space is based on what I experience in life. In my<br />
dance there are uncomfortable places; my dance is about paranoia, manipulation,<br />
violence between bodies, sex, fear, complexes, shame, terror, loneliness, panic, a lot<br />
of panic attacks, a lot of food to hide the pain and the crying, despair, my mother, my<br />
father, my grandparents, uncles, cousins, the neighbors around my neighborhood,<br />
the courtyard, heroin, blood, knives, weapons, television at lunch, television at<br />
dinner, television at breakfast, Jean Claude Van Damme, Sylvester Stallone, Arnold<br />
Schwarzenegger, DJ Quicksilver, Freddy Krueger, sad meals, policemen, Brazilian<br />
soap operas and trying hard to be a good skater, trying hard to ride a bike on only<br />
one wheel, trying hard to do sports, trying to be good at something, working, working<br />
to have money at McDonald’s, falling in love, falling in love, falling in love, love<br />
sometimes allowed and forbidden, a lot of fantasies, real danger, moments of death,<br />
some scandals, moments of clearness, inspiration, a lot of strength, motivation, until<br />
now -- this moment, where I believe is the place I project the plays where I make<br />
the future, the plays where I own the narrative, I shape, I own and I create. I am a<br />
consciousness having the experience of being Bernardo.<br />
IMPROVISATION<br />
what happens 24 hours<br />
a day. Improvisation<br />
is always happening<br />
even when we follow<br />
habits and patterns, it<br />
is the breath of fresh<br />
air, the key for us to<br />
become witnesses of<br />
our actions, it gives us<br />
agency. If we notice we<br />
are always improvising<br />
we may understand<br />
that we can change the<br />
course of our actions.<br />
Improvisation is eradicated<br />
by political and<br />
economic structures of<br />
power: the possibility of<br />
citizens realizing they<br />
can change the way<br />
they follow systems<br />
and rules.<br />
WHERE DO I COME FROM?<br />
Imagine you go to a place where you are asked what is most relevant and important<br />
to you. This is <strong>SODA</strong>. Then you are asked to show answers to these questions and<br />
explain how you found them. This is also <strong>SODA</strong>.<br />
So, how can I access, show and translate an idea and concept that is so ingrained<br />
in layers and layers of habits of speech, thought and movement? How can I dig<br />
through those layers to uncover the answers? In this process of digging I have<br />
revealed a part of me that creates stimuli and generates questions that give me<br />
new options to reflect on what I say or do. These reflections make me critical of my<br />
means of expression. The possibility to have time for self-criticism and -reflection is<br />
a candy, a present, a privilege. What have I done with this? I returned to my origins,<br />
back to my family. To the smile of my grandfather when he did magic tricks for<br />
us. What was this childhood aura that made me feel alive and connected? It was<br />
an environment of magic, and when I said this word I started to think about what<br />
is magic, what is this concept and as it emerged in me I was reminded of the way<br />
in which I entered the dance studio: as if there were two different worlds, one I<br />
inhabited as a child and a new one there in the studio, of rehearsal and practice.<br />
But they are not separated...<br />
During my time at <strong>SODA</strong>, I went home to see my grandfather<br />
and he asked me what I was doing in Berlin. I told him that I go to the studio and<br />
there I am a kind of scientist looking for ways to speak about the world and my<br />
2
experiences, ways of relating with people and making dance pieces. For example,<br />
I believe that in the future people will be able to fly so I go to the studio and<br />
I try to fly in the studio. And my grandmother says, “You are crazy just like your<br />
grandfather with all that stuff about magic and tricking people.” But it’s true. I<br />
go to the studio, I stand still and don’t move for an hour and then strange things<br />
start to happen. “See, that’s witchcraft!” “No, but if you stop that fork with food<br />
on the way to your mouth don’t you start feeling things? That’s what I do in the<br />
studio. I wait for it to tell me things.” And my grandfather says, “That’s like when<br />
I am making magic tricks and people are waiting for something to happen and<br />
try to understand what is the trick.” “Yes, but in my case when I go to the studio<br />
I trick myself into waiting for the magic to happen and then I try to repeat these<br />
experiments and show them to the people in school.”<br />
This is what I am doing when I work with concepts of real-time<br />
composition and improvisation in my work: I read the space and the audience so<br />
that I can react and create my tricks on stage. My grandfather knows the tricks he<br />
will do, but he always has to contextualize them, which has to do with reading the<br />
audience and the space. What interests him is to insert dynamics into the space and<br />
to activate it. As if he is orchestrating and modulating the space through his voice<br />
and movements. When I go to the studio I work with movement, words, time and<br />
space of the studio to create my magic trick, my piece. When I explained this to my<br />
grandfather, he asked,“That’s all very good, but how can you be sure that you will<br />
produce in the audience that moment when they get amazed, like when I reveal<br />
that the toothpick they broke isn’t really broken?” “I don’t know yet...”<br />
WHERE AM I GOING?<br />
· Don’t get lost in the map.<br />
· Easy Going Going Easy<br />
· Intuition and free association are the grounds for my process.<br />
· Everything is visible and part of the stage, audience included.<br />
There is no way to exit.<br />
· The project asks for the medium. The content asks for the form.<br />
· Real-time composition is just one possibility.<br />
· Improvisation is a political weapon.<br />
· Giving attention is a process of civilization.<br />
· The aim is always different.<br />
· Studio practice affects the real and the logical.<br />
· Words serve to distract and confuse: use this in your favor to find<br />
what is already there.<br />
· Words serve to focus and clarify: use this in your favor to find<br />
what is already there.<br />
· Seek satisfaction. The satisfaction with yourself, the world, reality.<br />
RITUAL<br />
a practice that disrupts<br />
and dismantles perception.<br />
This rupture grants<br />
access to other ways of<br />
gathering and generating<br />
knowledge of the<br />
world as a complex and<br />
non-linear entity. The<br />
body knows the world is<br />
not as linear as it is portrayed,<br />
so it accumulates<br />
pressure and tensions,<br />
as it faces the conflict<br />
from different perceptions.<br />
Creating artistic<br />
work is a way to develop<br />
rituals that acknowledge<br />
both the world and time<br />
as non-linear paths.<br />
3
This is the source of all inspiration and the impulse to create.<br />
· Seek dissatisfaction. The dissatisfaction with yourself, the world, reality.<br />
This is the source of all inspiration and the impulse to create.<br />
· All spaces have their mysterious zones. But if we enter spaces as a tourist,<br />
we do not have access to the mysteries of these zones.<br />
· Rituals give structure; structures are endless.<br />
· Technique is what allows me to continue independent from motivation.<br />
· It is time to return to oral tradition.<br />
· No one taught me how to walk, I copied a vertical template.<br />
· No one will teach me how to levitate, I need a levitating template.<br />
· Beware of sleeping and waking up.<br />
· Remember to recall or revisit moments where I have experienced Magic.<br />
· Use suggestion and visualization as generative tools.<br />
· Create a glossary for each creation.<br />
· Work with invisible collectives.<br />
· The topic - the visualization - the experience - the repetition - the frame.<br />
· Choreographic memory is a thermometer to see if we were present<br />
during a research process.<br />
· Waiting is a tool, but it can also be something else.<br />
· Music and objects work when you are not dependent on them to keep<br />
the energy you search for in your dance.<br />
· A solo is a duet that becomes a familiar monologue between generational<br />
layers of the body.<br />
· What do you eat, what do you think, what do you say before and after<br />
you go into research?<br />
· My generation is experiencing an era of perceived and non-perceived crises...<br />
I want to work on a non-perceived crisis. How do I manifest this?<br />
MAGIC<br />
It’syouuuuuuuuuuuuuu<br />
uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu<br />
uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu<br />
uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu<br />
uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu<br />
uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu<br />
uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu<br />
uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu<br />
uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu<br />
uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu<br />
uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu<br />
uuuuuuuuuuu<br />
WHAT AM I DOING HERE?<br />
I am looking for a place with people that believe the world is beyond what we<br />
see and that there is a lot of artistic, political and social work to do between the<br />
visible and the invisible. I want to find this place, so that together we can access<br />
these worlds that are not logical or practical or clear. In order to do this, I am creating<br />
practices through which I can access insights that help me shape and refine<br />
intuitive processes. This is one example, where for three days I sat in my room<br />
working with CA Conrad’s somatic writing exercises.<br />
4
levanta voo<br />
despega<br />
para matar<br />
Racha<br />
Excalibur<br />
o livro<br />
dentro do<br />
mapa<br />
massa<br />
porco<br />
cabra<br />
o Raio<br />
Vertical<br />
Baixo<br />
Cima<br />
cristal<br />
congela<br />
Chora<br />
corta<br />
retina<br />
cega<br />
rasga<br />
que não há<br />
O gordo nos<br />
folhos<br />
é Júpiter<br />
Arvore de<br />
figos!<br />
rósna<br />
uma linha mais<br />
dura<br />
a luz<br />
nas unhas<br />
na pele<br />
no centro<br />
no meio<br />
o braço<br />
o braço a<br />
meio<br />
Perfume<br />
os dois no mesmo<br />
ar<br />
estão a rodar<br />
susto<br />
um Laço na<br />
espada<br />
Agua<br />
limite lento<br />
(tempo)<br />
aldeia de<br />
zebras<br />
princepe<br />
não há<br />
apenas<br />
olhos<br />
nos teus<br />
olhos<br />
doente<br />
Mordida<br />
queima<br />
incha<br />
na ponta<br />
Fino<br />
calaram-se as<br />
baterias<br />
Tremo<br />
imagens<br />
calaram-se as<br />
baterias<br />
tremo<br />
o frio<br />
água<br />
tremo<br />
a criação<br />
engalinha-se<br />
sou filho de<br />
todas<br />
vi assim<br />
Queimar<br />
ditaram<br />
soltar a<br />
esgrima<br />
pesado<br />
refazer<br />
mãe<br />
as coisas merecem<br />
atenção<br />
As coisas merecem<br />
atenção<br />
eu sou todos menos<br />
esse mesmo<br />
um<br />
dos<br />
vou sentir<br />
memoria<br />
queimo<br />
no inferno<br />
impulso<br />
Sou peso<br />
palavras<br />
figura<br />
mecanica<br />
descender<br />
mais nada<br />
Gritos<br />
fogueira<br />
Acontece o<br />
medo<br />
tempo<br />
contemplar<br />
o segredo<br />
a dança em<br />
mim<br />
cantiga<br />
cinzas<br />
mascara<br />
o que me<br />
deste<br />
Amor<br />
este mundo<br />
inflamavél.<br />
Á imagem do que podias<br />
imaginar<br />
abro a porta<br />
Nada<br />
vou à volta<br />
pela chapa do<br />
sol<br />
o cheiro da cozinha<br />
antiga<br />
visual perdido<br />
a minha lingua<br />
desenrola-se as patas<br />
avanção<br />
assumo a forma<br />
perfeita<br />
acelerado vou ao<br />
encontro<br />
No menu do teu estomago,<br />
ácido<br />
fez-me num<br />
dia<br />
vomitei<br />
a minha cara<br />
consagração<br />
o que esperas ser<br />
espirito<br />
lagarto neste<br />
dia<br />
o tempo<br />
espera-nos<br />
liquido<br />
expilrro<br />
palavras<br />
ácido<br />
Terror<br />
termino<br />
desejo mál<br />
desejo<br />
mesmo<br />
as botas que tu<br />
exibias<br />
a tua cara<br />
mereces<br />
vergonha<br />
entre as narinas uma<br />
chama<br />
grito<br />
livros atrás de<br />
livros<br />
os anos que<br />
perdi<br />
atras de mim<br />
perdi-me<br />
esta vergonha<br />
solta<br />
despe em<br />
cúspo<br />
o teu<br />
aos olhos<br />
a minha avó na cozinha<br />
a prever<br />
o que tu<br />
partiste<br />
queimas-te<br />
matas-te<br />
e mesmo assim<br />
continua-va a<br />
cozinhar<br />
a preparar<br />
sessão<br />
ritual<br />
seja<br />
salvou<br />
louros<br />
do mercado<br />
morre César<br />
descoberto<br />
riso louco<br />
Ela cozinhou<br />
nós todos<br />
comemos<br />
não te<br />
lembras?<br />
Vinha<br />
misturado<br />
Arroz<br />
tomate<br />
coloquial<br />
soletras<br />
o bom nosso de cada<br />
dia<br />
Lagarto<br />
visto<br />
ataco<br />
água<br />
ausencia<br />
complicadas<br />
febres<br />
assaltavam<br />
tudo<br />
de cima a<br />
baixo<br />
estrada<br />
chega<br />
Nosferatos<br />
cortejo<br />
pequenas<br />
cordas<br />
o amor deixa as<br />
marionetes<br />
escamas<br />
resuscito<br />
monto em cavalos e<br />
cascos<br />
apodrece<br />
virulentos<br />
uma côr<br />
(forma)<br />
apoderasse<br />
choro<br />
quimico<br />
arde<br />
Agora que te<br />
sabes<br />
sabes igual<br />
O que te deram<br />
hoje<br />
todas as<br />
refeições<br />
Raspar<br />
esperar<br />
faz-se em ti<br />
confunde<br />
buraco<br />
prontidão<br />
Retaguarda<br />
tempo<br />
só sobras<br />
a morte<br />
nada<br />
espera<br />
perto de voar<br />
desenrola<br />
a bacia<br />
oca<br />
afunda<br />
nada me<br />
deves<br />
avesso<br />
se saíres por onde<br />
entras-te<br />
nunca tivesses<br />
saído.<br />
escrever<br />
incesto<br />
Na maçã as<br />
árvores<br />
ponto<br />
som<br />
rrrrrasgão<br />
morreste<br />
ponto<br />
poema de rua<br />
silencio<br />
ponto<br />
fiquei<br />
escutar<br />
mostra<br />
poema<br />
ponto<br />
incredulo<br />
morrer<br />
mostras-te<br />
quantas vidas<br />
tiveste<br />
ponto<br />
quantas vidas<br />
tive<br />
pensei<br />
quantas vou<br />
ter<br />
até me olhares nos<br />
olhos<br />
agora que me<br />
viste<br />
ponto<br />
que fazer<br />
assisto<br />
o que se sabe<br />
é isto que se<br />
lê<br />
nada se forma<br />
em nada<br />
Partimos<br />
juntos<br />
sem dar as<br />
mãos<br />
sentimos o<br />
cruzar<br />
interno<br />
eterno<br />
um x que se<br />
faz<br />
promete a tua<br />
barriga<br />
promete<br />
partida<br />
naquilo<br />
sou<br />
sei<br />
saio<br />
entro<br />
sempre gostei<br />
entro mais<br />
sou e sei<br />
mais aquilo<br />
mais forte<br />
sempre<br />
gostei<br />
engorda<br />
Mistério<br />
Levanta voo.<br />
5
JASON<br />
CORFF<br />
ALGORITHM<br />
A stochastic process, a<br />
system of rules that can<br />
be used as a predictive<br />
technology. One system<br />
that allows its user to<br />
know an outcome or at<br />
least have a semblance<br />
of an outcome before a<br />
process is undertaken.<br />
CODE<br />
Mask for information<br />
to hide importance,<br />
intention and meaning.<br />
A code is its own language,<br />
a way something<br />
understood by one is<br />
communicated to others.<br />
A code’s reader could<br />
decipher meaning different<br />
from what its maker<br />
intended. In this case,<br />
a message could be<br />
skewed or reinterpreted.<br />
It could be broadened; it<br />
could be narrowed.<br />
6
Excerpt from a transcribed conversation with self while moving.<br />
09.09.19 11:05 N 52˚ 33’ 11.693” E 13˚ 22’ 36.891”<br />
Here. Arrival. Here. Here is a closed system. Here is a location. Here is definitively<br />
different from there. Here can be defined by what it is not. Not far away. Not in<br />
the past. Not in the future. Here. Here can be shown with coordinates. Here. It<br />
can be shown with time. Here. Meaning more than coordinates. Meaning more<br />
than a moment. Because here indicates presence. Here could be shelter. Here<br />
could be food. Here might be what you find or what you need. Here includes you.<br />
Here indicates you have arrived. Here is no longer there.<br />
Arrival. Arrival is a point in space with meaning. Arrival is an<br />
intentional location. You are aware you have arrived when you can say, “I am here.”<br />
Here. Begin. Arrival is not just here. Arrival indicates now. You cannot arrive at a<br />
place unless you intend to be there. You cannot arrive unless you arrive early, late,<br />
or on time. You have arrived. Your destination becomes a point of arrival. Here.<br />
You have arrived when your presence, your awareness, enters a point in space.<br />
At that point and that moment, space becomes place. Place has meaning because<br />
you define it through your presence. That point in space is here. Arrival. Arrival<br />
is a stopping. Arrival is an end. Arrival always involves here. Always.<br />
Because here is a point in space, because here is a point with<br />
meaning, always here becomes place. Here is where intention leads. A point of<br />
arrival. So here is linked to time. Here is the endpoint of a journey. Here is defined<br />
space. Here is a closed system. And here is fleeting. Here cannot stay. When you<br />
step away from here, your understanding of here shifts.<br />
Here. There. Not here.<br />
The difference between here and there: between here and not<br />
here is not here always represents a loss. Not here is never present. Not here is<br />
unattainable. It’s unreachable, forever behind you, and forever in front.<br />
You can never say, “I am not here”, but if you know where it is<br />
that you are not, you will always know you are here, that you have arrived. Here<br />
is the present tense. Here is a moment in time, always now.<br />
A walking score sends you into the landscape. A walking score<br />
prejudges distance. A walking score determines your journey, your expedition,<br />
your there. But a walking score relies on you to recognize when you are here,<br />
when you have arrived. It is your endpoint that has meaning and your endpoint<br />
that you carry at all times. Your sense of here, your sense of now, your sense of a<br />
different closed system.<br />
Arrival. Here. Begin.<br />
DISTANCE<br />
We think of distance in<br />
terms of both space and<br />
time. To cross distance<br />
requires a journey, a<br />
measurement, to understand<br />
you have traveled<br />
from here to here. Distance<br />
is a gap that contains<br />
the entirety of this<br />
journey. Distance can be<br />
measured, but it cannot<br />
rightly be predicted<br />
because distance holds<br />
experience yet to be.<br />
7
Walking Score, No. 2<br />
LANDSCAPE<br />
A survey of the space<br />
before us. Landscape<br />
involves textures,<br />
relations, challenges.<br />
Landscape is a habited<br />
space. Landscape<br />
can be traversed. A<br />
landscape can be<br />
familiar or it can be<br />
alien, but a landscape is<br />
always known to Some.<br />
To others it may need<br />
to be found or experienced,<br />
but to Some it is<br />
always familiar.<br />
What you will need:<br />
1 deck of Tarot cards<br />
1 landscape to explore (e.g., city, plaza, park, orchard, living room, etc.)<br />
1 camera<br />
π= 3.14159265358979323846264…<br />
Steps:<br />
1. Shuffle the Tarot deck thoroughly. As you shuffle, ask yourself “What shall I<br />
focus on as I walk?”, or use a similar phrasing that resonates more strongly<br />
with you.<br />
2. When you have finished shuffling the cards, place them in front of you.<br />
3. Select the top card and turn it over.<br />
4. Focus on the details in the imagery of the card. Rely on either your preexisting<br />
knowledge of Tarot or a guide such as one included with the deck, contained<br />
in A Complete Guide to the Tarot by Eden Gray, on a website, etc. to familiarize<br />
yourself with the meaning of the card.<br />
5. Note the number of the card (e.g., 7 of Wands, card 9 [The Hermit], etc.). For<br />
non-numbered cards, use 11 for a Page, 12 for a Knight, 13 for a Queen, and<br />
14 for a King. This number will become the number of decimal places of π to<br />
use for the next section of this score.<br />
Example: Card 14 [Temperance]- an achievement of mental balance,<br />
adaptation, coordination, modification. Successful combinations.<br />
π is calculated to 14 decimal places at 3.14159265358979<br />
6. Each digit of π will determine how many units you will walk before making<br />
a turn. A turn can range from 0˚-360˚. This choice is yours, either as a firm<br />
decision to make prior to beginning your walk or in the midst of the structure.<br />
Turns will alternate right and left with each successive digit.<br />
7. Decide what will constitute one unit for the walk you are about to begin. One<br />
unit could be one city block, one paving stone, the duration of one song you<br />
listen to on headphones, etc.<br />
8. Begin the walk when you are ready. If the number of the card you selected<br />
was even, begin your walk by turning to the right. If the number was odd,<br />
this first turn is to the left.<br />
9. During the walk, give thought to the meaning of the card you selected.<br />
10. When you finish walking the units prescribed by your calculation of π, pause<br />
and observe your surroundings. Take a photograph of what you see.<br />
Note:<br />
On occasion, you might find you cannot walk the necessary number of units<br />
because of an obstruction or because the path in front of you ends. If this<br />
occurs, ricochet your trajectory off that endpoint and continue to count units<br />
until the next determined turn.<br />
8
SCALE<br />
A means to define this<br />
as that. Scale creates<br />
proportion to help a<br />
new learner grasp the<br />
iconography of a space<br />
or a place. Scale is<br />
necessary for navigation,<br />
indicating that you<br />
have come this far, this<br />
high. Scale insists what<br />
you see is not what is.<br />
Scale insists there is<br />
more, there is less.<br />
Photos © Effy Grey<br />
Π<br />
3.1415926535897932384<br />
62643383279502884197<br />
16939937510582097494<br />
4592307816406286208<br />
99862803482534211706<br />
79821480865132823066<br />
4709384460955058223<br />
172535940812848111745<br />
02841027019385211055<br />
5964462294895493038<br />
19644288109756659334<br />
46128475648233786783<br />
16527120190914564856<br />
6923460348610454326<br />
64821339360726024914<br />
12737245870066063155<br />
88174881520920962829<br />
25409171536436789259<br />
0360011330530548820<br />
4665213841469519415116<br />
09433057270365759591<br />
9530921861173819326117<br />
93105118548074462379<br />
96274956735188575272<br />
489122793818301194912<br />
9833673362440656643<br />
08602139494639522473<br />
71907021798609437027<br />
705392171762931767523<br />
84674818467669405132<br />
00056812714526356082<br />
778577134275778960917<br />
36371787214684409012<br />
24953430146549585371<br />
0507922796892589235
JORGE DE<br />
HOYOS<br />
10
Risk on potato bag #2<br />
by Alessandro Ubirajara<br />
11
RELATIONALITY<br />
Nothing exists in<br />
isolation to itself. Every<br />
thing has a relationship<br />
to other things and<br />
finds its constitution<br />
through these<br />
relationships.<br />
IMPROVISATION<br />
In terms of performance,<br />
the act of<br />
physically responding<br />
in real-time to internal<br />
and external impulses<br />
and shaping these<br />
responses so as to<br />
share with an audience.<br />
The public space where<br />
intuition gains a body.<br />
PRESENCE<br />
A state of existence<br />
where consciousness<br />
intersects with<br />
limitation.<br />
RECOGNITION<br />
the repeated process<br />
of incorporating an<br />
“other” into a self, and<br />
vice versa. This process<br />
implies an expansion of<br />
one’s understandings of<br />
themselves.<br />
Alessandro and I met at a Berlin sex club where we immediately entered into a<br />
committed boyfriend relationship from the moment we made each other orgasm<br />
until around 8am the next morning—one of the most erotic nights I’ve ever had.<br />
After this 11-hour, polyamorous partnership, we didn’t see each other until riding<br />
on the S-Bahn a year later. We didn’t become regular friends until even months<br />
after that. Now, having grown very close, Alessandro mentioned how a deep,<br />
inner-guidance insisted that he must get to know me that night. I remember our<br />
attraction…not just sexual but some-cosmic-thing else that leaves a distinct impression,<br />
the feeling of which is specifically easy for me to recall. It feels like the<br />
bitter taste of semen and carbonated beer being washed away and swallowed by<br />
a soothing, ravenous tongue. It feels like recognizing.<br />
As my visual arts collaborator, I asked him to contribute an image<br />
that reflects and gives insight into my ongoing research on presence: how can I be<br />
more deeply grounded in my body so as to improvise dance performance at my<br />
fullest capacities—to not overthink so as to allow my intuition to lead the dancing?<br />
The work demands releasing control of rational decision-making procedures so as<br />
to allow whatever is inside of me or wanting to come through me to gain physical<br />
expression into legible form.<br />
I was explaining, “In general, but also specifically for the final<br />
presentation, I want to be dancing so open and full of vitality so that my spirit can<br />
be free and I can embody and satisfy all the passions and desires. You know, like<br />
Billy Elliot who later becomes the beautiful Swan...” With a knowing look he said,<br />
“I have something that is you. I will send.”<br />
There is an inherent violence in expanding beyond borders, in<br />
entering territories defined in relationship to oneself as “other”. This process<br />
entails confrontation, a struggle for dominion. In the context of becoming more<br />
grounded as a dancer to perform at an expanded capacity, this struggle takes place<br />
in the realm of the self and is largely a matter of recognition. Recognition is here<br />
understood by the fact that borders demarcating a sense of oneself as separate<br />
from an “other” are always changing and that, through a continuous tug-of-war,<br />
processes of incorporation and growth occur as one side eventually cannibalizes<br />
the other. The “other” becomes the self, and vice versa. Recognition, therefore, is<br />
a repeated process of incorporation. It means to expand one’s definitions of what<br />
constitutes one’s self to include otherness. The violence inherent in this process<br />
emerges from the precondition of ongoing struggle, and the violence intensifies<br />
and gains sharp teeth when this process is resisted.<br />
I initially resisted Alessandro’s painting—a screaming figure masturbating<br />
as a demonic shadow looks on. I feared to recognize it as the accurate<br />
and insightful reflection of my research that I now consider it to be. Upon first<br />
encounter, my stomach clenched as if trying to stabilize an internal breach, as if<br />
clenching could prevent something personal and valued from cracking. Yes, the<br />
12
image could relate to the human-to-swan transformation story with which I was<br />
initially identifying, but it was the nightmarish, “other” black swan version that had<br />
manifested like an intruder. I felt momentarily seized in suspension between my<br />
resistance and an impending sense of destabilization. The violence in this uncanny<br />
confrontation felt like the instinct to defend myself or seek refuge. Have I been<br />
understanding myself and my research in an entirely wrong way, foolish and even<br />
immoral? Have I naively opened myself up too much, leaving me susceptible to<br />
a demonic takeover or an eternal hell of serving relentlessly throbbing passions?<br />
At stake was a sense of personal power…am I now lost?<br />
Of all the fears I experience while dance improvising in front<br />
of others, getting lost is the strongest and the most recurring. It happens when<br />
I worry: Am I really present? Will I look ridiculous if I follow that feeling? Am I<br />
being interesting enough? Such thoughts create a mind-body split, and in this gap<br />
between intuitive impulse and physical action, time goes missing. I become confused<br />
and fearful and lose orientation leaving me vulnerable to the rampage of internal<br />
voices. What results is that my spirit, for fear of demise, seems to evacuate my<br />
body while my physical remains proceed to operate along habitually programmed<br />
movement pathways, like a machine on autopilot—unresponsive. Dancing like this<br />
feels from the inside like a waking rigor mortis. A body somehow survives but at<br />
the cost of the quality of life.<br />
Grounding my energy has become my main area of inquiry and<br />
practice to keep re-finding myself in my body and, in the process, to revitalize<br />
it. Breathing deeply, for example, is one of the everyday tools I use to dissolve<br />
stiffness—stiffness as in freezing into pre-defined patterns, as in becoming slave<br />
to the tyrannical penis-passions depicted in the painting, as in not moving freely.<br />
Breathing, a main way of grounding, helps me dissolve internalized obstructions<br />
so as to cultivate my intuition.<br />
Confronting Alessandro’s painting, I breathe deeply to dissolve<br />
my resistance to recognizing how something so true and revealing about me--my<br />
desires, dreams and questions--stands naked, reflected and immaculately transparent<br />
to my perception.<br />
As the spiritual teacher Caroline Myss explains: “Every time you<br />
learn something that is more accurate, more authentic, or true than what you<br />
were just believing, you crack open a little bit. In that moment of cracking open,<br />
you become very vulnerable because you know that the world you were just living<br />
in is gone. It evaporates in front of your eye. Just like that” (Myss 2019).<br />
Billy Elliot. Directed by Stephen Daldry. Universal City, CA: Universal Studios, 2001.<br />
Myss, Caroline. (2019). Understanding Your Own Power – Enchantment 2018. [YouTube Lecture]<br />
Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeY_SmJafSQ&t=203s [Accessed 14 Sep. 2019]<br />
Ubirajara, Alessandro. Risk on potato bag #2. 2015, Berlin.<br />
SELF<br />
a conglomerate of different<br />
entities constantly<br />
vying for dominion over<br />
a physical body. A constant<br />
process of seeking<br />
harmony between the<br />
voices in the mind.<br />
13
ANA LESSING<br />
MENJIBAR<br />
Having a background in flamenco dance,<br />
design and visual arts, in my studies at<br />
<strong>SODA</strong> I started to investigate the limits of<br />
the genre of flamenco, exploring its transformative<br />
potential within contemporary<br />
performance practice; looking specifically<br />
at its dramaturgical structure; interrelated<br />
rhythms; emotional and energetic<br />
states and movement qualities.<br />
Experimenting with a cultural legacy<br />
archived within my body.<br />
True to Joseph Beuys’ motto “Show your<br />
wound,” flamenco for me is an artform<br />
based on a collective agreement to listen<br />
to a single body’s wound. You merge with<br />
the other, you become the other. “Sensing<br />
is sharing” (Arno Böhler 2019). This collective<br />
agreement about sharing and sensing<br />
transforms pain into energy, empowerment<br />
and even joy. The performance<br />
as a collective emotional and energetic<br />
journey, or perhaps even a ritual?<br />
Between the ecstatic and formal<br />
investigation I open this archive to<br />
reveal a series of states, creatures and<br />
concepts of spaces. This collective<br />
journey includes: a digital and<br />
energetic feedback loop, a vulnerable<br />
dialogue of inner and outer bodily<br />
sounds and rhythms in a hybrid space<br />
somewhere between installation and<br />
the black box theatre.<br />
PLASTICITY<br />
is polyhedral, - morph,<br />
- metric. A process of<br />
shaping, sculpting and<br />
deformation.<br />
Different styles exist in flamenco, and<br />
each has a specific topic and structure.<br />
Some are dedicated to joy, playfulness or<br />
sorrow. These styles are built on a shared<br />
knowledge of structure, fragments, rules<br />
and signs that form a language of communication<br />
for improvisation. This collective<br />
knowledge has been transmitted<br />
over generations from one body to another.<br />
I am interested in analysing one<br />
such structure and its fragments. With<br />
their interrelated meanings, functions,<br />
rhythms and physicalities, I can create my<br />
own interpretation of the form.<br />
A methodology to isolate a vocabulary.<br />
The first step of my research was to analyse<br />
a flamenco structure by asking: How<br />
is it composed? Why is it constructed like<br />
Transition from something personal to<br />
something collective.<br />
Methods & Strategies.<br />
Body, space and sound.<br />
Poly<br />
hedral.<br />
morph.<br />
Decomposition<br />
metric.<br />
goes beyond the limits of the<br />
flamenco genre.<br />
Plasticity.<br />
Observation.<br />
Translation.<br />
14
Exploration.<br />
Transformation.<br />
Formal investigation.<br />
Embodied knowledge.<br />
Order and disorder.<br />
this? What does it provoke in the body?<br />
I conducted this research from the perspective<br />
of a moving body, as I wanted a<br />
better understanding of the choreographic<br />
decision-making processes behind it.<br />
This investigation made me aware of the<br />
strategies and methods of composition and<br />
made me recognize and articulate procedures<br />
and processes that have so far run<br />
rather unconsciously through my body. I<br />
divided the traditional structure into acts<br />
or fragments and formulated my own titles<br />
and interpretations derived from their primary<br />
functions within the whole.<br />
ORDER<br />
is the fraternal,<br />
conjoined, disowned,<br />
orphaned twin of chaos.<br />
There exists no order<br />
without chaos.<br />
To open a collective field.<br />
Being in the moment.<br />
The vulnerable body.<br />
Empowered body, calling for change.<br />
Body as a source and holder of sound<br />
and rhythm.<br />
Technical transfer of the involved<br />
body.<br />
Inner meets outer world.<br />
Share your wound.<br />
Meta text.<br />
Receiving, reading and processing.<br />
Sonic, energetic and emotional circuit<br />
as an impulse generator.<br />
Bringing into being.<br />
Friction.<br />
Storytelling. Juxtaposition.<br />
Tech-body.<br />
Introduccion<br />
Opening a door, to step in is about a<br />
body that tunes into a space and an emotional<br />
state. Coming together. The act of<br />
merging, of immersion.<br />
Llamada<br />
The call serves to draw attention, to raise<br />
the pace and intensity with the intention<br />
to provoke a change, in order to conclude<br />
and begin a new part of the choreography.<br />
All the tension and energy the body<br />
has absorbed erupts and spreads into the<br />
space, saying, “Here I am!”<br />
Letra<br />
Fight and Poesis. The body as a polymorphic<br />
space & the space as a polymorphic<br />
field. This fragment is an emotional<br />
and poetic part where the body tunes<br />
into a collective agreement to channel,<br />
discharge and transform energy and express<br />
emotions in the form of a dialogue.<br />
An emotional, energetic and rhythmic<br />
feedback loop. The body has the responsibility<br />
to listen, to hold, to stimulate the<br />
Digital manipulation and multiplier of field and to react to provocation through<br />
energetic outbursts.<br />
STATE<br />
is a condition in a<br />
specific time and place.<br />
State is a condition<br />
without awareness of<br />
any specific time and<br />
place.<br />
15
Remate<br />
Provocation. A stimulation where the<br />
body pushes the energy level up to produce<br />
a climax. Leadership that guides the<br />
group toward an explosive moment. It is<br />
the body’s decision as to which curve of<br />
energetic development is produced. The<br />
body is in full control and simultaneously<br />
in an explosive state. The others follow<br />
the body. This increase ends in a collective<br />
final point. A closure. A discharge<br />
followed by silence.<br />
digitally reproduced and<br />
organic sounds.<br />
Insistent and uncanny.<br />
Intimacy and show.<br />
Tenderness and brutality.<br />
Noise. Deep bass tones.<br />
Interruption and Eruption.<br />
SILENCE<br />
I know when it starts<br />
but I don’t know when<br />
it ends. An interregnum.<br />
A past event disappears<br />
with a new one not yet<br />
in sight. It is the space<br />
between events in relation<br />
to time. A space for<br />
decision-making.<br />
Un silencio. Pero no el silencio.<br />
Silence. A collective silence is a moment<br />
like a crossroad, and you don‘t know<br />
where you are going or who is going next.<br />
This moment is full of tension and suspense.<br />
It gives space for a decision-making<br />
process.<br />
Falseta<br />
Reconnection. A space for a softer, more<br />
permeable body, moving without resistance<br />
or fight. Here, the body can give<br />
attention to detail and subtlety. It is a<br />
sensitive and fragile body.<br />
Gap.<br />
Interregnum.<br />
Vibration and feedback.<br />
Dreamlike state.<br />
Juxtaposition. Distortion.<br />
The unknown.<br />
Escobilla<br />
Ecstasy. Increase. Deceleration. Interruption.<br />
It is an ecstatic part, where the<br />
body is in full control of the situation and<br />
plays with its own power. It is primarily<br />
a rhythmical part, involving a power play<br />
between devotion and restraint. Energy<br />
is released and gained through suspension,<br />
outburst and physical force.<br />
Salida<br />
Resolution. A collective closure. This<br />
part often celebrates life in a joyful, sometimes<br />
even grotesque way. It can also be<br />
a return to a state of calm connection,<br />
and togetherness after having shared a<br />
collective journey.<br />
Materials as collaborators.<br />
Metall. Foam. Cloth.<br />
Moving image.<br />
Trigger.<br />
Dionysian creature.<br />
Repetition. Duration.<br />
Physical power. Exhaustion.<br />
Grotesque. Dynamic. Rhythmic clashes.<br />
Feeding and receiving.<br />
Polymetric rhythm.<br />
16
Body is rhythmically tuned. Rhythm is the main element from which<br />
Heartbeat. everything is built. Emotional and energetic<br />
Craniosacral.<br />
states emerge from an autopoietic<br />
Trust your tides. feedback loop through rhythm, movement,<br />
music or voice.<br />
Breath in. Silence. Breath out.<br />
Language. Loop.<br />
Power relationships between body,<br />
voice and instrument shift within different<br />
parts of the structure and create<br />
different spaces for decision-making.<br />
Collaboration.<br />
Visual, sonoric, emotional, rational<br />
exploration<br />
The in-between space of movement and<br />
tonality, the silence, the stillness, are the<br />
predominant factors that grant tension<br />
and organize the structure.<br />
Score & Improvisation.<br />
Dichotomy.<br />
of the body<br />
with the body<br />
by the body.<br />
Flamenco is based on a dialectic of the<br />
Apollonian and Dionysian principle: a<br />
principle of beauty, joy and fragility on<br />
one side and that of catharsis, rawness,<br />
pain and ugliness on the other. These are<br />
juxtapositioned in rhythm, physicalities<br />
and the structure itself. Always looking<br />
Intimacy and exposure.<br />
Dramatic and formalistic.<br />
for the unexpected. Different states of<br />
tension and release, energy build-up, interruption<br />
and eruption that create and<br />
increase energetic states.<br />
A hybrid between installation and<br />
black box.<br />
Translation into space.<br />
Relation to space.<br />
Spatial transfer.<br />
How can I translate the original dramaturgical<br />
structure or its fragments -<br />
the roles that body, sound and rhythm<br />
play in it - into my own world? What<br />
happens if I change and deconstruct<br />
these fragments? How can I use these<br />
strategies and methods in other fields of<br />
A Ritual. performance art?<br />
JUXTAPOSITION<br />
Position means the fact<br />
of being able to define<br />
and position something,<br />
to bring it into relational<br />
order. Order stands in<br />
contrast to ambivalence,<br />
ambiguity or something<br />
indefinable. The relation<br />
is the field of tension.<br />
‘Everything in the world has its own<br />
spirit which can be released by setting<br />
it into vibration.’<br />
Oscar Fishinger<br />
17
KUBA<br />
BORKOWICZ<br />
18
19
COLLABORATION<br />
a process where two<br />
or more people work<br />
together to achieve a<br />
shared goal.<br />
DIARY<br />
an object containing inscriptions<br />
of memories.<br />
There was a ritual in my primary school involving diaries that children gave to<br />
each other, where they could do whatever they wanted on one of the pages. It<br />
was a space to consciously focus on the other person and your relationship with<br />
them, and you had to find a way to express that in the form of text, drawing, or<br />
manipulation of the surface of the paper. This creative outburst was also framed<br />
as a collection of similar entries from other people, and it automatically became<br />
a collective gift as everyone ended up with a book filled with pages inscribed with<br />
the memories of all their classmates.<br />
My first tattoo is an intimate duet ritual that I began developing<br />
in 2016 in my gallery, Oficyna. It emerged out of the feeling of strange loneliness<br />
caused by spending short periods of time with a lot of different people. I was<br />
looking for new ways of relating to the people who were close to me. Tattooing<br />
is by its nature a collaborative and creative process. I started inviting my friends<br />
and people who inspire me to consider the surface of my skin as a canvas for their<br />
creative input. In exchange, I teach them how to make a tattoo. The process usually<br />
enables me to create a space for an intimate conversation. With almost one hundred<br />
people I talked about this ritual through the lens of empathy, trust, fear, faith,<br />
spirituality, creativity, culture, language, permanence, death, prayer, meditation,<br />
improvisation, body, touch, dance, poetry, art, drawing, memory, friendship, diary,<br />
collection, archive, symbol, semiotics, representation, reincarnation, pain, torture,<br />
penetration, masochism, sin, dreams, magic, borders, and many others.<br />
The drawings inscribe traces of moments in time and space where<br />
the meetings took place. They often reflect something about the person who made<br />
it, their image of me, or an idea that resonated between us. Most of the people try<br />
to make their first tattoo meaningful. When I look at my tattoos they recall the<br />
specific memories and stories behind them.<br />
If a person that I invite has already done some tattoos in the past,<br />
we try to figure out a way to make the action a new experience for both of us. In<br />
this way I have received tattoos made with a foot, a left hand, blindfolded, using<br />
a drone and a spear.<br />
Drawing is an interesting exercise because it teaches you something<br />
about the thing you draw. You have to look at your subject in a different way. You<br />
can draw what you see if you are observing light, shapes, and colors. You can draw<br />
from your emotions if you focus on how you feel and try to put it on paper. You<br />
can draw from your memories - your home, your grandma, your favorite cartoon.<br />
You can draw from your imagination if you close your eyes, silence your mind<br />
and let the images appear.<br />
From some of the participants in My First Tattoo I have collected<br />
choreography, dance moves and positions that I’m trying to embody which are now the<br />
material for my movement research. In an attempt to stage this ritual as a Solo/Dance/<br />
Authorship graduation performance I will try to perform this eclectic dance.<br />
20
List of collaborators:<br />
Adrian Kolarczyk<br />
Adrianna Orłowska<br />
Akemi Nagao<br />
Aleksander Błażkiewicz<br />
Aleksandra Kołodziej<br />
Amin Lahrichi<br />
Ana Lessing Menjibar<br />
Anastazja Pataridze<br />
Andrew Champlin<br />
Andrzej Pakuła<br />
Anni Taskua<br />
Bartosz Zaskórski<br />
Bernardo Chatillon<br />
Borys Wrzeszcz<br />
Christoph Thun<br />
Claire Scarlet<br />
Claudia Grande<br />
Claudius Hausl<br />
Dawid Misiorny<br />
Diego Agullo<br />
Egon Fietke<br />
Eloy Arribas<br />
Evgenia Chetvertkova<br />
Ewelina Cichocka<br />
Floris de Groot<br />
Frédéric Gies<br />
Freya Edmondes<br />
Garazi Peio<br />
George Upton<br />
Gosia Bartosik<br />
Iman Deeper<br />
Irmina Rusicka<br />
Izabella Gustowska<br />
Jakub Bolewski<br />
Jakub Gliński<br />
Jakub Jasiukiewicz<br />
Jan Piechota<br />
Jason Corff<br />
Jean Steeg<br />
Jędrzej Suchy<br />
Jianan Qu<br />
Joanna Filipiak<br />
John Klein<br />
Judith Förster<br />
Karol Komorowski<br />
Katarzyna Borelowska<br />
Kelly Dochy<br />
Kike Garcia<br />
Kiril Kogan<br />
Lidia Gąszewska<br />
Lucas Jezak<br />
Łukasz Richter<br />
Maciej Klim<br />
Maciej Rudzin<br />
Maciej Thiem<br />
Marek Rachwalik<br />
Mariana Vieira<br />
Mario Gomez<br />
Marko Markvic<br />
Mateusz Urban<br />
Michał Knychaus<br />
Michiyasu Furutani<br />
Mikołaj Szymkowiak<br />
Ni’Ja Whitson<br />
Nicola van Straaten<br />
Noriaki,<br />
Oteth Slayer<br />
Partyk Wejnert<br />
Paulina Bill Jaksim<br />
Paweł Mikołajczyk<br />
Piotr Kurka<br />
Raman Tratsiuk<br />
Rhyannon Styles<br />
Robert Łuksza<br />
Sara Abed<br />
Sonia Dubois,<br />
Stachu Szumski<br />
Thomas Scheele<br />
Ula Lucińska<br />
Ula Szkudlarek<br />
Wojtek Didkowski<br />
Żaneta Masiak<br />
Zuza Koszuta<br />
GAME<br />
a form of structuring an<br />
activity by specifying<br />
the rules, roles, available<br />
objects, and space.<br />
HOSTING<br />
organizing a platform<br />
with the possibility of<br />
inviting others.<br />
TRUST<br />
readiness to rely on<br />
other people.<br />
21
MINNA<br />
PARTANEN<br />
Self<br />
consciousness<br />
dialogue<br />
fiction<br />
optimization<br />
perception<br />
performance<br />
promotion<br />
reflection<br />
CODE<br />
an enclosed system<br />
that has its own logic<br />
and follows a set of<br />
rules, impossible to<br />
access from outside<br />
without understanding<br />
the parameters,<br />
can also be used as a<br />
strategy to generate<br />
material or as a tool for<br />
decision-making.<br />
FICTIONAL-<br />
AUTOBIOGRAPHY<br />
autobiographical<br />
material that is treated<br />
through a process<br />
of distancing (e.g.<br />
using an algorithm),<br />
or claiming found<br />
text as a biographical<br />
material, can also apply<br />
to self-dialogue with an<br />
alter ego.<br />
During <strong>SODA</strong> I have moved through identity politics, crashed into questions of<br />
agency, thought of self as material for performance by reflecting on psychological<br />
theories and finally arrived to consider different articulations of self in the body.<br />
Simultaneously, I find myself moving about in the world in the age of surveillance<br />
capitalism and heightened self performance with an uncanny feeling of what it<br />
means to be a human. How do different technologies infiltrate my body? What<br />
kind of knowledge am I able to produce within this discourse by looking for information<br />
in the body?<br />
We long to both cling to and escape our bodies, we want to use technologies while<br />
we rail against its misuse, but bodies must be the starting point for any discussion<br />
of technology. They shape-shift and dance into other forms with technologies, but<br />
remain our refer to the world. For now. (Parker-Starbuck 2014: 93)<br />
I grew interested in articulations, echoes of characters or alter<br />
egos, inscribed in my body. I wanted to know how I could access them on stage.<br />
My body contains potential for numerous second selves that can be invoked and<br />
activated through different means and technologies. How do these articulations<br />
(mediated, synthetic, theatrical, fictional) of the self or the body form, fall apart<br />
and merge with each other? How can moving between them create an experience<br />
or notion of authenticity or artificiality?<br />
I wanted to gain insight into the mechanics of authenticity and<br />
artificiality in relation to representations of the self. For me, the question of second<br />
selves does not stop on stage. As new technologies provide spaces to fabricate new<br />
formulations of self, what then is considered artificial and what is authentic? I<br />
wanted to approach this question with a hypothesis: What if something artificial<br />
could produce authenticity and vice versa?<br />
I first started working with generating text through an algorithm<br />
using old personal written conversations as a source material in order to create<br />
fictional autobiographical material. Something that sounded and looked familiar<br />
22
Cut yourself an analog filter today!<br />
23
SCALE<br />
temperatures of<br />
recognition relating to<br />
sense-making and nonsense,<br />
presence and<br />
absence, authenticity<br />
and artificiality, familiar<br />
and alien, a performative<br />
rendition loosely<br />
referring to the concept<br />
of uncanny valley.<br />
STATE<br />
qualities and modes<br />
of presence in the<br />
body evoking different<br />
articulations of the self<br />
by using performative<br />
technologies, connects<br />
to questions and experiences<br />
of autonomy<br />
and agency, whose<br />
body is it?<br />
24
ut that was not, exactly. By receiving this data, I saw patterns, a network or a<br />
library of my subconscious, just differently organized. The multitude of versions<br />
had different temperatures depending on how well they managed to mimic the<br />
original source. This brought me to questions of sense-making, as in, where and<br />
when does sense-making happen? How do we move from nonsense to something<br />
that we recognize?<br />
“Recognition” seems to me to be a much deeper element of theatrical performance<br />
than that [the structural turning point of drama]: even in the most non-narrative,<br />
post-dramatic performance, the communication between audience and performer<br />
relies on the mutual recognition of readable human action. (Dorsen, n.d.)<br />
Secondly, how does sense-making manifest in the modes or quality<br />
of presence in the body? I wanted to bring a living body to the equation. I have built<br />
internal strategies that keep me busy and connect me with my body. Blinking was<br />
one way to hijack an involuntary action. Blinking synchronizes with the breath<br />
and activates the parasympathetic nervous system. However, the question for me<br />
is: What kind of presence does it produce on stage? How can a seemingly easy<br />
task fade out the persona and make space for the body itself? Are there different<br />
temperatures for presence?<br />
Quite early in the process, I noticed the materials were neither<br />
obstacles to authenticity on stage nor revelators of it. All of the materials had a<br />
potential to move anywhere on the scale between familiar and alien. I have started<br />
to work with a dramaturgical principle to move on this scale: In and out of qualities<br />
that might produce notions and experiences of authenticity or artificiality. Whether<br />
it is in the level of the material itself or in the delivery of it, I am interested in the<br />
ambiguous in-between, liminal space of those experiences where we do not yet<br />
quite recognize where we are being taken.<br />
Maybe we could question whether the juxtaposition between<br />
authenticity and artificiality is even useful. Maybe it is not a catastrophe if we<br />
discover machine-like qualities and even the pure fiction about ourselves and<br />
accept that we are all somewhat an artificial mix. What if it has something to do<br />
with freedom that we become more aware of our own algorithms, our behavioral<br />
patterns? Or if we know what systems are at play in ourselves? To become aware<br />
of our situatedness and overcome it?<br />
In search of the authentic self, I would like to quote Arno Böhler<br />
who quoted Judith Butler and Jacques Derrida by saying that “self is a quotation”<br />
(Böhler, 2019). I am becoming me through the encounters I have. This also includes<br />
the thought that the other, instead of being outside of the self, is incorporated in<br />
the self. In itself, it is a process of unfolding and in-folding.<br />
The more dreadfully disquieting thing is not the other or an alien; it is, rather,<br />
yourself in oldest familiarity with the other, for example, it could be the Double<br />
in which you recognize yourself outside of yourself. (Ronell, 1989: 69)<br />
RELATIONALITY<br />
moving between two<br />
ends of a dichotomy in<br />
order to create ambiguity,<br />
focusing on the<br />
in-between space as<br />
a potentiality, working<br />
with blending qualities<br />
together in order to<br />
research their relation.<br />
Bibliography:<br />
Etcetera, (n.d.). Algorithm,<br />
composition and<br />
metaphor (interview with<br />
Annie Dorsen). Retrieved<br />
September 13, 2019<br />
from https://e-tcetera.<br />
be/algorithm-composition-and-metaphor/<br />
Parker-Starbuck,<br />
Jennifer (2014). Cyborg<br />
Theatre - Corporeal/<br />
Technological Intersections<br />
in Multimedia Performance,<br />
UK: Palgrave<br />
Macmillan.<br />
Ronell, Avital (1989). The<br />
Telephone Book: Technology,<br />
Schizophrenia,<br />
Electric Speech. Lincoln:<br />
University of Nebraska<br />
Press.<br />
Illustrations © Cedric Flazinski<br />
25
RHYANNON<br />
STYLES<br />
26
I<br />
listen,<br />
give permission.<br />
Embrace silence<br />
absorb<br />
wave<br />
undulate, create states.<br />
Drop in, fall out, shake it all about.<br />
Hum<br />
rattle<br />
fold.<br />
Sounds like<br />
I’m out of tune, or is that time? Please don’t turn it up, it Hz this frequency of<br />
mine.<br />
I’m<br />
hanging on a single string, a wire, a thread,<br />
I’m improvising again,<br />
it fills me with<br />
dread.<br />
Dive towards what you don’t know,<br />
ride the acoustic swell.<br />
A<br />
composition emerges that is neither here or there, a fragment of an experience<br />
that we all just shared. I’m looping the loop - number 49, trying to remember<br />
my last line.<br />
I<br />
arrive by listening to my internal drive.<br />
A beat<br />
A breath<br />
A pirouette.<br />
Linger with one finger pressed against a rosewood neck.<br />
Traverse spatial boundaries,<br />
move up a fret.<br />
Sound is my stage,<br />
my intention is set.<br />
I’m sure I will lose it. I can’t find the step.<br />
Relax<br />
don’t fight it,<br />
penetrate the cracks.<br />
Scratch below the surface,<br />
feed the feedback.<br />
27
SILENCE<br />
The presence of silence<br />
within a performance is<br />
a recurring entry point,<br />
moving the physical<br />
body towards its next<br />
expression.<br />
STATES<br />
A multi-dimensional<br />
experience which is an<br />
immersive, transitional<br />
phenomenon,<br />
locating performer and<br />
spectator beyond the<br />
parameters of spatial<br />
boundaries.<br />
IMPROVISATION<br />
(IMPROV)<br />
A medium of performance<br />
that is dependent<br />
on accessing an<br />
internal landscape to<br />
find ways of achieving<br />
readiness, where both<br />
body and mind work<br />
collaboratively to instigate<br />
the next moves.<br />
ETHERIC ENERGY<br />
is invisible to the naked<br />
eye. It surrounds all<br />
living beings and feeds<br />
energy into the soul<br />
from which all human<br />
beings unconsciously<br />
benefit.<br />
28
fr<br />
model of guitar that was produced in Japan in the late 1960s. Its distinctive features include a narrow neck, short scale and light body, making it ideal for the beginner’s market. In the UK it retailed for £40 and was considered a cheap alternative to other guitar manufactures like Fender and Gibson. I bought mine<br />
aThe Satellite 65/T is<br />
ficult to create a quality sound without running it through several effects (FX) pedals. But, based solely on its pristine condition and vintage appeal, I was willing to take the risk. I fi ind it interesting then, that in 2019, with risk being a key element in my practice, that the Satellite 65/T is at the centre of my research, as a companion and a collaborator.<br />
om the Cash Converters in Hackney, East London in 2014. I can’t remember exactly how much I paid for it, but I do remember haggling. I suspect it was under £50. If truth be told, at the time this was an unnecessary purchase, especially since a quick internet search informed me that these guitars were unreliable live, and that it was di<br />
Photos © Evgenia Chetvertkova<br />
29
A<br />
CONVER-<br />
SATION.<br />
Berlin, September 2019<br />
Kuba Borkowicz,<br />
Bernardo Chatillon,<br />
Jason Corff,<br />
Jorge De Hoyos,<br />
Ana Lessing Menjibar,<br />
Minna Partanen<br />
and Rhyannon Styles<br />
with Sandra Noeth<br />
Sandra Noeth (SN) We are sitting together, preparing this publication,<br />
and actually writing, framing and researching have been a continuous<br />
element throughout the studies. I am curious to know where they sit within your<br />
artistic practices?<br />
Ana Lessing Menjibar (ALM) When starting to think about the<br />
publication, I came to realize the different states involved in writing: it is a kind of<br />
transcription of what is happening in the body into words, that then again influences<br />
what happens performatively later. Somehow this publication is a performance<br />
from the past, the presence and the future. I really like how writing actually became<br />
a part of a process of awareness, a dialogue between thought and body.<br />
Bernardo Chatillon (BC) When reflecting on this, there is a difference<br />
between tools that we use for certain things, like a screwdriver or a hammer.<br />
Tools that execute a precise and practical function, and tools in the context of<br />
artistic work that have a completely different meaning. For example, my question<br />
is, how can I be writing with the same bodily presence that I am applying when<br />
I am researching in the studio or when I am improvising? How can I capture the<br />
velocity of my associations? One way is to think and speak at the same time, and<br />
like now, using my arms, making gestures. I think this brings thoughts to the fore<br />
that are maybe hidden, it’s a somatic way of producing writing.<br />
Rhyannon Styles (RS) This makes me think about the tools I use. I<br />
didn’t have a physical practice for a very long time, and recently this shifted due to<br />
the frame of <strong>SODA</strong>. It’s an interesting exercise to write about a specific idea, several<br />
times on different occasions. I have noticed that the state that I am in, in terms of<br />
how I feel or what I just experienced, and also my position in space, and the kind<br />
of tools that I am using for writing also influence the text. You can see what is going<br />
on between these instances when you address the same idea in variations.<br />
Jason Corff (JC) I think writing is almost a centring way to put my<br />
ideas into a different mode. When ideas are generated through movement, this<br />
prompts me to identify in a specific way what it is that I am doing. However, the<br />
writing can exist in its own space, and I can see where connections continue, even<br />
if I didn’t sense them in the beginning, so the writing is a kind of evidence.<br />
30
Minna Partanen (MP) In general, we talk a lot about reframing in<br />
the program, and writing is a very powerful tool for this. I think about how many<br />
times I wrote about the same thing over these two years, it’s quite a few... When I<br />
read my past texts, I am actually saying the same but there are these nuances that<br />
are all the time becoming more and more detailed and I am understanding why<br />
am I choosing this word over that word. I like that I become more specific and<br />
more careful every time I try. I guess that’s how all of the artistic research should<br />
be, but with the words, the result stays.<br />
SN Writing seems to be many things: a way of looking back but also<br />
opening up in a very physical, almost performative sense.<br />
MP But also, I found it a relief that it is a part of the knowledge production,<br />
that I can call part of my artistic research. To realise that the writing is an<br />
extension of my body - I feel like it gives liberty. I can treat things by different methods.<br />
ALM When you, Sandra, introduced writing as a physical act, it<br />
changed my relation to writing a lot. This idea to open my senses in the moment<br />
much more and somehow stop to produce this continuous censoring. To make<br />
writing itself more like a sensory experience. But writing is also a practice. If<br />
you go to the studio and you move, you are not going to use all the movement in<br />
your performance, but you create a vocabulary. So, writing is a physical exercise<br />
and you are not going to use every single word, but in the moment, you generate<br />
material, it becomes dense, exact.<br />
JDH Maybe what’s been nicest when there’s been deadlines of<br />
either the essays or text for publicity, because then all the writing or all the thinking<br />
has to somehow get formed into a digestible format. I appreciate that there’s a<br />
specific form, a specific way to give a quick hello to people out in the world.<br />
RS There’s so much also about finding your voice. I suppose, because<br />
I’ve got previous experience being a writer, I know what my voice is when<br />
I’m writing a magazine article for example. The time at <strong>SODA</strong> has also been about<br />
finding a different voice to articulate my practice. That’s a very new thing to be able<br />
to reflect, analyse and talk about. It’s like a muscle you have to keep training.<br />
Kuba Borkowicz (KB) You’re creating a body.<br />
SN You are all bringing different disciplines and backgrounds into<br />
the program: sound, visual arts, curating, dancing, choreography but also meditation,<br />
tattooing, healing, flamenco, geography, maths... I could go on. What are the specific<br />
challenges that this might create in your own work?<br />
Jorge De Hoyos (JDH) I studied cultural anthropology and I was<br />
always very interested in referencing: where did a thought or an influence come<br />
from, who said what? And this is an endless work of contextualising. At the same<br />
time, being a freelance performer, dancer and choreographer, there are so many<br />
31
A<br />
CONVER-<br />
SATION.<br />
influences that make up the hybrid of my practice. It’s really an art of framing,<br />
of what I highlight: my meditation practice? My yoga practice? It’s a challenge to<br />
be specific.<br />
MP I immediately start to see it more through collaboration, that’s<br />
where clashes most easily show. If I think about working processes, maybe you<br />
are collaborating with someone who works with other materials that simply take<br />
time to develop. Whereas when I look for information and make decisions in<br />
my body, they can react to changes quite rapidly. Or if it comes to programming<br />
digital interfaces, a lot of hours of work can go into something and you might<br />
need to know in advance certain parameters and not only become aware of them<br />
during the process. I think that’s where the transdisciplinary work sometimes<br />
gets complicated.<br />
JC In addition to that, it’s also this idea of distancing that comes<br />
in if you have different disciplines that influence the work. For instance, some of<br />
the things I focus on seem very unrelated to each other. For example, if you’re<br />
looking at the intersection of cartography and choreography and at the same<br />
time thinking about predictive technologies like calculus and four-dimensional<br />
geometry, the challenge that I continue to navigate through is looking at multiple<br />
approaches to space, to place or time, even if they aren’t initially related to each<br />
other. It’s about finding the distance between them so that suddenly something<br />
comes into clarity. Then of course the challenge is, is it just clear to me, or how<br />
to find that proper amount of exposure to also make it clear for someone looking<br />
from a different perspective. How do you articulate that distancing that becomes<br />
more pronounced in collaboration, to somebody who is working in a different<br />
discipline altogether?<br />
ALM This brings a tension. Having had a background for a long<br />
time in flamenco, there is a negotiation between an embodied, kind of unconscious<br />
knowledge, and the wish to decompose this embodied knowledge, to understand<br />
what it is, to become aware of the body and the movement and of my artistic<br />
language. This tension is beautiful and at the same time it can feel like a conflict<br />
for myself.<br />
SN Is this tension also about the claims that come with different<br />
practices, claims related to a specific knowledge?<br />
KB Yes, definitely. This experience of clashing my practice in the<br />
context of academic research was concentrated on the question of how to make<br />
my practice accessible for other people and actually interesting to watch or to<br />
even engage with it. Working with meditation or tattooing as a performance made<br />
me look at these activities from many different perspectives. To decompose and<br />
find the specific things that makes this interesting for me and to somehow try to<br />
share them.<br />
32
RS It’s about making the personal public. Because not all of us<br />
makers and artists choose to use our personal identity or personal interest in our<br />
work. But for me, that’s always been something I’ve wanted to do. Take my guitar<br />
practice for example, it has never really had a platform in the public before, so<br />
it’s really interesting for me to explore that, to be able to see its potential as a kind<br />
of artistic future for myself.<br />
MP In the beginning of the course, I was really busy with the question<br />
of what does the facilitator-me and the artist-me have to do with each other.<br />
I feel as soon as I let go of these definitions, the embodied knowledge inscribed in<br />
me gets to come out. As long as I don’t problematize it too much in my head, they<br />
actually work quite well together.<br />
SN In the <strong>SODA</strong> program, there is this insistence on your own artistic<br />
practices but there is also a collective, collaborative environment. I am interested in<br />
how you perceive this relation.<br />
JDH My research is dance improvisation where I’m trying to allow<br />
myself to move with the feeling or the intuition first, rather than having prethoughts<br />
or a decision made already. I’m trying to put the analyser brain way in<br />
the back. This is very much sort of me dancing and my collaborators are there<br />
to support me. It’s also very collective though, because I’m trying to get my ego<br />
mind out of the way, to allow the expression to just come through and consenting<br />
to serve myself but also everybody else, so it’s an interesting shared space.<br />
BC This relates to the ideas of solo, dance and authorship; ideas<br />
that are all the time shifting. The one that strikes me most in the title of the program<br />
is ‘authorship.’ However, it changes completely with the word ‘dance’ that comes<br />
in between ‘solo’ and ‘authorship’. This movement in between these two words is<br />
opening and shaping things in an invisible way: it makes it impossible to think of<br />
dance as something individual.<br />
ALM Solo, for me, is also something which doesn’t necessarily<br />
exist. What I’m most interested in, is the communication, my movement and what<br />
I want to share, shaping, moulding the space between the audience and me.<br />
KB From my experience I would like to challenge the idea of solo,<br />
because during the process of going through the program, there is a lot of attention<br />
put on being open and sharing and trying out and having feedback. Indeed, it is a<br />
very collaborative process of refining your stuff, going back to it, but also bouncing<br />
it off different people and our group internally.<br />
RS And even last semester you were collaborating with plants…<br />
KB Yes, that was an experiment of reaching out to non-human<br />
beings. My question was if these are actually collaborators as well, if solo can be<br />
translated to plants, to materials, to objects, to space.<br />
RS I had that exact experience in the studio the other day with my<br />
33
A<br />
CONVER-<br />
SATION.<br />
mentor and my new sound collaborator, who has made a sound board for me. It’s a<br />
whole new piece of technology to get my head around, but at the same time that piece<br />
of technology is my new collaborator. It has its own methodology that I can’t control.<br />
JC Also, from experiencing the program, there is this underlying<br />
idea of a body in space, but that body is never alone. And I think that’s been a<br />
valuable lesson along the way that there are many things that start to influence<br />
what a body can do: whether it be collaborators, mentors, opinions that we refine<br />
or find reflected in things that we read, or just casual conversations.<br />
SN You also decided to collaborate outside of the program as the<br />
Mineralwasser collective that you founded. Could you talk more about it?<br />
RS The first thing we did as Mineralwasser was the sangria bar<br />
that we set up during the presentations of the 2nd year students, right?<br />
JDH I think there has been an interest and a willingness from all<br />
of us to somehow work together, to not be in isolation, to build a support network.<br />
Hosting a bar was a good way because we could have fun together, get to know<br />
each other, not just artistically, but also administratively and logistically and performatively,<br />
in an easy setting. The collective is maybe also a response to the big<br />
word solo and I was excited to grow deeper this time, really wanting to invest in a<br />
group especially having been a freelancer, where the longest I might be with any<br />
group of people might be three months or the time of a project.<br />
BC What is nice is that there is a balance with my own authorship,<br />
my own research. I have room to be independent, to call my own shots, to direct<br />
my space. But, I’m not alone, and we can give each other feedback from a very<br />
different perspective. That’s quite a rich environment.<br />
KB I believe it really arrived from an urge for a deeper connection.<br />
I think we all sort of realised that it’s a group of interesting people who share some<br />
common interests, all using the body as an artistic material. I think we say that we<br />
could learn from each other.<br />
MP I’ve been thinking about what you, Bernardo, said in one of<br />
our last meetings, when you talked about the collective being as strategy, a strategy<br />
for us to stay together, to invest in each other, to commit.<br />
BC Yes, to fight this rivalry between us that could have been there.<br />
JC And, I think it’s an exploration of performativity, but also an<br />
exploration of connectivity. And going deeper into that, really understanding what<br />
the collective might mean for a group of people, that might, on the surface, not<br />
easily identify commonalities, but rather find them through experience and time.<br />
And then articulate them in whatever way they choose.<br />
34
SN In many of your writings and statements the word responsibility<br />
occurs. When we speak about working in a group and individually, how does this<br />
idea find articulation?<br />
JDH I’m thinking about an intensive with Arno Böhler and a<br />
working definition of the capacity to be in the body, but at the same time always<br />
be outside of it. Because we’re always connected, and open to the world, to the<br />
environment. In response, entangled with each other. So, responsiveness, being<br />
able to respond, being able to be in the world.<br />
BC Collectivity already brings a lot of invisible responsibilities:<br />
not only the responsibility of being a father or a mother or a teacher in relation to<br />
my work, but also the responsibility to think about deadlines, an audience, about<br />
how they read and can enter my work, about why am I doing this. So, I believe my<br />
responsibility is connected with this deep emotional level of sharing something<br />
and with working in the direction of something that is calling me. Calling into place<br />
a collective already creates a sense of responsibility, as well. We are all going to<br />
care about each other.<br />
KB Yes, definitely. In my experience responsibility is totally different<br />
when it comes to solo or collective work. In my solo practice, I am mostly focused<br />
on experimenting and trying out new things. If in the end it doesn’t really work,<br />
it’s fine, I learn something from it. But with the collective I feel the responsibility<br />
differently. If we try to work together and something goes wrong, then actually<br />
our relations and the integrity of the group are in danger.<br />
ALM I have a very concrete example from flamenco for this experience.<br />
In flamenco, if I’m not responsible for the whole team, it doesn’t work. But<br />
also, if I don’t take the moment for my solo inside the collective, there is no flamenco.<br />
So that reminds me of what you, Sandra, were talking about, using dramaturgy as<br />
a mobile, holding different elements and ideas together. It’s the same, each part of<br />
our collective is a part of the whole dramaturgy, if one changes, the whole system<br />
needs to change. Somehow these two words – responsibility and ‘dis-responsibility’<br />
- are deeply connected, and what is important is the space between them.<br />
JC I think this creative term, ‘dis-responsibility’ got developed<br />
when it came to decision making in our work. Focusing, understanding and contextualizing<br />
what our decisions are. But also to create an awareness of what we<br />
are choosing against, when we are choosing to not contextualise, and be able to<br />
identify those moments.<br />
MP Of course the word responsibility can come with heaviness,<br />
as well, with having to carry out a project, and be the one that stands behind it.<br />
But at the same time, I try to use it as a strategy, to think what my responsibility<br />
is to the work. To think that the work is bigger than me, and actually that my task<br />
is to show up and do it.<br />
35
BIO-<br />
GRAPHIES<br />
KUBA BORKOWICZ is a performer, visual artist and curator working between Berlin and Poznan. In 2017,<br />
he graduated from the University of Fine Arts in Poznan (MA Visual Communication). Borkowicz’s research<br />
framework investigates the affinity between play and ritual through compositional strategies utilized by religion<br />
to design a set of practices to connect, worship, and learn from plants. Across different media such as<br />
performance, painting, installations, video, photography and tattoos, his artistic practice focuses on meditative<br />
qualities of the creative process and their potential to create a shared experience. As a curator, Borkowicz<br />
develops platforms for collaboration between human and non-human beings. In 2014 he established the 9/10<br />
Gallery in Poznan with a program focusing on relational pairings of artists.<br />
BERNARDO CHATILLON was born in Rebelva, Portugal under Aquarius. He trained at Centro Em Movimento<br />
(CEM) and completed a degree in theatre at the Higher School of Theatre and Cinema (ESTC) in Lisbon. From<br />
2012-15, he was a company member of the National Theater D. Maria II in Lisbon. Based in Berlin since 2016,<br />
Chatillon has collaborated as a performing artist on multiple projects with Stephanie Maher at Ponderosa<br />
Movement & Discovery. In his own work, Chatillon uses elements of real-time composition to question creative<br />
agency as he navigates the link between belief systems and free association.<br />
JASON CORFF relocated to Berlin from New York City where he has been a dancer with a+s works as well<br />
as a frequent collaborator with videographer Effy Grey and multimedia design house Paradox Vested Relics.<br />
His solo practice is focused on the pairing of cartographic principles with choreography to recontextualize<br />
the body in space. Trained in dance at Oberlin College, Corff was a company member of 277 Dance Project<br />
and worked with Laboratory Theater, theARTcorps, Gushue Moving Arts, and Craig Hoke Zarah. He has performed<br />
at various locations in New York City including Triskelion Arts, Dixon Place, The Performing Garage,<br />
and Bryant Park. One of his dance works for film premiered at Mills Gallery at the Boston Center for the Arts<br />
in Massachusetts, and several others can be found online.<br />
JORGE DE HOYOS is a U.S. American dancer and choreographer based in Berlin since 2012. He studied Cultural<br />
Anthropology and Theater Arts at the University of California at Santa Cruz. Collectivity and community<br />
have been a major aspect of his artistic and spiritual development throughout his trajectory: organizing DIY<br />
public art actions, hosting sexual-spiritual and performance events in homes and non-institutional spaces,<br />
and being a core member of performance projects like Turbulence (a dance about the economy) with Keith<br />
Hennessy and Tanzkongress 2019. As a dancer/performer he has regularly collaborated with Meg Stuart/<br />
Damaged Goods and Sara Shelton Mann, among others. He has presented his own work in San Francisco and<br />
Berlin, and published articles and interviews with In Dance by Dancers’ Group (2008-2014), Dance Theatre<br />
Journal (2011) and Contemporary HUM (2018). www.jorgedehoyos.com<br />
ANA LESSING MENJIBAR is a German-Spanish visual artist, performer and dancer born and based in<br />
Berlin. Her work is an investigation and conceptual interpretation of contemporary flamenco, stretching the<br />
genre and movement vocabulary to locate transformative potential within the context of performance. The<br />
body is also addressed as a unique source of sound and rhythm, extending the ability of sound to act as a<br />
performer in space. Lessing Menjibar’s interdisciplinary practice explores notions of the performative though<br />
media such as photography, video, and installation. She has performed or exhibited in Berlin at Sophiensaele,<br />
Komische Oper Berlin, tanzhaus nrw, NGORONGORO, NGBK, and the Kammermusiksaal der Berliner Philharmonie.<br />
She also has appeared at Villa Romana (Italy), Bienal - Miradas de Mujeres (Spain), and 29. Festival<br />
Les Instants Vidéo (France and Argentina). Lessing Menjibar received her Diplom in Visual Communication at<br />
Universität der Künste Berlin, and also works as an art director and publisher in the field of culture and arts.<br />
www.analessingmenjibar.com<br />
MINNA PARTANEN is a performer, director, and drama educator hailing from Finland and holds a BA in<br />
Performing Arts from Helsinki Metropolia. She has a background in devised work, socially engaged art, and<br />
applied theatre in non-traditional performance spaces and has worked as an applied theatre facilitator in<br />
contexts such as social work, innovation and organizational development. She was part of a research group<br />
36
for arts-based initiatives in development processes at Lappeenranta-Lahti University of Technology LUT.<br />
Currently, Partanen works as a Drama Educator at English Theatre Berlin | International Performing Arts<br />
Center leading the theatre’s partnership with Theater und Schule (TUSCH). She has taught Drama in English<br />
extensively in schools around Berlin and co-founded International People’s Theatre Berlin, an applied theatre<br />
project. Partanen premiered her solo work Next Time in Berlin in 2015 at Expat Expo festival in collaboration<br />
with Joseph Wegmann.<br />
RHYANNON STYLES is a British-born performer, writer and public speaker. In her solo work, Styles uses<br />
resonance and timbre through spatial explorations to create sonic compositions and improvised choreography.<br />
She has performed at various locations in London including Barbican Centre, Tate, V&A Museum and Soho<br />
Theatre. Styles has presented work at both the Edinburgh and Adelaide Fringe Festivals in addition to the<br />
Guggenheim Museum in New York City. In June 2017, Styles released her memoir The New Girl - A Trans Girl Tells<br />
It like It Is through Headline Publishing. As a journalist she regularly contributes to UK publications, and was a<br />
columnist for ELLE magazine from 2015-2017. Her next book Help! I’m Addicted - A Trans Girl’s Self-Discovery<br />
& Recovery will be published in 2021. As a public speaker, Styles uses her media profile to raise awareness for<br />
transgender issues across a variety of platforms. In 2016 she appeared in The Body Shop’s Stand Up Stand<br />
Out campaign, and will feature in the upcoming campaign Work It for Sainsbury’s TU clothing brand. www.<br />
rhyannonstyles.com<br />
IMPRINT<br />
Publisher: HZT Hochschulübergreifendes Zentrum Tanz Berlin (HZT), Uferstraße 23, 13357 Berlin / Concept<br />
and Authors: Kuba Borkowicz, Bernardo Chatillon, Jason Corff, Jorge De Hoyos, Ana Lessing Menjibar, Minna<br />
Partanen, Rhyannon Styles and Sandra Noeth / Texts and pictures: all rights with the authors if not otherwise<br />
mentioned / Graphic Design: milchhof.net / Interview transcription: Zoe Martin / Printing Company: Laserline<br />
©HZT Berlin 2019 / Hochschulübergreifendes Zentrum Tanz Berlin / www.hzt-berlin.de / office@hzt-berlin.de<br />
MA <strong>SODA</strong> Staff: Prof. Rhys Martin, Prof. Dr. Sandra Noeth, Sophia New<br />
Web links are provided for informational purposes only.<br />
HZT bears no responsibility for the accuracy, legality or content of external sites or for that of subsequent links.<br />
The HZT Berlin is the joint responsibility of the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK) and the Hochschule für Schauspielkunst<br />
Ernst Busch (HfS) in cooperation with TanzRaumBerlin, a network of the professional dance scene.
CONTENT<br />
INTRODUCTION 1<br />
BERNARDO<br />
CHATILLON 2<br />
JASON<br />
CORFF 6<br />
JORGE<br />
DE HOYOS 10<br />
ANA LESSING<br />
MENJIBAR 14<br />
KUBA<br />
BORKOWICZ 18<br />
MINNA<br />
PARTANEN 22<br />
RHYANNON<br />
STYLES 26<br />
A CONVERSATION 30<br />
BIOGRAPHIES 36<br />
IMPRINT U3<br />
HOCHSCHUL<br />
ÜBERGREIFENDES<br />
ZENTRUM TANZ BERLIN