Britta Wirthmüller 1 Revised script for the final presentation “NRW ...

Britta Wirthmüller
Revised script for the final presentation “NRW Dance Research #1: “Bodies at the
limits of reality”” at Fabrik Heeder, Krefeld on 04.10.2009
Britta Wirthmüller
SENSELESS MOVEMENT
Example of movement (ends with walk to lectern)
Good morning. I am delighted to see so many of you are here today. I would like to
introduce myself briefly: As you have probably already guessed, my name is Britta
Wirthmüller. A few words on my biography:
I studied classical and contemporary dance at the Palucca School in Dresden. In
other words, I had a relatively classical dance education. During my studies, I began
to doubt whether the profession of dancer was the right one for me. While spending a
guest semester at the University for the Arts in Amsterdam, where I was actually
supposed to study in the “Modern Theatre Department”, I spent a lot of time at SNDO,
the “School for New Dance Development”. That’s where I came into contact with
performance and an expanded understanding of dance for the first time and noticed
that I was above all interested in how movement works and how one can consciously
use this effect. Consciously dealing with movement in this way was somewhat
lacking in my dance training. Nevertheless, I returned to the Palucca School where I
completed my diploma. I then moved to Berlin, where I lived for one year. I had
various jobs during this time and spent my evenings in the audience at Frank Castorf
and René Pollesch at the Volksbühne. I also read “Das Kapital”. Career-wise, these
are the most important influences from that time. I then went to Hamburg to study for
my MA in “Performance Studies” at the University of Hamburg. It was while studying
for my Master’s that I began my artistic work as a choreographer and performer.
Amongst other things, I cooperated on the creation of a performative installation with
Lilo Nein from Vienna (a type of course in movement and movement description).
Since completing my studies, I have worked with Petra Zanki in Zagreb. She is a
performer and amongst other things worked for four years with the Slovenian group
“Via Negativa”. We share a very precise and critical view of dance and movement.
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Britta Wirthmüller
My research project was conducted under the title “Bodies at the limits of reality”. I
will explain later on in more depth what I understand by “limits of reality”. However, I
have given this morning’s presentation the title “Senseless Movement” – and I’ll come
back to that in a while as well.
In the eight weeks that I was a guest of Fabrik Heeder here in Krefeld, I was
preoccupied with the question of what is not visible, cannot be presented or is not to
be named with regard to the human body. When I talk about the body from now on,
then I’m always referring to our own body, to the extent that we are all bodies
(starting from the very tangible things such as bones, organs, muscles and nerve
cells through to our psyche and our self-awareness). What I mean by this is that
while we frequently talk about ‘our body’, we ultimately identify ourselves as this body.
When I look at my body in a photograph, I don’t say: “That’s my body,” instead I say:
“That’s me.”
There are some things we can all perceive about our bodies (pain, movement,
hunger, thirst, feelings of numbness) and on the other hand those that we might
perceive, but cannot name or define, or which we find difficult to put a finger on. We
can sense that they are there, but we can find no language or expression for them.
Now, there is a whole string of philosophical concepts that revolve around these
invisible things. For Jacques Lacan it is the term of the “real”, for Martin Heidegger
and Jean-Paul Sartre “nothingness”, for Friedrich Nietzsche “chaos”. However, my
research is not (spiritually) scientific, but artistic; I would therefore like to restrict
myself to this area, having tried (without knowing what it looked like) to describe that
which is simply inconceivable. Whatever this is appears neither positive or negative,
it is neither perceived nor missed.
It is difficult to give an example of this. It is easier for me to give a negative example:
One could say that the taboo falls in that sought-after realm, but the taboo knows
what it represents. 1 It therefore names what cannot be. However, what I have sought
for is that which does not even cross our minds to think about and for which there can
be no name.
1 I would like to thank Dr. Christian Grüny for this idea and formulation.
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Britta Wirthmüller
What is important now in order to artistically approach my research question, is that
an answer to this question can only ever have one reference: “The visualisation of a
limit” 2 , to use the words of the philosopher Marcus Steinweg. If the realm I have
searched for cannot be named, then I will not be able to give it a name even through
artistic work. I can therefore only succeed in referring to it, for example by making a
limit visible, which demarcates something known from something else. This other
thing is the sought-after realm, of which we know nothing and which we cannot see,
of which all we know that it has to be there because we come up against a limit,
behind which something else begins.
In the rest of my presentation, I will provide you with an insight into how I proceeded
with my research.
DISCUSSION PARTNERS
In the first two to three weeks of my research, I met people in NRW who I expected
would frequently encounter or had encountered this “limit of reality”, based on their
profession or personal experience. These discussion partners included philosophers,
neurologists, a teacher of the Alexander Technique, an osteopath, a pregnant
woman and a dancer with many years of professional experience. What interested
me about this highly abstract research question was whether and where this sought-
after realm occurred in reality. Interestingly, all discussion partners found my question
about the invisible aspects of the body an important one. I made notes of these
discussions. What you can see here
Point to poster
is a type of mind map for the “limit of reality”. It contains ideas, questions, terms and
propositions of my discussion partners and of myself, arranged in loose categories.
PRACTICAL RESEARCH
2 Steinweg, Marcus: “Definition der Kunst”, in Huber, Tobias/Steinweg, Marcus (Hg): “Theses on
Contemporary Art”, Zurich/Berlin: diaphanes 2008, p. 126
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Britta Wirthmüller
In addition to these discussions, I also tried to experience the “limit of reality” in my
own body. I came across a book in which the British neurophysiologist Jonathan Cole
tells the story of his patient and friend Ian Waterman. The book is called “Pride and a
Daily Marathon” 3 . Ian Waterman fell ill with a harmless virus infection at the age of 19.
However – as one suspects – his immune system destroyed large parts of his
sensory nervous system during his recovery. Within the peripheral nervous system, a
distinction is made between the motor nervous system, which is responsible for
muscle control, and the sensory nervous system, which is responsible for the
perception of skin, pain, temperature and joint position. A failure of the sensory
nervous system leads to the loss of proprioception, i.e. the sense that enables us to
perceive the position, state and movement of the body in space. Normally, we are
unaware of this sense. We also constantly receive information from the sensory
nervous system. For example, as you sit here this morning in the audience, your
sensory nervous system is giving you information about the angle of your elbow,
whether your feet are touching the floor or – if you have crossed your legs – how the
back of your right thigh is lying on the front of your left thigh. All this happens without
you having to concentrate on it.
Normally, failures in the motor and sensory nervous systems go hand in hand. Ian
Waterman is one of the few cases in which only the sensory nervous system was
affected.
We can see how essential the sensory nervous system is because Ian Waterman
was no longer able to walk or sit within just a few days of being infected with the virus.
Although he possessed full muscle power, he was no longer able to use it
meaningfully. He even described lying in bed as a deeply unsettling situation,
because without feedback on the location and position of his body, he had the feeling
he was floating.
Ian Waterman fell ill at the beginning of the 1960s. His doctors did not know of any
therapy. They assumed that Waterman would have to spend the rest of his life in a
wheelchair. However, Waterman decided to work against this prognosis. On his own
initiative, he gradually learned to use his sense of vision in order to move around.
3 Cole, Jonathan O.: “Pride and a daily marathon”, London: MIT Press 1995
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Britta Wirthmüller
This only happened very slowly and with maximum concentration he could only move
what he saw.
Although Ian Waterman never regained his proprioception, he learnt to use his body
in such a way that he was able to lead a self-determined life. Through the loss of a
sense which we are not normally even aware of, Ian Waterman was forced to use his
body in a way that he and his doctors did not know was even possible. Interestingly,
Ian Waterman lacked both the words to describe what he lacked and also what he
was now doing to compensate for this defect. Here, we are therefore dealing with a
double “limit of reality” at once: The loss of something we did not know we had (the
proprioception) and the replacement of this loss, which lacks an accurate description.
I knew that it would be impossible to recreate Ian Waterman’s experience in my own
body. However, a simple and harmless approximation was a transposition of our
right/left preferences. As a right-handed person, I spent 72 hours doing everything I
normally do with my right hand with my left hand and vice versa.
Video: Eating left-handed
What interested my in all of this was how I can make normally automatic and
apparently simple movements conscious in their complexity. In many instances it was
relatively easy to do things with the other hand after a short while. In a few of them I
noticed how differently expressed the sensory abilities are on the two hands (at least
for right-handers). Brushing one’s teeth, like writing for example, is a highly complex
process which I can only perform inadequately with my left hand. Similarly the tying
of shoelaces. Having though about it for a while, it is entirely possible for me to tie a
lace with my left hand. However, the experience is amazingly unusual, as if one has
discovered something completely new that never existed before.
As you have seen, the movements appear awkward and tense. I attempt to offset the
lack of coordination through unnecessary use of force. For the observer, something
about these very everyday movements appears irritating. However, this irritation did
not go far enough for me.
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GRIP BEHAVIOUR
Britta Wirthmüller
Apart from self-perception, I was interested in how I can refer to the “limit of reality”
directly in the observer. In this regard, I was interested in the so-called “grip
behaviour”. This term comes from the field of neurology. Instead of spending a long
time explaining it, I will demonstrate it briefly.
Cup and glass on a table at the front of the stage
If this glass is here and I hold my hand like this (close to the cup with opened ‘ready-
to-grip’ fingers), what would you say I am doing? You would say I am about to grip
the glass. If this cup is standing next to the glass and I hold my hand like this (the
same position as above), you will still say that I am going to grip the glass. As long as
you recognise the object and my hand position, you will be able to predict what I am
going to grip. This knowledge is experiential knowledge. You know what it means to
grip a glass, therefore this scenario of this specific hand position is enough for you to
anticipate the grip behaviour in your imagination. The motor system therefore does
not recognise individual movements, but actions such as: gripping and lifting, gripping
and moving to the mouth.
You probably did not have to think very long about what I would pick up. You might
even say that you did not have to think about it all. (Whether that is true depends on
our definition of thinking). The fact, therefore, is that our brain predicts what is going
to happen incredibly quickly.
In this expectation, which is also common to us for everyday objects in a specific
cultural area, I saw the potential to discover another “limit of reality”.
Video: Gripping objects (a row of everyday objects such as a cup, hat, broom and
book are distributed on podiums of different heights in the vicinity of the
demonstrating person. The person approaches the individual objects as if to pick
them up, but at the last moment diverts the movement to apparently pick up another
object. In doing so, the grip position of the hand alters.)
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Britta Wirthmüller
This was the attempt to initiate grip behaviour using a row of everyday objects, but
never to carry it out. If it is right what neurologists say, then expectation and
observation must deviate from each other in our brain and at least lead to a brief
period of confusion. This confusion could point to expectations of which we know
absolutely nothing. This goes hand in hand with the assertion of many neurologists
that in actual fact we consciously decide extremely little of what we believe we
consciously decide.
What interested me here in terms of my artistic work is the question of whether I can
develop a form of dance that demands a purely motor-based style of interpretation,
beyond any symbolism and linguistic interpretation. Firstly: what do I mean by
symbolic interpretation? When we look at something, we almost always have the
need to make sense of this observation. Something similar happens when we watch
a piece of dance. We want to know what it is about. In a danced duet, or even easier
in a pas de deux in ballet, that is simple. It is obviously about a relationship between
people: love, attraction, rejection, hate, etc. Whatever we see, we interpret with our
senses. This interpretation always functions via the word, i.e. via language, even if
we perhaps do not vocalise it or write it down. I am claiming that there is a much
more direct way of understanding movement prior to the interpretation (at which we
more or less consciously arrive). And by ‘understand’ I do not mean any rational
cognitive process, but the simple fact that you follow and comprehend the movement.
In other words, an implicit, originally pragmatic and non-reflexive form of
understanding.
When I reach out my hand to this glass, that is a meaningful movement for you,
which you understand for the simple reason that you yourself have reached out your
hand to a glass a thousand times. Now, you can of course ask why I am gripping the
glass, but you can only ask this question because you ‘understand’ the act for what it
is. If I were currently standing on stage, you might also have the need to understand
what you are seeing on a symbolic level. However, this is always preceded by the
motor understanding.
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Britta Wirthmüller
I have therefore tried to generate movements that above all trigger this motor
understanding. However, this proved extremely difficult for the stage, because we
apparently tend to view everything that happens on stage as something symbolic.
TRANSFER TO THE BODY
Following on from my research in Krefeld, I enhanced the approaches already
described with my colleague Petra Zanki in Zagreb. We transferred the principle of
the ‘desire to grip objects’ to movements without objects. It now concerned not only
making the same movement without an object, but about finding movements which –
like these grip behaviours – are known to us as logical movements. For all their
difference, our bodies follow certain principles, which are so everyday that we hardly
notice them.
Slide; The “normal” body
The head is at the top.
The feet are at the bottom.
We move in the direction in which the eyes are looking.
We place our heels down first when walking.
We breathe in and out.
We grip things that are to the left of our body with our left hand.
We grip things that are to the right of our body with our right hand.
We lift the foot that we want to take a step with.
We may know how a body moves normally, but we are far from knowing how it has to
move in order to have a different effect on us. Some principles could be circumvented;
however this would correspond to the taboo that already knows what it represents.
The only option therefore is to point to the unfamiliar in the familiar. We have thus
worked with movements that everyone knows, such as a jump.
Jump to the right
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Britta Wirthmüller
Most of you will have suspected that I would jump and you will even probably have
known that the jump would be to the right. It is therefore enough for me to do this
Bend knee for jump to the right
for you to imagine a jump to the right. But what if I do not jump at all or only jump a
little or cancel my own intention? Then this happens
(...)
A movement which you had not foreseen and which I had not planned that way, nor
was I able to fully guess its outcome. It is a meaningless movement because it does
not make any sense in our experience of movement. It has no clear direction, it is not
efficient – on the contrary, it wastes energy, but without an admirable effect. One
could say it is inorganic, even though an organism produced it.
Right at the beginning, I showed you a sequence of movements that was also a
meaningless phrase of movement in this context. I deliberately showed it to you right
at the beginning so that you could watch it without this information at the back of your
mind. I would not like to speculate further on whether this movement is actually
meaningless or whether it does not make sense again out of its meaninglessness.
Perhaps we can address this question and any others in a discussion afterwards.
Thank you for your attention.
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