IN PROCESS

A preview of THE WAY THINGS GO was presented during JdS in the CCN Montpellier on the 8th of October. In the beginning of the show nothing was said to inform the audience of how to behave. This was a conscious attempt to see if the material indeed did motivate and inspire moving. The audience chose to sit along the walls and remained seated for the duration of the performance. The moving about of the audience is not a must for me, but at the moment I think it is not even considered as a possibility for the audience. It seems necessary to literally invite the audience to move and to feel free with this accommodating of their point of view. During our next presentations in the Fabre Museum we will experiment with this, once in a similar setting, whereby an audience comes to see a framed performance, and once when we will perform during the opening hours of the museum, as a running, walk-in-walk-out event.

Fabre Museum, Montpellier:
18 November, 18.00
19 November, 16.00

The project entitled the diffuse has been replaced with another project called JEFTA – a void. This was because of other, new interests, and in answer to the many group situations I found myself in. There was a need to work on myself as material, not meaning by myself, and I designed this by inviting others to be my therapists in working sessions. When not working with people, I am busy with studying anatomy and body practices in order to access my body, understand my body, feel my body, relate to it differently, and challenge it. I do this to move. Here under there is a description of the project as well as a score for moving that I perform a few times a week. The score is designed following my own needs and questions, and is meant to be a way for me to embody the things I think about. It has been done in groups as well.

JEFTA - a void
I SHOULD DO A SOLO because it’s the last thing that I would do. It is quite inconceivable and frightening for me to work on a solo, not only because I am not used to it but also because it is centripetal. For me, solo has been a format that makes sense only in relation to problems and confrontations, something I hitherto have not wanted to endeavour. Group-dynamics is for me much less complicated than my own dynamics. I think by doing this I am asking for trouble. However, I want my problematics of the solo format to be productive, by using and even abusing them.

THERE ARE MANY NO-NO’S existent in my thinking of the solo that I want to discard in favour of elasticity of conceptions, working-methods and materials. Hence, the first ones are listed hereunder in a no problem-list:

SELF-REFERENTIALITY no problem
THERAPY no problem
INTERNALITY no problem
SEARCH no problem
PSYCHOLOGY no problem
(SELF-)EXPRESSION no problem
INDULGENCE no problem
DEVOTION no problem
PROCESS no problem
DISCOMFORT no problem
SLEEPING IN THE STUDIO no problem
EXPOSURE no problem

RECENTLY, I find myself interested in myself for the first time in my life. More specifically, I analyze and evaluate how I function: my thoughts in relation to my actions, my inside in relation to my outside, what people don’t see (or what I think they don’t see) in relation to what they see, intrinsic movements in relation to external movements. The mechanisms at play between psychology and physicality, between states of mind and bodily manifestation, between internal processes and expression, I find amusing. But I don’t want to work on my identity nor express my insides for the sake of telling something. I am interested in how the work can be centered around me without a personal perspective being the agenda. I therefore want to invert the method of working: the source being me and my self-expressions albeit constructed through others and through the integration of external sources; using others to create the (fictional) (hi)story of me, yet letting an air of self-centeredness prevail. This method not only implies a personal disconnection to the making of the material but it also shifts the aboutness from being about saying something to doing something.

THE EXTERNAL SOURCE will be dance therapy:

Dance therapy, or dance movement therapy is the psychotherapeutic use of movement (and dance) for emotional, cognitive, social, behavioral and physical conditions. It is a form of expressive therapy. Certified dance therapists hold a masters level of training. Dance therapy is based on the premise that the body and mind are interrelated, that the state of the body can affect mental and emotional wellbeing both positively and negatively. In contrast to artistic dance, which is usually concerned with the aesthetic appearance of movement, dance therapy explores the nature of all movement. Through observing and altering the kinesthetic movements of a client, dance movement therapists diagnose and help solve various psychological problems. As any conscious person can move on some level, this therapy can work with any population.

TO APPLY on myself movement as a trigger of therapeutic self-expression for making art I find a horrendously appalling thought. I am very interested, however, in seriously attempting just that: to find movement that is expressive of my thoughts, states of mind or even subconscious. Also, I want to investigate the appearances of dance therapy: the aesthetics, the expressions, the codes, the qualities. The looks of this; the activity of being doing something connecting internally for the sake of solving or searching for something; the movement from inside to outside, is an expression I want to attempt to not only exercise in the process but also in the performing of the sessions.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN dance therapy becomes performative? What happens in the slide between dance therapy and artistic dance (as they call it above), where dance therapy should happen in a closed, safe environment with the aim of self-reflection and artistic dance should produce the opposite, namely activation and reflection in the viewer?

AS A PROCEDURE I want to work with people who make my performance through being my therapists. The therapies or practices can be fictional or not, but the therapists should act from a position of knowledge and belief. I initiate, I am the material subject, I make choices and I author (I can lie). But my collaborators, or dance-therapists, have a certain power. Since I am the client, they hold more knowledge than me, sometimes even the truth, even though this lies inside of me to discover. I am all ears. I am all body. Together we find out how I function in relation to movement. The therapists have a methodology of working on and with me to unblock my patterns and problems through moving, accessing ways of moving for my wellbeing, creating connectedness by movement etc. There are multiple therapists. Through this I want to suggest an ever-changing, flexible performative process, that doesn’t consist of one therapy or practice applied, but many.

SCORE: SESSION 2

CLOSE YOU EYES THROUGHOUT. CONSIDER ONLY YOURSELF, PAY ATTENTION TO YOURSELF INTERNALLY. DON’T PAY ATTENTION TO OTHERS. DON’T TRY TO BE INVENTIVE. TRY TO INSIST AND INVEST. GO FROM DOING THE ACTIVITIES BY WILLING THEM TO BECOMING THEM. BE DEVOTED TO THE ACTIVITY IN ITSELF.

1. JUMPING 5 MIN
JUMP WITH A LOOSE BODY. FOCUS ONLY ON THE VERTICAL MOVEMENTS, AVOID HORIZONTAL MOVEMNETS. JUMP IN SUCH A WAY THAT YOU CAN MAINTAIN IT FOR 5 MIN, OR MOVE IN INTERVALLS OF INTENSITIES. THINK ABOUT THE LANDING AND THE DOWN. JUMP DOWN.

2. SHAKING 8 MIN
REMAIN LOOSE, WITH TWO FEET ON THE FLOOR, LET SHAKE. FROM YOUR FEET. UP INTO THE BODY. BECOME THE SHAKING: SHAKE YOUR BEING AND LET THIS BECOME LIQUID, FLUID, IT MELTS, IT FLOWS.

3. SHAKING INTO 5 MIN
EXTEND YOUR ARMS OUT AND GRADUALLY MOVE CLOSER TO THE WALL TO PUT BOTH HANDS ON THE WALL SHAKE FROM BOTH THE HANDS AND FROM THE FEET. PASS THE SHAKING INTO THE WALL, SHAKE THE WALL, LET THE WALL AND FLOOR SHAKE YOU. LET IT FEEDBACK FLOOR-BODY-WALL-BODY-FLOOR ETC..

4. PRESSING 1 MIN
PRESS INTO THE WALL WITH YOUR HANDS, AS IF YOU ARE MOVING IT WITH YOUR FORCE.

5. TENSING 2 MIN
TENSE EVERYTHING IN THE BODY AS MUCH AS POSSBLE TO MAKE YOUR SELF IMMOBILE. SIMULTANEOUSLY COUNTERACT THIS TENSION WITH SLIGHTLY MORE FORCE TO MOVE, MEANING THE FORCE TO MOVE IS SLIGHTLY STRONGER THAN THE FORCE TO STAY IMMOBILE. KEEP SCANNING THE FULL BODY WITH INCREASED TENSION, AS WELL AS MOVEMENT.

5.VOLUMIZING 2 MIN
SLOWLY SHIFT THE ATTENTION TO THE CONTENT (INSIDES) OF THE BODY, FROM ONE AREA TO ANOTHER. ACCOMPANY THE SHIFT OF ATTENTION WITH A FILLING OF WEIGHT OR AIR, CREATING MOVEMENT.

6. DESCENDING 5 MIN
GO FROM STANDING ALL 4 IN ONE SLOW GRADUAL DESCENT, WITHOUT ADJUSTMENT. BE IN THE MOMENT OF THE DESCENT AND DON’T THINK OF THE PATHWAY BEFOREHAND. MOVE IN ONE CONTINUOUS QUALITY. EVERYTHING MOVES DOWN, NOTHING MOVES UP.

7. WAVING 6 MIN
WHEN YOUR HANDS TOUCH THE FLOOR DURING THE DESCENT START A WAVING/RIPPLING MOTION THROUGH YOUR PELVIC, ABDOMINAL AND THORACIC ORGANS.