Filed under: art, creative process, Dance | Tags: "love is not a pie", amy bloom, autumn quartet, coco loupe, love, love art lab
This weekend I had the distinct pleasure of seeing my dear friend CoCo. It seems that without fail CoCo has a way of shifting or adding to my perspective of my own work. Saturday evening amidst the revelry of a birthday party, she referred to my documentation/description of the process of “Autumn Quartet” and mentioned her realization that throughout all of what I’ve written, there is no mention of love.
I have to admit, I was a little stunned. I thought of the Love Art Laboratory, and how I hold them as such icons, such inspirations for my work. Their stated purpose is to create work that explore, generates, and celebrates love. Their work served as a significant inspiration for this piece; I am particularly moved by what I perceive to be a sensational integration of life and art in their lives, and as I initiated this piece, I think it was my goal to synthesize or replicate some aspect of that integration. I am not convinced that I succeeded in this intention (I’m not even sure that I know/knew what the realization of that intention would look like), but certainly the piece has become something, something full of content and implications and complexity and contradiction, orbiting around increasingly pronounced topics/themes. I can be pleased with that.
So now there is this question of “love.” Where is love in this composition of implication/explication, violence, sexuality, undressing, power dynamics, etc.? I think my immediate response is that I don’t know how to choreograph love. I’ve figured out ways to choreograph these other elements, but I don’t know if I can compose or orchestrate love. And yet I think that we love each other. I know that I love Erik, Eric, and Amanda, and I know that the process of this piece has been a significant contributor to the cultivation of that love . . . and yet I never set out to make that a goal. I don’t feel responsible for whatever love we feel for one another . . . instead, I feel responsible for creating a space, a situation, in which relationships occur. They could have gone any way . . . this process could have made us despise one another, perhaps. Or maybe not . . . so much of it has been about intimacy and trust, knowing one another in intimate and corporeal ways. Maybe when we dare to engage another person like that, love is inevitable? It that too utopian? Is it even accurate?
When I was talking with Beth and Annie in San Francisco, I remember talking about the space between sex and love, and Annie said, “Well, all sex is love.” Beth responded, “No, it isn’t. Not necessarily. Some sex is just fucking.” I think the conclusion that we came to was that even “just fucking” had the potential to be a kind of love. Love has many forms.
It makes me think of a short story I read last week by Amy Bloom entitled “Love is Not a Pie.” A crucial moment in the story comes when it is revealed that a woman has two loves, her husband and their friend who is also her lover. She explains to her daughter that love is not a pie; it is not something that is sectioned off and dolled out. It is different with each person, for her husband, for her lover, for each of her daughters, etc. Love is big and diverse. “Just fucking” may be a kind of love. Dancing and biting and undressing may be kinds of love.
Maybe love is another implication in the piece that could use explication? Maybe that’s another consideration for the growth/development of the piece. How do we forefront love along with violence and sex and intimacy?
We only have four more “rehearsals” for the piece. We’ll only do it four more times. I entirely expect that it has already changed, already transformed. I expect this consideration of love may shift/change it further. And I fully expect further observations/revelations/recognitions to occur in the process. At the end of the quarter, it will not be the same as it has been.
Filed under: art, creative process, culture, Dance, research | Tags: "About", Alessio Silverstrin, choreographic object, choreography, improvisational technologies, love, monster partitur, nik haffner, osu, pauline oliveros, sexuality, steven halpern, Synchronous Objects, wexner, William Forsythe
Just a reminder for my (local) readership:
I am premiering a new piece this week entitled “About.” It is being included the the OSU Dance Winter Concert. Here are the details:
Thursday, 12 March-Saturday, 14 March
8pm
Sullivant Theater
Tickets are $10 general admission, $5 for senior citizens, students, and anyone with a Buck ID
This concert is a presentation of student work, ranging from undergrad to grad, coming out of the OSU Department of Dance.
This new piece of mine is for seven dancers and includes sounds by Pauline Oliveros and Steven Halpern.
Also coming up this week is an LGBT film festival at the Wexner. It is the same nights of the Winter Concert, so I will not be able to attend, but if you come to the concert one night and have one or two more evenings free next weekend, I highly recommend this event. I see this sort of programming as an important step in developing a broader awareness of and respect for the LGBT community. By supporting these events, we communicate that sense of value to the Wexner. During a time in our country in which equality is still a question waiting to be answered, it seems increasingly relevant when highly respected, public institutions such as the Wexner issue statements regarding LGBT individuals, couples, artists, and rights in this country.
You can find out the details here.
from Love Songs being shown Friday, 13 February
Other events in which I will be involved a bit farther off are also at the Wexner and revolve around the work of William Forsythe. I have not discussed very much here, but this quarter I am participating in a workshop exploring the studio techniques, ideas, and technologies of William Forsythe, partially through the instruction of Nik Haffner, a former dancer with Forsythe’s company, and an important collaborator on Forsythe’s “Improvisational Technologies.” (“Improvisational Technologies” is a CD-ROM that was developed to illustrate Forsythes methods for improvisation, movement generation, and choreographic devices being employed in his company. Originally for use within the company as a way of educating new company members, the CD-ROM was published in the 1990s and now has become a public resource for informing improvisational and choreographic processes) This workshop, offered through the OSU Department of Dance, is culminating with these Wexner events.
The first is the performance of Monster Partitur delivered by dancer Alessio Silverstrin. Our role in this piece is the construction of sculptural objects and drawings that then serve as the “score” for the piece. You can read more about the piece and details for the performances here. This piece originated from Forsythe’s experience of the illness and death of his wife. In a meeting yesterday, even just hearing the story of how the piece came about became an overwhelming emotional experience. The piece is accompanied by an installation which includes a text written by Forsythe himself describing his wife’s illness. He spoke of her bleeding and of her becoming more and more bent, to the point at which she could no longer dance, set in painful contrast to her remarkable abilities before her illness. This loss of ability,loss of who she once was, and eventually the loss of her entirely, became the source of this piece. After her death, he unwrapped a Christmas present that had been given to her. It was a life-size cardboard skeleton kit. It is from kits such as those that we will create bent, irregular sculptures. It is the shadows of these sculptures that we will trace onto panels. And it will be these traces that will become the “score” for the piece.
from Monster Partitur. In the image you can see a version of the sort of sculptural objects we will be creating.
This performance is part of a larger exhibition entitled “William Forsythe: Transfigurations” that will be on display at the Wexner. Without writing a paper on Forsythian methodologies, I will offer that much of Forsythe’s research has been in the area of the “choreographic object,” (this article is written by Forsythe and offers a brief explanation of how he thinks of “choreographic objects”) and how the intrinsic information/knowledge in choreography might be explored or translated into other forms (apart from but not excluding the dancing body). This exhibition brings a collection of these “objects” into the gallery spaces of the Wexner. It is the first presentation of this significant body of work in the United States. You can read more about the exhibition here.
Finally, on April 1, in conjunction with both of these components relating to Forsythe’s work, the Wexner is holding a symposium entitled, “William Forsythe Symposium: Choreographic Objects.” This symposium is also coordinated with the launch of a long-term collaborative research project between Forsythe, the OSU Department of Dance, and ACCAD at OSU entitled “Synchronous Objects for One Flat Thing, reproduced.” This research is going live online on April 1, and is the demonstration and explication work exploring this concept of “choreographic objects” and how they open new access points into the knowledge/information of choreography. More about the Wexner Symposium can be found here.
Many things coming up. I wish I could offer more critical or analytical analyses of each of these events, but for the moment, simply offering the information is all that time allows. Mark your calendars, and I hope to see you there.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: emergent taxonomy, gender, love, nijinska, same-sex marriage, the body
We have reached the end of the quarter, my first quarter of grad school. I only had a minor postpartum meltdown last night, mourning the absence of so much that has filled my every minute for the last few months. My paper on Nijinsky and Nijinska is complete for now. It’s title is “The Negotiation of Gender in the Work of Nijinsky and Nijinska,” and comes in just over 25 pages. I cannot say that I think it is finished. I hope that I continue to let that material sort itself out in my mind, and that I can revisit the paper with more of my own thoughts/speculations/contributions to the dialogue of Nijinsky and Nijinska, rather than writing a paper that simply agree and disagrees with previous statements made by other scholars. So I see the paper as an ongoing affair, continuing to dance with these ghosts a bit.
One of the things that I was interested in coming out of this blog was new thought sparked by the juxtaposition of other thoughts, which is so evident in my “tag cloud” on the left. The big words are the ones that have been mentioned with more regularity, and so on. Today, the biggest words are Election, Gender, Nijinska, and Research, with Love and Yoga and Dance coming in next. Things I see when I look at the cloud:
-”Election” nestled between “Dance” and “Emergent Taxonomy;” what a beautiful implication, that somehow dance might contribute to the emergent (democratic) process that governs policy in our nation. It makes me think about the role of the body, the presence and intelligence of the body, governance of the body, laws that impose hierarchical concepts on the body (like, in New York, you have to have a permit if three or more people are dancing in a public space; or transfats being banned by the FDA; laws that restrict/prohibit specific sexual activities in certain parts of the country; etc.) The body is so intrinsic to the individual. We so frequently in our culture operate under a Cartesian understanding of the body as a machine which houses the mind or spirit, and yet the body is central to all experience. It is through the body that we are present in the world, it is through the body that we sense, perceive, know, decide. All of our thought processes begin in the body. So what does it say about a society that is supposed to operate out of a consensus of individuals that governing bodies impose restrictions on bodies? It is so much deeper than restricting action. It feels like censorship of the individual experience itself, that from which everything stems. And maybe it seems benign, but I am interested it how it even comes about, and what it might mean that a society allows that sort of governance. . .
-I see the three big words of “Election” “Gender” and “Nijinska.” I could (did?) write a small book on the subject of Nijinska and gender right now . . . but relating it to “election” (which today is representing the democratic process, the process of government coming out of decisions made by masses, people casting votes and their laws and leaders coming up out of that process. . . maybe it’s just because it is right above “emergent taxonomy” but democracy is intended to be emergent) . . . Nijinska’s two most significant works were Les Noches (which you can see videos of in a previous post) and Les Biches (of which only accounts remain). Both were profound social commentaries on gender, the former an examination of the oppression that was (is?) intrinsic to the institution of marriage, specifically in peasant Russia, the latter which protested gender roles by radically reconstructing and redefining them in a vibrant cast of characters that addressed a range of social taboos, including narcissism, voyeurism, lesbianism, gender ambiguity, group sex, etc.
My first thought from this juxtaposition has to do with same-sex marriage in this country. This is an issue that should not get quiet. I think about Prop. 8 and how America is systematically outlawing (but thankfully not without avid resistance) marriage between individuals of the same sex. And I think about Nijinska’s commentary on marriage in Les Noches, how the individuals were simply swept away by the tide of social expectation, in which marriage had nothing to do with love, mutuality of feeling, or even the individuals involved. Instead, marriages were arranged by families in order to provide the groom’s family with a new worker, the bride. So much more severe is the oppression of the bride, who is stripped from her family, her mother, and handed over to her “new” family. But the oppression is no respecter of gender, because desire of the groom is also discounted. he becomes merely the vehicle through which to expand the family, by adding a bride and, by implication in the ballet’s last image, the wedding bed, children.
I can’t help but draw connections between Nijinska’s perception and representation of marriage, and the perception/representation of marriage in America today. Inversely, America seems to say that the ‘oppression’ of marriage is a respecter of gender, because it is an oppression of exclusion based on gender. It somehow maintains a disconnection from love, mutuality of feeling, and the individuals. Likely married heterosexual couples would disagree. They would say that do love one another, that it was by their own election to marry and to consecrate their relationship in this institution. I would ask them to recognize that while that may be true, clearly that is not the reason they are married, because our country is legislatively stating that those factors are not enough to be married. To married you must before all else be a man and a woman; that remains the essential component. You can be married without love, without mutuality of feelings, or likely even without the election to such state by the individuals in involved (I think of couples who get married to please their parents, or out of pressure by their spouse, etc.). In looking at the role of gender in the decisions being made in our country through the lens of Nijinska, I have to say I am a bit startled. Her piece was staged in 1923 in Europe. How bizarre that despite all of our social progress, connections can still be made between the society, marriage, and treatment of gender then to now.
-I see “Love” situated right in the middle of the list . . . and it seems simple to see an ideal portrait of all that surrounds it as an emanation of this central concern. Love in our listening. Love in our research. Love in our art and the appreciation of/participation in the art of others. Love in the Art Lab. Love in our elections, our democracy emerging from love rather than discrimination and hate. Love in our dance, our collaboration, our choreography. Love in our anxiety. Love in our marriage. Love in our technology. In our Yoga.
Clearly that is an ideal. It raises the question from where do all these things emanate? What is situated at “the heart of things,” as it were? What are the underlying values that we are privileging in the work we do, the way we work, the things we research, the kind of nation we are building? As we participate in emergent processes, what is it we bring to that field of potentialities, and from where do our contributions come from?
I think these are good thoughts, good connections here at the end of the quarter. New ideas arising out of the ideas that have been catalogued here.
Lastly, check out the new blogs in my blog role. An array of different voices, mostly my colleagues, each with a different approach to blogging, with spectacular ideas to contribute to your own emergent taxonomy today.
Filed under: culture | Tags: gender, love, prop. 8, same-sex marriage, sexuality
A friend sent me this video today, a Special Comment segment offered by Keith Olbermann, a sportscaster and news anchor for MSNBC, which aired on November 10th. I found it radically significant and moving.
Ever since the election on November 4th, I have been troubled, saddened, and angered by steps that are continuing to be taken in this country. Again this year states voted to ban same-sex marriage by amending their constitutions to permanently enshrine this discriminatory policy. That makes 28 states who have made it their law that the relationships of homosexual Americans will not be recognized as equal to those of heterosexual Americans. California passing Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage, a right that had already been legalized in the state, made history because it not only prevents equality, it retracted equality that had already been awarded. Arkansas passed a bill that prevents single individuals from adopting children, effectively prohibiting families with same-sex parents, who are banned from marrying.
I am conflicted in wake of these decisions. A part of me is ready to engage in conversation and action to see these decisions reversed. A part of me no longer feels as if I can call this my country, a country in which I may never be free to live with equal rights due to my sexual orientation or who I love.
My thoughts are conflicted and scattered, but Keith Olbermann articulates much of what I feel. I was moved by his words and felt compelled to share them with you. I am asking you to take the time to watch this six and a half minute video clip, and listen to what he says. You may already hold a perspective similar to the one Olbermann articulates. Or you may be compelled to explore a new perspective. You may disagree with what he says; you may desire to dialogue further, with me, or with others in your life. I welcome whatever response. I simply ask that you take the time to watch and reflect.
Filed under: Ontology | Tags: forgiveness, love, nijinska, nijinsky, research
I don’t really have time to be blogging right now. I am sifting through a pile of books for two different/related research projects. The first is an oral presentation of Vaslov Nijinsky, specifically the effect his life and work had on the perception of the sexual/gender identity of the male dancer. The second continues this research with a look as his sister Bronislava Nijinska, comparing and contrasting her effects on the perception of sexual/gender identity with those of her brother.
I came across a line at the end of The Queer Afterlife of Vaslov Nijinsky by Kevin Kopelson, where he quotes a poem by W. H. Auden. Auden wrote:
“We must love one another or die.”
Kopelson goes on to discuss:
“[This] final line is famous. Forster, for one, felt that because Auden “once wrote ‘We must love one another or die,’ he can command me to follow him.” Auden himself, however, came to view this line as dishonest, both because we die whether or not we love one another and because the kind of love he values isn’t a “hunger,” an instinctive–or purely sensual–need. Rather, it’s a gift we bestow as a form of forgiveness. . .”
This is a line which struck me, and I was interested in dropping it into this creative space, seeing how it exists alongside the other thoughts previously explored here. How ideas such as love (which is central to my ontology) and forgiveness (in which I have a difficult time believing) co-exist/relate to subjects such as inequality in America, research, creative process, Meredith Monk, the Love Art Lab, etc.
