Friday, April 13, 2012

between|in|movements [in-between movements]

This a concept that I knew about in the back of my head, but did not totally get utilized more until coming into Modern 2. I would agree that the connections between the movements are more important. Without the interconnecting movements, one is using parts, and not the whole. Just as the body can be used in a whole-body way, so can the dance be seen as a whole-dance. The dance is not only composed of endpoints but midpoints and transitions. The choreographer can, in a sense, choose any fragment of movement and deem it a "marker", but in reality, the movements are as one continuous flux. Using film as an example, and this seems like a great exercise, one could film a dancer, then randomly assign stop points of movement, and those movements would be the actual places instructed. The smart connection between the movements would likely not deviate a tremendous amount from the original intended dance with the original "marks" that the instructor gave because a good dancer would likely possess a sort of somatic memory of how one movement is to connect to the other based off the choreographer's intention.


So dancers are like a rolling film, not like pieces of photographs, though the film can appear to pause for a moment to then gracefully resume, yet the still was not physically stopped, but continued to roll the entire time. The "energy" remained both in movement and in a period of sustaining. To better in dancing in strong connecting movement is likely to get the marked movements down but not to be completely taken over by them, for they are only a starting point that will get from one place to the next. In a sense, it would be like being fixated on past or future, when really, the magic is in the present, which can be as the in-between movements from one movement to the next. A sustained movement can even be a transition--which is a perpetual transition from itself to what (by illusion) appears to be itself again, yet both instances are different in the minutest of ways. In the sustained movement, one would want to show life from one second to the next, and not in only the first second.


Space-time has many paradoxical features to it (when thought about in a "rational" fashion--the language in which many are convinced is more than a language). As in number theory where the fragmentation from one digit to the next is an infinity, so movements from one point to the next can be viewed the same way. There is but one marked movement, yet in-between movements appear to very much outweigh the marked ones because there is so much of what appears "more" of it. If we are travelling from one movement to the next, we have two marked movements, yet those are only two out of the potential showing of way more within the "in-between" which is infinity. We can thus approach showing or resembling the nature of a lively infinity. In dance, we have the ability to express 1 --> 2 --> 3 where the marked or fragmented may have not even been noticed all that much except at the beginning and end of the dance itself, expressing an artistic representation of the encompassing infinity and harmony in integration.


In displaying this with dance or any art form, it may serve as that "reminder" to make "whole" again many things that are part. In the end, I will say that at this current stage, I certainly see the in-between movements as being more important, yet in a context way out of dance, an intuition in me says that this may have not always been the case--that there were many a moment where there was a whole lot of whole, and a desire to burst out of that and make parts, just to see how they could be made whole again. The cosmic game of the serpent, which I will deem fun, even when it appears to others terrifying. In the future, in having so much somatic intelligence of connection from one movement to the next, the contrarian in me would likely want to in a sense erase the memory and start again. I really wonder if this idea sparked the imagination of several Butoh dancers. The paradox though comes in that their appearance of possessing dissonant connecting movement may be very progressive in a sense--a harmony with the disharmony. The humbleness of a dancer who, with so much a field of somatic intelligence creates a work to appear to not have that intelligence (yet utilizing it in a sort of behind-the-scenes way from their vast somatic resources), is very inspiring to me. The idea draws me as it would the Scorpio (me being that in Sun, Moon, Mercury, and Saturn)--in that (as Zoë expressed) they have so deadly a stinger, yet they often decide to not be the monster, and be more the other way around as perhaps captivating and without harm, despite having the potential to be dangerous.

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Far Reach

If it can be remembered, the concept of far reach past ones own immediate self seems to be very helpful. The concept is to "send the energy outward" as if you are extending well beyond your own limbs. The visualization assures the dancer that energy to the body will circulate. Personally, when I visualize reaching far, I think of shooting lines that go out for blocks. The trick is to remember to do even do this.

Being able to do this will have an individual appear to have better lines, and I would imagine that it would make it easier to complete movements. Reaching beyond oneself in dance is a matter of quality. The act requires steady breath and confidence. Extending to the furthest point without appearing strained in doing so is a refined art; pulling it off may be as being able to accurately hit a target effortlessly.


The problem is that we extend to what appears to be just the end of our limbs, but in so doing this, it appears that the energy ceases. I would imagine that similair types of visualization would give the same result like visualizing oneself dancing but with a larger dance body. I suppose one could also go into a third person mode, and visualize themselves from the vantage point of somebody else whom is seeking nothing but far reach beyond oneself.

The type of growing-beyond-oneself visualization is actually commonly used for self-empowerment, and is even taken to the extreme in working with western magick. In particular, the beginning of the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram has one grow beyond themselves so large that they eventually become as big as the entire universe.