quodlibet

five constant factors

Rosie Kay started making a work on the 3rd year dance company today.

we began with a socio-political discussion of the uk military. rosie has been training with the 4th rifles battalion (dartmoor & salisbury plain), and visiting military rehabilitation centre Headley Court.

War is violent, but its rehearsal and training in many ways has unique correlations with dance training. Each attack is a piece of choreography- the battle formations of now and history are masteries of co-ordinated human movement. [rosie kay]

pt

a mix of physical training exercises; vaulting, press-ups, sit-ups, fwd-rolls, etc. rosie wanted to keep the students moving and embrace a ‘military’ attitude to moving.

contemporary class

a focused exploration of alignment, flow and shape. mixed elements of core stability, and strength work.

floor-work phrase: rosie asked them to think about the ‘right’ before doing ‘on the left’. a soft, but detailed performance quality. she addressed the key moments in the phrase and the direction of intention.

centre work beginning with core ballet vocab. some familiar corrections (always good for the student to hear from an outside source).

onto a the main phrase, a contemporary grand allegro. i find it pleasing to see the students engaging with ballet derived vocabulary. rosie maintains a high level of detail, and performance is a core technical component.

the phrase is legs, jumps, arms and wildness. the students need more confidence and clarity to ‘let fly’.

rosie will stick with a similar class all week, so we can concentrate on devising.

devising

toying with tyres (possible props / scenery). small groups explore different ideas/uses. (are there methods for exploring objects?)

the students produce some rich possibilities without realizing it. if this were a lesson i’d take longer to discuss what has been shown. ‘military’ movement is a rhizome of signs.

hyperassult: ridiculous and/or nearly impossible pt exercises. activities to promote adrenaline/agression. 8bit/chiptune and thrash metal accompany the endeavors.

• what is a soldier?
• what is a perfect soldier?

values for a british army soldier [mod pdf]:

• Selfless Commitment
• Courage
• Discipline
• Integrity
• Loyalty
• Respect for others

seven values for a US solider (LDRSHIP)

• Loyalty
• Duty
• Respect
• Selfless Service
• Honor
• Integrity
• Personal Courage

some values for a christian solder (or soldier of god): follower, faithful, familiar, fighter, finisher.

the day ended with a loose discussion of war, politics, humanism (etc). i’m pleased that rosie has chosen to make a politically minded work. commentary on the current conflicts is missing from dance discourse (practical and academic).

inclusive disjunction

are metaphors and matter of equal importance?

is feeling more useful than knowing, even if the feelings are imagined? visualization is effective (that much seems clear) but can it lead to unhelpful confusion.

we often talk about how useful it is to be lost or confused, but that seems to be a place for discovery, not occupation. our imagination can have concrete effects, but the outcomes are usually to do with the self, not others (or matter).

so, should we prioritize the placebo or the proof.

(by ‘proof’ i mean externally-coherent, repeatable, and contextual knowledge. but perhaps that’s unimportant here.)

‘sharing weight’ is something we talk about a lot in contact improvisation (CI). with a partner we lean back-to-back, or head-to-head and share our ‘weight’. the words help us gain a shared sense of self, or a fluid interface between two bodies. we feel the ‘weight’ through pressure.

but is it weight we feel? it’s easy to confuse weight with mass. is sharing mass (or sharing substance) more useful? we rarely share mass/substance in CI, so the term ‘weight’ seems more useful. but asking the question of ‘mass’ clarifies the ‘sharing’.

sharing in CI carries the notion of equality, ‘we share’. but this is only an implication; one dancer can take another’s ‘weight’ (supporting), or dancers can slip in-and-out of equilibrium.

but lets not focus on another route of inquiry too quickly. weight seems more suitable than mass (as a term), but is it good enough?

weight keeps you in contact, and balance with your partner. it facilitates your sensation of the flow of momentum. here the imagination and senses combine to produce a simple flow of information. yet dance with weight, and you recognize you are feeling pressure.

so we confuse weight, mass, and pressure. the confusion lies around forces; weight is product of mass and gravity, pressure can come from many different forces.

‘share the forces’ sounds a little nerdy/geeky. ‘force’ might also lead to the assumption that strength is required. but force is:

Any external agent that causes a change in the motion of a free body, or that causes stress in a fixed body. [nasa]

sharing the ‘forces’ suggests sharing the ‘pulls and pushes’ of movement (a)synchronously. but the language is problematic (although somewhat accurate). we make use pushes/pulls in CI, but our intentions are usually more subtle. pushing and pulling can have negative overtones in dance practice/ideology.

so ‘forces’ seems more appropriate than ‘weight’, but are problematic to visualize/embody. perhaps we can do without both terms by dropping the ‘sharing’.

sharing is central to CI, so what’s the rationale for dropping the term? sharing has always been an option, not a requirement. it simply became the dominant solution to collisions.

solutions are not the form, they are responses to questions proposed by the form.

i’ve already used the word ‘equilibrium’ to suggest a balanced state; but not all CI is static. ‘dynamic equilibrium’ is a rich concept to visualize/imagine; a multitude shifting forces balancing the (active) whole.

but dynamic (kinetic) equilibrium still leaves a ‘state’ and CI is a stochastic process (non-deterministic). The moments of equilibrium in CI are fleeting, not maintained.

so where does that leave me … with students i use ‘weight sharing’ and ‘dynamic equilibrium’ discussing the benefits/problems of each concept.

what i want to find is rich description that can has coherent outcomes. the dissonance of placebo and proof slows down my (embodied) cognition. rather than two mental tracks, i’d rather use one … the extra capacity can be put to better uses.

we stick with metaphors because matter is hard to embody. imagination is simple to perform, the boundaries are flexible. the logic of matter can preclude simple visualization, but some concepts are simple.

metaphor and matter can be balanced. but it’s a rare find, and in this instance one that eludes me.

intern or volunteer

the guardian has an article on internships:

Under the National Minimum Wage Act, interns who work rather than observe should be paid, but employers have taken advantage of a legally grey area, and the willingness of young people, to pay just expenses, or nothing at all. [polly curtis]

and links to the following advice from the department for business, innovation and skills:

Should people doing internships be paid?

Yes, if their work would otherwise be performed by a paid member of staff. Under the National Minimum Wage Act 1998, if someone is a “worker” – ie they are under a contract – they must be paid at least the minimum wage, regardless of their job title.

If that is the case, why are so many people working for free?

Employers can use “volunteers” who may not have any form of contract. Under section 44 of the 1998 act, they are not classed as workers and therefore not covered by the act. The exemption was designed to allow people to work for free for charities. [guardian]

most of the dance internships i have seen advertised this year are unpaid, or expenses only. but all of the internships have required the interns to work/participate rather than observe.

some organizations are using the term “voluntary internship” in adverts (e.g. dance umbrella). but most only reveal the post is unpaid near the end of the advert (e.g. nottdance09, and dance east [pdf])

unpaid interns are volunteers. we shouldn’t expect graduates to volunteer as a route into the industry (volunteering is a choice). if organizations want graduates to volunteer they should be honest in their advertising.