[-empyre-] Joining In

Thu May 14 12:28:23 EST 2009

For those who haven't had the pleasure of participating in one of  
Forsythe's choreographic objects, something on the choreographic  
object as inspired by Bill's work (a few extracts from a longer paper  
published in Inflexions: A Journal for Research-Creation www.inflexions.org 
)

“The choreographic object: a model of potential transition from one  
state to another in any space imaginable” (Forsythe 2008)

Like his choreographies, Forsythe’s choreographic objects are created  
with very precise immanent conditions for movement: they insist on the  
precision of parameters for movement without divesting the movement of  
its potential for eventness. They are unforeseeable in their effects  
yet carefully crafted toward participation. They are objectiles thrown  
into the world, invitations to move-with. Forsythe speaks of seeking  
physical solutions to dramaturgic propositions.The choreographic  
objects are designed to provoke physical solutions that tend toward  
habit even as they divert toward the contrast of the new. This new  
emerges relationally, activated by propositions embedded into the  
choreographic objects’ potential deployment. These act not on  
individual will: they move the relation.

Forsythe is interested more in the folding of space than the form- 
taking of bodies. His choreographic propositions begin with this  
folding, activating a creative tension between the virtual extensity  
of a durational rhythm and the actual intensity of a moving in time.  
 From creating environmental conditions for performance to creating  
propositions for relational movement, Forsythe’s work remains an  
activity that folds forward into a complex ecological nexus. As a  
choreographer of missiles of movement, Forsythe’s work makes felt  
movement’s relationality as a force of matter itself.

“You don’t need a choreographer to dance." (Forsythe) What you need is  
a proposition. Propositions are ontogenetic: they emerge as the germ  
of the occasion and persist on the nexus of experience to take hold  
once more through new occasions of experience. Forsythe’s  
choreographic objects are propositions in just this sense.

On 13-May-09, at 5:26 PM, Sally Jane Norman wrote:

> Hi Norah,
>
> great to see you in this mix of movements, body and concept. I'm  
> still trying - very happily - to integrate the intense dose of work  
> gleaned from the Sadler's Wells panel session on the choreographic  
> object, and was delighted by Stamatia's posting on Monday  
> (reproduced below) about Bernard Cache's "Earth Moves", which seems  
> to offer a fantastic evocation of One Flat Thing. Wondering whether  
> you'd followed this and whether you could be lured to rebound (fully  
> tracked in 3D of course)?
>
> very best
> sjn
>
> ps - Alan, your contre plongée avatar tandem brought to mind another  
> of those weird "period" dances, the Jitterbug, maybe because I  
> (fortunately) can't forget the joy of seeing Forsythe dance the  
> Mashed Potato... wondering when we'll come up with specific,  
> sufficiently lagful, juddering terms for these deportmental/  
> comportmental cinematic gesticulations of our second lives - which  
> background words endow with a scary poignance...
>
>
> Sent:  	 12 May 2009 03:57
> In "Earth Moves", Bernard Cache defines the point of inflection as  
> an intrinsic singularity which is not yet related to a particular  
> development of coordinates and, like every 'solid' work of art for  
> Deleuze and Guattari, is neither high nor low, neither on the right  
> nor on the left, neither in progression nor regression, because it  
> is in absence of gravity. Inflection is the pure event of a line or  
> a point, a virtuality, an ideality to be actualised into a well- 
> defined curve. In this case, the virtual inflection point of the  
> videos appears as the idea of playing with the malleable folds of  
> time, in more than two simultaneous directions at once.
> A whole choreographic and causal geometry of sensations is  
> consequently developed, or folded, after the idea, when the  
> constructivism of drwaing, of the camera or of the technology  
> transforms the point of inflection of a gesture into a fully formed  
> curve. By following the formation of the movements in their  
> continuing-forward from past to present and vice versa, and by  
> revealing the serpentine line of these movements as a vector of  
> symmetric exchanges, technology here seems to transform bodily  
> movements into two-fold or circular structures. And it is surprising  
> to see the artist's own transformation into a reverse-performer,  
> together with objects and movements folding into a continuously  
> renewed dance. I wish I could see this piece.
>
> stamatia
> ________________________________________
> From: empyre-bounces at gamera.cofa.unsw.edu.au [empyre-bounces at gamera.cofa.unsw.edu.au 
> ] On Behalf Of Norah Zuniga Shaw [zuniga.11 at osu.edu]
> Sent: 12 May 2009 18:58
> To: soft_skinned_space
> Subject: [-empyre-] Joining In
>
> Joining in to the critical motion practice conversation by first  
> offering up
> my work as a frame of reference for my subsequent comments.
>
> We created
>
> http://synchronousobjects.osu.edu
>
> from the initial concept of a generative motion trace. Creating a  
> trace not
> for preservation, not for repertory or reconstruction, not as an
> etymological, archaeological, historical exercise, not to recreate the
> experience of the piece or its genesis but to create a trace/traces of
> choreographic principles or what we started calling a choreographic  
> object.
> Bill wrote an essay on this that might be of interest:
>
> http://www.wexarts.org/ex/forsythe/
>
> The interactive moving animations reflect on, work on, re-invent the
> choreographic structures in a dance. They were generated at the  
> intersection
> of choreography, animation art, geography, architecture, theory  
> (maybe) and
> even I suppose a form of activism in that they are reaching out to  
> invite
> folks in to the dance and into some ways that we see patterns in  
> complexity.
> Are they a technological approach to movement? A critical one? They  
> are a
> mix of analytical and creative. They seek to generate new creativity  
> while
> representing a form of it (namely counterpoint in William Forsythe's  
> One
> Flat Thing Reproduced). They seek to invite a certain kind of "dance
> readership." Counterpoint itself suggests some pretty radical ideas  
> about
> ways to relate and find agreement in motion that don't require  
> unison (or
> unity). The work is created in a complex community of practice that  
> requires
> both interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary practices for creation...
>
> That's enough for getting started.
> N
>
>
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----------------------------------------------------------
Erin Manning
Concordia Research Chair
Faculty of Fine Arts
Concordia University
1455 de Maisonneuve W.
Montreal QC H3G1M8

http://www.senselab.ca
http://www.erinmovement.com
http://www.inflexions.org

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