[-empyre-] body chair language

[Daniel Tércio]

Dear all

The reference to ghosts and haunting -- which certainly are, quoting
Sue, tricky words because they could seem to imply mystification of
something that should be anchored in the bodily experience -- pushed
my thoughts to another place. Could embodiment include the absent and
the invisible, granting a corporeal presence to both states? It seems
to me that absence is different from the invisible. Absence is
reciprocal (is it?), once I feel the absence of someone who is living
in London and she might feel the same on me, living in Lisbon.
“Saudade” is a Portuguese word referring to this particular feeling,
and “saudade” includes a physical experience. Therefore, absence is
embodied and, in a certain way, the Skype connection that I may use
every evening is not quashing the embodied absence of that particular
person but is adding the embodiment of another presence, the virtual
presence of that person. I mean, the absence is present as well as the
Skype connection is. Both are embodied.

The invisible is another story. Some years ago, a MA student that I
was supervising made an investigation about the masked dancers in the
Tchokwe linguistic group (mainly in Angola). Those full body masks
that were in straight contact with the community during the male
initiation rituals performed close the village as daimons, entities
connecting the gods realm with the human realm. They were not scary,
and danced in a very precise style; although, they certainly did not
seemed nice for the young boys being conducted to the process of
initiation (this process was supposedly rather physical intrusive).
Actually, the masked dancers belonged to a complex system of masks. At
the top of the hierarchy there are some other masks, conserved in a
kind of closet at the initiation house, that nobody could see. These
masks, that are really present, are also invisible to all the
community and in them lies the mostly scary effects. The student I am
following told me that nobody dared to wear these masks. Nobody
embodied these frightening presences, but on the other hand all the
community embodied them as shadows and fear.

Thus, is the invisible being embodied as a threatening presence?

regards
Daniel

2014-07-27 15:21 GMT+01:00 Sue Hawksley <sue at articulateanimal.org.uk>:
> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> Dear Sally Jane
>
> On 23 Jul 2014, at 18:35, sally jane norman <normansallyjane at googlemail.com> wrote:
>
>>  I'd love to hear more on your take on ghosts and haunting and resonance, Sue, as I'm also grappling with this stuff - something I've previously tried to articulate as "registers of presence"...
>
> I like your use of 'grappling': ghosts, haunting etc. are tricky words because they could seem to imply mystification of something that I'm trying to anchor in the bodily experience. Grappling is very active.
> You might be interested in this short article I wrote a couple of years ago about the making of a dancefim which explores kinaesthetic and kinetic processes of 'inhabiting' (and being inhabited by) the mnemonic traces of places. The article focuses mainly on the physical practices that we used to facilitate exploration of imaginatively created virtual spaces:  <http://theperipateticstudio.wordpress.com/2012/09/11/sue-hawksley-traces-of-places/>
>
> Also, in my previous post I referred to Elizabeth Dempster - I meant Elizabeth Behnke. Apologies to both Elizabeths.
> Behnke's piece, which you might find of interest  is: “Ghost Gestures: Phenomenological Investigations of Bodily Micromovements and Their Intercorporeal Implications, ” Human Studies 20, (1997), pp.181–201.
>
> all the best, Sue
>
>
>
> SUE HAWKSLEY
> independent dance artist
> sue at articulateanimal.org.uk
> http://www.articulateanimal.org.uk
>
>
>
>
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