[-empyre-] Has mediated natures changed your ideas of what communication is?

[Grisha Coleman]

Hello empyre. Tagging in at the end of the week here -
Thanks Meredith for bringing me in and all of you for the rhizome of ruminations and branches of practice.
I do a good bit of investigation in the realm of human body and its potentialities – so somatic practice and theory can be imagined as the ‘science’ of movement – but a self-reflecting science towards greater awareness. One major principle across most somatic modalities is the insight of ‘thinkingfeelingsensingacting’ – that in ourselves all these phenomena happen simultaneously. A mouthful to say as one word, but even more interesting to understand experientially – because our contemporary situation does everything but support the sensingfeeling aspects of how we move through the world, which I believe if paid more attention to, would significantly shift perspective in ways that we collectively work with our environments, lands and non-human creatures. 
I like the likening of body-land as metaphor in terms of temporal perception and behavioral shifts. Body takes time, working with our nervous system has its own language which is nonverbal and deeply experiential. Bringing some of this practice to awareness, to consciousness could do so much for the relational aspects of beings. So the ‘embodied’ part is not a given, with us humans. I mean it is… and it isn’t very well developed. So, time spent embodying ourselves [consciously linking] seems like a foundational step to me, relating to animate, inanimate, food, soil, worms, turtles, dancing with fish, etc.…
Kindly, grisha




On 10/12/17, 5:38 PM, "empyre-bounces at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au on behalf of Meredith Drum" <empyre-bounces at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au on behalf of meredithdrum at gmail.com> wrote:

    ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
    
    Dear Soft-skinned space,
    
    Re Margaretha’s question about communication and work with animals, I have been thinking of somatic communication, specifically dancers, choreographers and movement artists who work with animals, landscapes, environments. This includes Grisha Coleman (hopefully a post from her soon) and an artist + organization with which Grisha and I have worked: Jennifer Monson’s iLand (Interdisciplinary Laboratory for Art, Nature and Dance). 
    
    Jennifer Monson and iLand just published a field guild to ilanding https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.ilandart.org_purchase-2Da-2Dcopy-2Dof-2Da-2Dfield-2Dguide-2Dto-2Dilanding_&d=DwIGaQ&c=l45AxH-kUV29SRQusp9vYR0n1GycN4_2jInuKy6zbqQ&r=7YXYDKaepNnj13uChMhiROJFH10UPfcgQE5NDkyfUrg&m=6cy3ysA9HgV65EsDF7AH9zjEVVJQWQUqrFJanEkbR5g&s=w3h8GmkXHt7kTAdMfl2CMJtMARDNkU47bUEIW9guuOk&e=. Some info about her and iLand may be of interest.
    
    One of my favorite ecologically focused dance projects is Monson’s BIRD BRAIN (2000-2006), a six-year research-rich science/dance project following fish, whale and bird migration along the Pacific, Atlantic and Mississippi fly and water ways. Monson and collaborators danced along migration routes, carefully listened and responded to each location, and meet and worked with community groups and scientists. 
    
    Later she founded iLand, commissioning dancers and other artists, scientists, urban planners, architects, park rangers (and many others) to collaborate on scores, and then host public workshops to test, dance and play the scores. I feel lucky that I have co-created two such iLanding events. 
    
    I hope Jennifer and iLand will not mind me quoting one of the scores here. 
    
    -----
    FISH MIGRATION 
    for four or more participants 
    a location near water
    
    Start at the edge of water.
    
    Become aware of the sides of your body. Imagine that you can sense, hear and feel the space around you through your sides as if you had the lateral lines* of a fish. What can you hear? Can you feel vibrations from the sounds and actions around you? 
    
    Soften your front focus and tune into your peripheral vision. 
    
    Choose a point along the edge of the water some distance away. Note open pathways and obstacles.
    
    Migrate from here to there - darting, schooling, resting in an eddy, hiding, floating - guided by the information coming from the sides of your body. 
    
    -River to Creek iLAB Residency 2010
    
    *A lateral line is a system of sense organs that detects movement, vibration and changes in pressure.
    -------
     
    Best,
    Meredith
    _______________________________________________
    empyre forum
    empyre at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au
    https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__empyre.library.cornell.edu&d=DwIGaQ&c=l45AxH-kUV29SRQusp9vYR0n1GycN4_2jInuKy6zbqQ&r=7YXYDKaepNnj13uChMhiROJFH10UPfcgQE5NDkyfUrg&m=6cy3ysA9HgV65EsDF7AH9zjEVVJQWQUqrFJanEkbR5g&s=ANJ75Cvqjhko9O1uWUbR8mPsY5VhrwJifqLvWGES3oE&e=