Exposition

Moments of Dancing Too: A Study on Cunningham Technique and Devotion (last edited: 2019)

Benny Olk
Benedict Olk
open exposition

About this exposition

These texts are an invitation to offer insight into this poetic and personal practice developed during the course of my study. Through a regular and ongoing studio practice I draw on my personal dance history as material in an attempt to understand the affective and performative aspects of devotion in dancing, the very devotion which both obscures and reveals something intimate, but beyond the subjective. Recalling and amplifying the ghostly present and presences in a film recording of a single Cunningham technique class, I have been exploring the spectral remains in the transmission of a dance technique, from recording of living bodies to a digital, publicly-available video and then to my corporeal reinterpretation of that video. By continuously repeating the same material over the course of nearly two years I have developed a multilayered understanding of the material, which allows me to depart from and return to the class through associative portals. I bilocate between the physical site of practice and the space of recall, between an action from the class and the memory of that action. I enjoy the strange spectral things that arise from this practice: ghosts, portals, other bodies. With my eyes closed, my attention is displaced from image to sensation. It’s about work. “Not to show off, but to show,” as Cunningham said. It’s about toil. It’s about devotion. These slippery materials propose to invert the traditional choreographic relationship to presence, and instead call upon memory, absence, and dislocation to provide an understanding of movement through time and space. This collection is comprised of texts written at various points throughout my two years in the MA program New Performative Practices (NPP) at Stockholm University of the Arts. My focus on devotion in Cunningham technique originated as a self-organized Advanced Independent Study. This course was built on readings, a solo studio practice, teaching others, and interviews with former Merce Cunningham Dance Company members. I created exposition on the Research Catalogue as part of my exam, a precursor to this one. In creating the exposition, my notebook became a central tool, a material I carried and used everywhere, from the studio to the classroom to interviews to the library, all places where I carried out the study. I wrote texts on top of photographs of my notes, and the presence of two texts situated together suggests dynamic reading possibilities. This MA is research-preparatory and strictly speaking this is not artistic research. I’ve taken advantage of the liberty being independent of formal academic research offers. The traditional citation models, academic formatting, and impartial address have been left behind at times to favor for a looser, more experimental formatting, multiple styles of essays, and a piece-meal approach to continuity. Thanks to: Anna Giertz for design and layout of the print version, which inspired this version; Chrysa Parkinson, Litó Walkey, Jeanine Durning for supervision; Frank Bock for portals; Martin Hargreaves for unpacking performativity; Rebecca Hilton for the initial push; my NPP colleagues for their feedback, curiosity, and support; Ken Tabachnick for insight from the Merce Cunningham Trust; Patricia Lent, Andrea Weber, Joseph Lennon, and Michael Cole for interviews; Sarah Michelson for devotion; Moriah Evans for searching for forms; Kris Berggren for the ordinary devotion which got me here, and copy editing; Pat Richter for her music; Robert Swinston for class, again and again.
typeresearch exposition
keywordsdance, devotion, Merce Cunningham, performance, technique
date31/01/2018
last modified30/05/2019
statusin progress
share statuspublic
affiliationStockholms konstnärliga högskolan
licenseAll rights reserved
urlhttps://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/428275/428276


Simple Media

id name copyright license
428457 mc-8wm740 Benedict Olk All rights reserved
431140 Schechner Benedict Olk All rights reserved
431146 Cunningham Advanced Independent Study Benedict Olk All rights reserved
431151 Ocean Solo reconstruction Benedict Olk All rights reserved
431535 IMG_2203 Benedict Olk All rights reserved
431537 IMG_2204 Benedict Olk All rights reserved
431708 turns Benedict Olk All rights reserved
431721 IMG_1844.TRIM Benedict Olk All rights reserved
431732 posse Benedict Olk All rights reserved
432399 Questions for Myself Benedict Olk All rights reserved
432408 Performing Remains Notes Benedict Olk All rights reserved
432631 6.1.18 MC Interview P1 Benedict Olk All rights reserved
432633 6.1.18 MC Interview P2 Benedict Olk All rights reserved
432641 6.1.18 MC Interview P3 Benedict Olk All rights reserved
432646 Class Prep 1 Benedict Olk All rights reserved
432656 Schechner Graph Benedict Olk All rights reserved
432665 7.1.18 JL Interview P1 Benedict Olk All rights reserved
432669 7.1.18 JL Interview P2 Benedict Olk All rights reserved
432671 7.1.18 JL Interview P3 Benedict Olk All rights reserved
432674 7.1.18 JL Interview P4 Benedict Olk All rights reserved
432687 Preparing the course Notes Benedict Olk All rights reserved
432695 11.1.18 BO Notes Benedict Olk All rights reserved
432735 Schechner graph explanation Benedict Olk All rights reserved
432738 11.1.18 PL Interview P1 Benedict Olk All rights reserved
432745 Class Prep 3 Benedict Olk All rights reserved
432747 Sharing Research Benedict Olk All rights reserved
432749 Ocean Arms Benedict Olk All rights reserved
434745 Ocean Solo 2015 Benedict Olk All rights reserved
435594 Cunningham Technique Benedict Olk All rights reserved
461140 Intro + Bounces Benedict Olk All rights reserved
461142 Across the Floor Benedict Olk All rights reserved
638068 Notes from Inheriting the Avant-Garde 1 Benedict Olk All rights reserved
638074 Notes from Inheriting the Avant-Garde 2 Benedict Olk All rights reserved
638090 Screen Shot 2019-04-26 at 1.35.41 PM Benedict Olk All rights reserved
638101 7.1.18 JL Interview P2 Benedict Olk All rights reserved
638130 7.1.18 JL Interview P3 Benedict Olk All rights reserved
638181 Crosses Benedict Olk All rights reserved
638182 Class Order Benedict Olk All rights reserved
638254 Before Bounces Benedict Olk All rights reserved
638265 Infinitely out into space BO All rights reserved
638274 Higher here BO All rights reserved
638279 It reaches BO All rights reserved
638286 Side and side BO All rights reserved
638289 We wanna BO All rights reserved
638293 Repeat and eight BO All rights reserved
638301 You make it hard BO All rights reserved
638304 You're here BO All rights reserved
638308 Reduced version BO All rights reserved
638322 It doesn't stop BO All rights reserved

Comments are only available for registered users.