to learn more about TRÄD, please follow this link

2022-02-23

choreographer: cristina caprioli

 

dancers (cast 2022):

Elinor Tollerz Bratteby, Sophie Augot, Annika Hyvärinen, Johanna Klint, Kristiina Viiala, Morgane Nicol, Dario Barreto Damas, Philip Berlin, and pavleheidler

 

dancers (cast 2023):

Anton Borgström, Annika Hyvärinen, Johanna Klint, Frank Koenen, Oskar Landström, Hana Lee Erdman, Louise Perming, Elinor Tollerz Bratteby, Kristiina Viiala, and pavleheidler

 

one person said,

a poem

 

 

written collectively (updated 2023-02-20)

 

 

one child said this was better than dagis, this was better than the ipad.

 

one child said wow, they really cannot hear us.

 

one educator said, for two years we weren't even allowed to take the bus.

 

one person said, i cannot believe this is happening.

 

one person arrived frustrated, they had a difficult time locating the building. they threatened one of the staff members with leaving the premisses and going home. that same person continued dancing for 10 minutes after the soundtrack came to its end.

 

one person said, it is amazing when they run at the end, when they play and do all the things kids do, without shouting, without raising the volume, without making noise. it's amazing when you can still hear the tapping of their feet on the floor, the little clicks they make with their mouths.

 

one child said, now i could eat 50 bananas!

 

one person said, on ho. if you cry, i'll cry! by which time i was already crying.

 

one child asked, is this theatre? one of the staff members said, i think this is dancing. why do we dance? why do you think we dance? to be happy. and to be honest? what do you mean by honest? to be a good friend.

 

one adult said something something alpha and omega. the other responded, i couldn’t agree more.

 

one adult said, what a difference to come a second time.

 

one child said, this is is CRAZY.

 

when told that the figures leave in the end one kid said, yes if we don't dance nicely, they will leave.

 

one person said, i kept raising the stakes, they kept meeting me. another responded, they were doing choreography. that was choreography.

 

one child said, oh yeah, so it's the same like last time.

 

one child said, their name is… barr?

 

one person said, i almost cannot deal with remembering seeing an assistant, mouth agape, staring at me in action, now that i know they later said they didn't know their protegée was capable of whatever "this" was.

 

three children walked through the trees with their arms spread repeating, i am fat i am fat i am fat i am fat i am fat i am fat i am fat i am fat i am fat i am fat i am fat i am fat i am fat i am fat i am fat.

 

one adult said, you do not have any dates open before then? no, no. it's not about the children... it's me who wouldn't be able to come back. 

 

one child said, hallå agnes.

 

one teenager said, this is magic. no really look, this is magic. when they move, the trees move. it's magic!

 

one person said, i was afraid. it was unpleasant. i felt naked and exposed.

 

one person said, ba ba ba ba ba ba. pa pa pa pa pa pa. ma ma ma ma ma ma. pa pa pa pa pa pa. uuuuuuuuuuuuuu UUUUUUUUUUUUUUU. ma ma ma ma ma ma. 

 

one person said, let me give you a crash course: you have a body.

 

one person asked, where are you from? oh, okay, i said. i’m from yugoslavia. you’re from france? yes, they are from the us. wow, the uk, fancy. 

 

one of the hosts asked, do you remember if the trees are narrow or wide? wide! and do you remember what else you were doing in the forest? one child said, copying instruments!

 

one child said, when can we go into the rainforest?

 

one child asked, can you do magic?

 

one child screamed excitedly, M A M A!

 

one person said, this is my third time. I’m really getting into this.

 

one child said, TACK FÖR IDAG.

 

one child asked, when are we going to the real forest theatre?

 

one child said, you speak English? My dad teaches English in school. Another child said, do you speak Spanish? Uno, dos, tres, cuatro, cinco, seis!

 

one child said, yeah but are they going to touch us? Only if you want to. I WANT TO!!!

 

one caregiver said, this is fascinating. This child never lets anyone come close, let alone touch them!

 

one child ask, when are the… when are the animals coming?

 

one child said, I don’t want the pigeons to take me!

TRÄD

working diary, FEB 23 –– APR 15, 2022

written by pavleheidler

2022-02-23, day 1

 

I had forgotten how tiny tiny humans are. I hadn't forgotten how tiny tiny humans are, not literally. I had forgotten the sensation, what it feels like to witness a sea of tiny bodies spill into the room. I hadn't forgotten, not literally. I hadn't forgotten what it feels like to witness a sea of tiny bodies spill into the room.

 

Actually. I had forgotten, for when forgetting is a cognitive capacity. I hadn't forgotten, for when forgetting is an embodied, cellular capacity. I know this because remembering felt before it was realised. Cognition followed sensation.

 

*

 

Remembering overwhelms. It creates a bridge, a temporal structure that connects a point in time with another point in time, this point in time with that point in time, momentarily collapsing the space between the two points. That space is now this space, that me () is now this me (). Momentarily, I cannot tell the difference between them, between us.

 

And then I can.

2022-03-08, international women's day

 

i sent a message to all my colleagues, saying that "in the context of this diary, i would really like to create a long list of sentences that all follow the same principle. namely, they begin with "one person said..." or "one child said..." and then expand for as long or as short as necessary."

 

"what i think we’ll be able to read from the list once it is written, especially if we write it together, is what the collective is paying attention to, what the collective is able to recognise as valuable, what the collective is able to see."

 

in that same message, i wrote:

 

"i am treating this diary as a memory device, i write in response to the question 'what do i remember at the end of the day?' for the most part the effort to remember is speculative, and the act of remembering documentative not only of the potential value of the event itself (#TRÄD) but also of the intra-active process that transforms affect into knowledge, reaction into reflection (#dancing)."

I cannot remember who said it, Annika? 


If they are four, and we lived with the restrictions for two years, then they spent a half of their lives–the nearer half, the half they are more likely to remember–at home.

 

Is this what we've noticed today? New patterns emerging, patterns we'll necessarily be unfamiliar with, no matter how much expereince we've had with this show, because all of our references are from the time before restrictions, all of our references are of working with children who didn't spend their first years at home.

 

How will they have been affected by this experience?

 

And how do we tackle this question when we don't even know

how we will have been affected by this experience?

 

Given that we're still having the experience...

 

but just how intimate 

-- elinor, 2022-04-04

2022-02-24

2022-02-24, day 2

 

Waking up is a challenge. Waking up early is an even greater challenge. I set the radio up to come on with the alarm, thinking that hearing voices was going to tempt my attention to turn. The voices I heard this morning, in that state between sleep and not sleep, announced that Putin authorised military action.

We've prepared to work with five year olds. On Thursday we've discovered we'll be working primarily with four year olds. 

2022-02-25

2022-02-25, day 3

 

Before entering the forest, when the children are described the installation and told what to expect during their stay, one child asked, Will they [the dancers, who are called "the creatures that inhabit the forest"] be naked?

 

Upon entering the forest one child said, I'm shaking.

 

After leaving the forest alone with an assitant one child said, I got scared. The forest isn't beautiful. When asked, where isn't scary? Where is beautiful? the child responded, At home.

 

One child started crying because, as she said, she wanted to dance but she couldn't because she didn't know the dance. Also, facial hair–which was, according to some reports, referred to as "the weird haircut"–is scary.

 

When they left the installation one of the educators said, It is so important for the kids to come out and see the world. You do understand, don't you? Some of them have spent all this time at home.

 

2022-03-02, day 6

 

Sophie came over, made a sound. I recognised that sound and without thinking or inquiring into her experinece I said, you can open the door! It's time for them to go.

 

I reacted so quickly because I recognised the sound as the sound that came out of my throat the day before. A combination of I can't keep at it any longer and the situation is getting out of hand, this sound is not so much an expression of exhaustion as it is a warning.

 

Sophie sighed in relief and was gone. I took her reaction to mean I understood her correctly.


 

2022-03-01

2022-03-01, day 5

 

After the 10:45, a kid came out of the forest, shaped their right hand into a gun, aimed the gun at my face and shot me. They were laughing as they run back into the forest.

 

They came back to shoot at me three or four times, laughing as they run through the forest in between shots.

 

The fifth time the kid came back, they came back with a sword or a machette. Something about how they were using the item made me think it wasn't perfectly straight. They cut my left arm off above the elbow first. Then they pierced my stomach between my liver and my large intenstine and pulled the sword through my gut before drawing it out.

 

On their last run, the kid placed a bomb between my feet, pressed the button at its centre then proceeded to make a high pitched countdown noise while running away into the forest. Through the noise of other children laughing and screaming and running around, I heard the pphhhhffffrrrrrggggggggg sound the bomb made as it exploded in my murderer's mouth.

 

I got the opportunity to witness the 10:45AM.

 

The following is a transcription of the notes I took during:

 

"With four year olds it becomes transparent that we are learning to communicate community [...] Följa John isn't about matching or mirroring. It's about meaning, about meaningful action. And meaningful not symbolically but affectively, functionally. Meaningful action changes things, changes the world."

 

MEANINGFUL ACTION >>> TRANSFORMATIVE ACTION

When I'm standing by the ropes after the show has ended–to make sure the kids don't run into the rods or the strings–I'm investing energy and focus into the activity of paying attention to the runners. Over the years, I have gathered enough experience, collected enough data to know that given the number of runners, given the type of running they're practicing, given the different types of social dynamics, and the overall number of children I'll need this much energy to complete this task successfully.

 

When I've decided how much energy I'll need, I can begin to approximate the amount of energy I'll need against the amount of energy I have. That's the game I play as I pay attention to the runners.

 

 

 

On some days, I will find this task particularly tiring. On those days, I will likely be able to discern what makes this task particularly tiring. It could be, for example, that I'm more tired than usual and that the children are more lively than usual, which is an unfortunate conmibation of factors, but manageable. What makes this situation manageable is the fact that I know the children will leave before things go out of hand.

 

 

 

Which brings me to yesterday and the situation in which I made the sound.

 

I was paying attention to the runners when I noticed I was getting tired. I looked out, scanned the room, and decided that the energy was rising, but that it's still well below "the limit;" it was was containable. I checked in with my felt sense and decided that it could be a matter of time. Is this too much time for me to be standing and paying attention today, is the question I asked myself.

 

Which is when I noticed movement in my peripheral field, to the left of me. My head turned to zero in on a kid who discovered the heater and begun turning the nobs, which were going to begin raising the temperature of the machine and engage its fans. Ali was already there. Another peripheral alarm, two kids run into each other. Someone's holding my hand? How could I have missed this? I thought,

 

I can't keep at it any longer. The situation's getting out of hand.

 

I knew I was tired, I knew that on this occasion I found this task difficult to perform. But I also knew I was managing... which is when I thought,

 

The situation's getting out of hand. I can't keep at it any longer.

 

That's when I made the sound.

 

I looked over at Morgane–everyone else seemed to be occupied with something–and screamed, Could you tell them to open the door?! It's been too long. That one's discovered the heaters!!!

 

 

 

 

 

What I didn't say but is clear to me now was going to be my next sentence,

 

If we give them more time, they'll deconstruct the world, break the spell. We'll become human again, and the world mundane.

 

2022-03-11

this is friday, no trees today

 

i remember telling anna, elinor? anna? both of them? someone else? that i'm sensing something i would describe as, some groups we met appear to be functioning as societies; they've developed a culture, they have a culture, they arrive as a culture. that they have culture is undeniable. that their culture is crossgenerational is undeniable. you can "see" it from a distance. they don't even need to enter the building, you can see that they're familiar, that they're familiar with something that's shared, that they're familiar with something shared.

 

other groups do not appear to have a culture, they do not appear to be functioning as societies. these groups, the individuals that make these groups, do not seem to be participating in something shared, something that is of the shared mind, something that is of common interest. alternatively, these groups appear to me (!) not to be participating in something shared, like a custom or insterest or sensibility or culture, because i cannot imagine that participating in something shared could lead a group to develop habits of the kind recognised here.

 

in the case of shared interests, children do not seem to be competing over or with their interests. it's as if they understand that both is at stake: that i have an interest, and that we have an interest. that i benefit from exploring my interests, that we benefit from me exploring my itnerests, and that we benefit from us exploring our interests, which means that we benefit from you exploring yours.

 

when i cannot recognise the existence of shared interests, children seem to be competing over and with their interests. it's as if there is no interests unless i get to tell you about mine, unless i get to overpower yours with mine, unless you join me in exploring mine. competition, in this case, i recognise as accumulative. if one kid runs, the next needs to run faster, ad infinitum. if one kid speaks, the next needs to speak louder, ad infinitum. until someone falls, or gets sushed.

 

when i compare the two examples, i notice that most frequently accumulation leads to one of the two resolutions; accumulation meets resistance, i.e. is interupted by force; or it isn't, in which case it continues until the resources that power its becoming are exhausted.

 

working with memory

with remembering

working with adhd and memory

with remembering

is FRUSTRATING

 

2022-03-08

2022-03-02

 

photo by elinor tollerz bratteby

from TO THE RIVER by Olivia Laing


"I remembered something Matthew had told me, a few weeks before he left. He was explaining the space occupied by matter. Most, he said – meaning 99.97 per cent – of the matter in your body occupies the volume of a mote of dust so minute as to be invisible. The reason why we’re not in fact so small is due to the tiny remaining proportion of matter that is composed of electron orbitals. These almost weightless rings of charge guard their own space fiercely; more than bones it is they that can be said to form the architecture of our bodies. This fact, astonishing in itself, can be expanded out. 99.9 per cent of the matter of all the human bodies on the planet, all 6 billion of them, takes up no more space than a single sugar cube. The rest is made up of empty space and drifts of electrons, nothing more. As for the planet: a whirling cloud of charge with a fistful of protons scattered through it."

2022-03-08, day 9

international women's day

 

I talked to Sophie this morning about chaos. About the difference between "this is chaos, but it is also TRÄD" and "this is chaos and it is not TRÄD." Sophie asked about yesterday. I said yesterday was "chaos, but it was also TRÄD." We then talked about how it feels to be sustaining "this is chaos, but it is also TRÄD". About how it feels to be a part of TRÄD, about how it feels to be responsible for TRÄD when TRÄD is also chaos.

 

We talked about how it feels to be at work and be working at the edge of the reasonable, maybe even about how it feels to be working beyond the edge of the reasonable. We talked about how it feels to be working beyond the edge of the reasonable, especially when "reasonable" isn't only the collective reasonable, but also your own, personal, human reasonable.

 

The challenge is in paying attention to the fold of the skin in the crease between your right ring finger and your pinkie with only the left bottom half of your brain that isn't a brain but an intergalactic mushroom made in an alien laboratory (I just made that alien part up, I've been watching ARCHIVE 81 on Netflix) when four kids are running through the forest and laughing, that one is laying on the floor, staring at the sky, and that one is behind you, paying excrutiating attention to what you're doing without you knowing that somebody is, indeed, paying the kind of attention which you learned to associate with the kind of attention that makes it all worth while.

 

For TRÄD, it is important to allow (!) for the experience of chaos. For TRÄD, it is important to insist on chaos, even. Chaos is real, after all. Chaos is a part of the equasion, whether we want it to be or not. Which makes denying the experience chaos irresponsible.

 

For a person, for an employee, for me, it is important to allow (!) for the experience of chaos, otherwise I wouldn't be working here. For a person, for an employee, for me, insisting on chaos, sustaining chaos, making sure chaos discipates not due to adult intervention, but due to child's eventual responding to the situation they find themselves in, to the experience they're having, is what's maddening, what's challenging, what's humbling, is what can lead a person into doubt. Never mind me being here because I want to, because I "believe" in TRÄD, etc.

 

 

 

I thought, chaos is challenging because I, too, was raised to eliminate chaos. Chaos is challenging because I am learning to work through chaos in real time. Yes, I know why I'm working through chaos in the way that I am. No, I don't have enough experience working through chaos to not succumb to the occasional doubtful, existential overwhelm.

2022-03-14

2022-03-15

2022-03-14

 

9.30 this morning was an example of TRÄD at its best, a best case scenario, a dream you'd hope to dream again. 10.45 was "a classic monday morning," "slimy yet satisfying;" more confusing than challenging, more tiring than annoying.

 

I remember saying, after the 9.30, something along the lines of, it's so satisfying when they're interested and cooperative and you get to offer them and experience with them the full range; from surface oriented, through play and joy and enjoying and having fun, to (nerdy) study of the sensory based, highly speculative, highly specific, undetermined and dreamy.

 

It's the kind of experience that makes you think, was I working with children? Who was I working with? What were we working on? How is it possible that I was able to digest such deep focus?

 

The 10.45 reminded me of what it's like to work with someone who will not let you touch them, but will sneak up on you and hit you, pull at you in the attempt to throw you off your balance, someone who will shout silly things at you repeatedly even though  they see you're working on detail with a child who's not only willing, but interested, curious, focused; a child who is also getting affected, distracted, insecure under the pressure.

from TO THE RIVER by olivia laing


"You don’t have to be a poet to be prone to apophenia, to seeking meaningful patterns in the scattered, senseless data of the everyday."

This is where my job gets really juicy; really challenging, too.

 

Because my job in TRÄD, the way I understand it, is not to lead in any stereotypical sense of the word–TRÄD isn't what you would call an interactive work, even though it occasionally might look like it is "from outside"–I found myself thinking about...

 

...affordability? The theory of affordability? Of affordances! James J. Gibson.

 

The way I explain my job to myself, relative to the theory of affordances, is as follows. My job–as a dancer, a figure–is to determine what interacting with this specific child, with this specific group of children, affords relative to the guiding principles that frame each of the seven chapters or scenes of TRÄD.

 

To determine what interacting with this specific subject affords necessitates that (1) I discover or establish a point of contact, and that (2) through given interaction I explore the (possible) dynamic range of that interaction relative to the point of contact and relative to the guiding principle.

 

What this means, practically speaking, is that I–the dancer, the figure–do not have to meet a quota, I do not have to reach a goal. The quality of my performance isn't measured in how many children I get to run after me in amazement, how many children I get to copy my every move. Order, in other words, what is stereotypically recognised as order, as participation in performance or play, is but a single quality I am able to determine as afforded by this specific group of children. A single quality, one of many.

 

By which I mean to say that both shows this morning were informative, both successful in that both enabled us, the dancers, and TRÄD, the work, to ask, what does interacting with this specific group of children afford on this fine Monday morning.

 

2022-03-15

 

One of the children put their foot in my hand. Then they did that again. After they put the foot into my hand several times, they started kicking my hand with their foot. Then they wanted to hit my face with their foot. I thought of the meme, wake up and choose violence. What makes violence appealing? What makes violence appealing to a four year old? Why is it interesting to hit another person? Why is it funny? And why do the hitters tend to be children who appear to be being raised as boys? (It's a funny thing, being aware of the fact that someone is being raised right now, as we speak, they are being raised.)

Today was the day the groups begun returning, to visit TRÄD for the second time.

how to describe what it is like to communicate

when communication looks nothing like, and feels nothing like

what communication looks like and feels like

stereotypically

 

how to describe why it is valuable to communicate 

in the way that you are able to communicate when

communication looks nothing like, and feels nothing like

what communication looks like and feels like

stereotypically

 

 

 

 

remember affordability?

 

 

 

what does communcation that

looks nothing like, and feels nothing like

what communication looks like and feels like

stereotypically

afford?

 

by acknowledging contradiction, i think i am creating an opportunity for a change in register not to be perceived as inconsistency. a child should know, as should anyone who steps into the forest, that i'm here, that i'm responsible, and that i'm consequent, even when i'm introducing contradiction into the mix.

it is not always possible to maintain high-focus. i am not one for maintaining focus at all costs. sometimes i'm tired, sometimes i drop my focus, i change register. a child will never not notice i've done that, i've changed my focus, i've changed register. often i notice i changed register by noticing a change in their behaviour. their behaviour is a valuable resource, i can always tell something about myself in the way they're reacting to me. within the range of high-focus, i use this principle to navigate.

 

i do not want to live in a world without contradiction, which maintaining high-focus at all costs would want to argue for. what i am interested in is knowing that my changing register makes a difference.

 

(yes, i am a magical creature; yes, i want to play this strange game, live with you inside art; yes, i also sometimes run out of energy, i also sometimes run out of hope.)

 

 

siri's poem

2022-03-08

2022-03-16

 

will i be able to remember? i've thought, i should write this down, one too many times today. i won't be able to remember.

 

 

 (1)

 

 

i was wondering today about that child that looks like and/or behaves like an adult; the child whose body posture, mascular tone, facial expressions, and clothing is adult-like. i didn't even know they made trousers and shirts and vests in this particular style in this particular size.

 

more than clothes, though, more than the symbolic value of the vest i was impressed by, enamoured even, with the posture, with the postural tone embodied by that child who looked like and behaved like an adult. trying this posture on in the kitchen after the performance i remember saying, even at thirty three i feel slighly uncomfortable standing like this, it's as if i feel i'm not adult enough yet to afford standing like this. which begs the question, if i'm not adult enough to afford standing like this, what makes a four year old old enough?

 

what if this question i am asking isn't a question of age, but gender. imagine a dark blue vest, laid back posture, shoulders wide, hands in pockets, weight distributed between straight legs, feet facing outwards in a slight à la second, or else weight resting on the back leg, facial expression concentrated, focus engaged but engaged from a distance. this posture i think is a posture embodied by a stereotypical, comfortable male. he will pay for the ticket, but won't get on the ride with you. he will barbecue, but won't reflect on the fact that the meat wasn't bought marinated nor that the difference between the dirty and the clean dishes isn't only a matter of time, it is a matter of labour.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(2)

 

how long is the performance?

 

the soundtrack is about 26 minutes long.

 

how long is the performance?

 

when do i start working?

 

someone shouts, they're here! they're here.

 

whatever i'm doing, at the moment someone shouts, they're here! my focus changes. from this moment on, i cannot not know where they are. if–from this moment on–i actually cannot know where they are, i know i am tired, i know i am not able to do my job to the extent that i consider interesting. anything less than is simply not interesting.

 

i thought about this today when i was watching annika struggling to leave the forest. her every move was mirrored by the children minutes after the end of the soundtrack.

 

i say "struggling" jokingly. of course one can always stand up and leave. when one chooses not to, however, one addresses the fact that little people, when allowed, seem not to care about cultural standards. if they accepted our proposal, if together we sensitised the community to detail, they will not give their sensitivity up, they will not "stop" when "the show is over." they will take the sensitivity with them.

 

one person said, it is incredible when you can still hear their feet tapping on the floor even though they're running around, clearly excited, clearly playing some other, new game.

 

which is great. which is what we want, right? sensitivity, inquisivity, critical awareness.

 

to honour their efforts, to honour their contribution, i maintain my focus–if i can–until they've left the room, and to a lesser extent, if i can, until they've left the building.

 

how long is the performance?

 

i work for anywhere between 45 and 70 minutes per event. 

it is essential to determine the difference between performance and not a performance in a child's behaviour. when a child is being stubborn, my job could be to ask, what does this stubborness afford? is whatever the stubborness afford limiting? ought i challenge that stubborness? is it not limiting? what is its purpose? how do i understand, how do i approach it –– the child and their stubborness?

 

asking questions is a way of buying time and prioritising personal integrity. asking questions is a way of distracting myself from "doing something about it."

from TO THE RIVER by olivia laing


"If we have any hopes at all of seeing the world, it is in those moments when the ‘I’ winks out, when the self empties or eddies away."

2022-03-21

2022-03-21

monday thinking back to friday

 

it is imposible to resolve this need to write, this longing for words, for poetry, almost hormonal, nonnegotiable, when the experience hasn't settled yet, hasn't transformed. i inhale to speak, my mouth stays open, the feeling in my chest pushing the ribs away, stretching the flesh like a bird stretches its wings ready to fly before it knows how to. don't little chicks get thrown out of their nests to learn?

the memory of an asistant staring in awe

 

at me

at them

at us

 

not sure how we ended up here

doing what we're doing, screaming? singing? speaking?

 

it's not that i don't remember, it's that following patterns as they emerge, i'm not tending to their surface, i'm not concerned with their meaning because nothing means what it means under ordinary circumstances i am attending to (postural) tone, structure, angle, density and pace

 

until self-conscious hits

or bites

self-consciousness has a nasty bite

 

i'm suddenly not sure that what we're doing is not inappropriate. screaming as we are, what if we are not talking but actually screaming? maybe it's me who's imagining, maybe it's me who's projecting poetry

 

projecting poetry instead of observing poetry

 

look around, look around

 

i am not the only one looking around

 

we are in sync, and not just us, we are they are you are in sync with us they them themselves they are and we are

communicating

2022-03-23

following the affordance theory

 

If we are working with affordances, if I am working with affordances, I am working with the question, what does relating to this particular person in this particlar situation afford?

 

When I encounter resistance–and here I'm thinking feeling remembering the myriad of ways pedagogues and carers will physically resisit meeting one of "the creatures"–with the question, what does relating to this particular person in this particular situation afford, what does meeting this person's resistance afford, I discover that meeting resistance affords responding to resistance in one of two ways. I can choose to (1) work against this resistance, or (2) leave.

The fact that I can imagine executing either of the two actions in an ethically sound way is beside the point.

 

To resist is to deny reciprocity, to resist is to shut the opportunity for negotiation down. To resist a performer during a performance is to force the performer to leave, or work against the resistance.

 

To force the performer to leave is to force the performer to become complicit by permitting resistance (activity) without knowing its characteristics, without knowing its limits. To force the performer to leave is to force the performer to become complicit in creating the conditions for the resistance (activity) to become creative, and the person resisting to take control over the event.

 

To force the performer to work against the resistance is to force the performer to choose violence. It is to force the performer to overpower the resistance to reclaim control over the event, which the perfomer happens to be legally responsible for. The performer, aside from being legaly responsible for the event, is also experienced enough to know the limits of the event, its characteristics, and finally, its purpose. The resistant guest is not.

 

The sharpest point in all this is the question of motivation, what motivates the resistance? If ever resistance is motivated, and it must be motivated, resistance–in that it denies reciprocity–prevents the performer from negotiating boundaries, from negotiating strategies, from negotiating relationship. 

 

Resistance then could be seen as defeating its own purpose. If resistance is motivated by trauma, by preventing negotiation and forcing a resisance-resisting reaction, resistance necessarily creates the conditions for retraumatisation.

2022-04-08

2022-04-04

 

I've always assumed that the more you know, the more you'll want to know. 

2022-03-21

2022-04-13

 

how did this expeirence change, influence, inform your approach? (to be answered later date.)

 

i have been too tired these past weeks to write. thoughts exist that need noting down. then editing, developing, describing, analysing. i wish i had time enough for all that. 

still from Armageddon (1998)

2022-04-08

2023-02-20

 

i logged into the research catalogue to add to the poem, one person said. several lines only were collected during the three weeks i worked on träd this winter. one week of what was going to be a four week long working period was consumed by what could have been covid.

 

comparatively, i am suprised at how much material had been collected in 2022.