To me, the performance of solo dance improvisation is an act of composing while dancing where improvisational material emerges from relational fields of perception, sensory-motor skills and tendencies, historicity, dynamic forces including gravity, affectivity, potentiality, and so on. In the lineage of post-modern dance improvisation, temporality can be understood as concerning sequential form as well as complex and non-linear experience. The improviser’s temporality is often discussed as ‘body time’ which refers to some extent to clock time (De Spain 2014: 117). Generally, practitioners use their instincts to judge what it feels like to improvise for a time period such as ten minutes and so on.
Differently from post-modern dance improvisation, in Noh, the performer’s experience of temporality emerges from the process of embodying the sequencing concept of jo-ha-kyū from the smallest of movement to the whole performance. The sequencing concept of jo-ha-kyū, along with its companion concept of ‘interval’ or ma, are not the theories of time in Noh theatre as such. Instead, these two concepts pertain to the embodied articulation of artistic form in Noh, from the rhythm of accompanied music, chanting, dance movement (or kata 型), and other components of a Noh play. In my practice, jo-ha-kyū and ma are approached from the perspective of embodied practice where the articulation of each jo-ha-kyū modulation is an emergent process in relation to the performance milieu as well as the audience. With the influence of Noh and Rovelli’s theory of time in my improvisation practice, this research project uncovers what I call ‘embodied temporality’ — the sense of time, timing, and other aspects of temporality that are inextricable to embodied processes such as listening, thinking, feeling, sensing, speculating, moving, vocalizing, and so on.
This exposition is presented to reflect the non-linear nature of the research through text, images, audios, and videos. It is designed for the viewers to go through the ‘movement’ of the research processes guided by the arrows in the graphics. However, the viewers may use hyperlinks to go back and forth within the exposition as they wish. In addition, audio files provide commentaries in relation to the improvisations shown in the videos.
- Textual interpretation of the translations of Noh historical text written by Zeami Motokiyo specifically on jo-ha-kyū and ma, along with other relevant performance theory.
- A ‘multi-voiced’ approach (Magee 2012: 8) for studio research in collaboration with dance artist Janette Hoe, to examine the experience of improvisation from both sides — as improviser and watcher. As improviser, I investigated the impact of being watched while using jo-ha-kyū for temporal organization of my improvisational material. As watcher, I reflected on how I experienced improvisation, performed by Janette, in light of the research enquiries.
- ‘Unfinished thinking’ (Borgdorff 2012: 194): An approach to studio research where an enquiry generates further enquiries. The dual role of improviser–researcher means that my perspective while improvising and post facto was incomplete. The incompleteness in each enquiry invited Janette and me to fill the gap of what was unclear, which, in turn, gave rise to further enquiries — an enquiry upon enquiry. For instance, Enquiry 1 (October 2018–September 2019) was an exploration on jo-ha-kyū in my improvisation practice, which gave rise to Enquiry 2 and Enquiry 3 (May 2019–February 2021). While these two enquiries were yet to be completed, Enquiry 4 and Enquiry 5 emerged and continued concurrently with Enquiries 2 and 3.
As part of a community of improvisers in Melbourne, Australia, my improvisation practice draws on the lineage of post-modern dance improvisation along with somatically informed approaches such as ideokinesis and Body-Mind Centering (BMC). Having worked as a solo dance artist since 1997, I studied and worked with BMC practitioner Alice Cummins from 2007 to 2017. In 2009, I travelled to Kyoto, Japan, to study with the late Master-actor Udaka Michishige of the Kongō Noh School, and subsequently with his sons Udaka Tatsushige and Norishige who are specialists in the shite 仕手 or leading roles.
INTRODUCTION
This exposition addresses my practice-led research project, which examines the sense of time felt in the improviser’s body in the performance of solo dance improvisation. Using concepts drawn from Japanese Noh theatre, fundamental theories of time, and phenomenology, I propose a new framework termed ‘embodied temporality’, which organizes improvisational material to enhance the interrelationship between improviser and audience.
Specifically, the conceptual framework of this study is drawn from the sequencing concept of jo-ha-kyū 序破急 and the notion of interval of time and space, or ma 間. The research explores these Noh performance concepts as they relate to the field of temporality and seeks to find ways in which embodied temporality is articulated in a practice of solo dance improvisation.
In the course of the research, aspects of historical Noh performance theory were brought into a dynamic interaction with other key elements, including the notion of the granularity of time proposed by theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli (Rovelli 2018: 124–27), and an examination of intersubjectivity between improviser and viewer. This research aimed to gain insights into how a non-Western perspective of practice can be embodied in dance improvisation, and how the Noh technique of attunement to the audience could inform the temporality of improvisational material when the improviser is composing while dancing.
This research project was conducted through my Noh and improvisation practice, offering a first-person perspective of temporal organization through jo-ha-kyū and ma. The research culminated in a creative outcome framed between improviser and watcher. The dance film documentation, Solo Dialogue (2021), delivered an embodied exemplar of the research findings.