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From Enquiry 1, my habitual flow during improvisation was disrupted by fulfilling each arc of jo-ha-kyū. My experience of time was both discrete and ongoing — a time that does not flow smoothly. This puzzling experience prompted me to look at what can be understood about time. During the Kyoto trip in 2019, I finished reading a book called The Order of Time (2018) by quantum physicist Carlo Rovelli who proposes a theory of time called ‘loop theory’.
What is ‘loop theory’?
Here is a crude summary: loop theory follows the three interrelated principles of quantum mechanics: granularity, relationality, and indeterminacy. Rovelli’s theory describes time at the fundamental or granular level of physics known as quanta. Loop theory begins with quanta of space (Rovelli 2018: 83).
Quanta of space are not something that immerse in space. They constitute space (Rovelli 2018: 124). When adjacent quanta of space interact by making a loop, time emerges. This process is called the quantization of time, which is characterized as probabilistic. That is, the existence of quanta of time is subject to probability, fluctuations, and uncertainties like any particles at the quantum level (Rovelli 2018: 124–28).
According to loop theory, quanta of time emerge from relational processes of interactions between quanta of space. Rovelli argues that physical reality, including time, is made up of processes and events, not things and entities (Rovelli 2018: 97). As Rovelli puts it, ‘if by “time” we mean nothing more than happening, then everything is time’ (Rovelli 2018: 104).
I found that Rovelli’s idea resonated with my own experience of time when embodying jo-ha-kyū and ma as apparatus for generating improvisational material. Importantly, the characteristic of my temporal experience, which is discrete as well as ongoing, or being processual, is central to Rovelli’s idea.
Drawing together Zeami’s conceptualization of jo-ha-kyū as a ‘symbolic animation’ of life’s process (Ramirez-Christensen 2008: 61) and Rovelli’s idea of time, in this enquiry I experimented with reconfiguring jo-ha-kyū and ma in my improvisation as a kinaesthetic interpretation of loop theory, featuring the characteristic of Rovelli’s time — granular, relational, and indeterminate. To put these three characteristics into jo-ha-kyū, I asked:
- What if a movement with jo-ha-kyū can be configured as an event, a ‘grain’?
>> See ‘Granularity of jo-ha-kyū’ below. - As the grains of jo-ha-kyū emerge, what is my improvising body and/or my movement relational to?
>> See Enquiry 3 - As the grains of jo-ha-kyū emerge, what kind of ‘movement processes’ are there?
>> See Enquiry 4
Video and audio description:
A video recording of studio research on the 9th of November 2019, exploring the granularity of jo-ha-kyū through the score ‘What if I have a biscuit in my pocket?’; duration: 05:42 minutes.
An audio recording of a conversation about the studio research on the 9th of November 2019. Janette Hoe discusses with the author the improvisation in the video above; duration: 03:48 minutes.
Click on https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/2262837/2272763#tool-2272953 to watch the video and listen to the audio recording.
Things and entities persist in time while events and processes are discrete (Rovelli 2018: 98). Much like jo-ha-kyū, a process has a beginning, middle, and end. To embody jo-ha-kyū in my improvisation with the qualities of granularity, relationality, and indeterminacy, I explored the granularity of jo-ha-kyū first. Here are my key observations on embodying jo-ha-kyū in my improvisation:
- There is one consequential difference between jo-ha-kyū in Noh and in improvisation. In Noh, the performance material is already known. The jo-ha-kyū of each kata or vocalization can be embodied instantaneously. But in improvisation, the performance material is unknown until it has been performed. As a result, the embodiment of jo-ha-kyū in my improvisation is an emergent process.
- To embody jo-ha-kyū as discrete or granular, I practised the fulfilment of jo-ha-kyū by emphasizing its ending. This means that a jo-ha-kyū modulation can be experienced as an arc, or a grain, with gaps between the grains.
- There is ma between jo-ha-kyū grains. During ma, my perception of Janette’s gaze intensified, as did my perception of time.
Back-formation of jo-ha-kyū grains
Unlike in the Noh repertoire, my improvisational material emerges at the same time as the jo-ha-kyū grains are created. In the exploration of granularity in the video excerpt above, the trajectory of a jo-ha-kyū arc was realized after it had been formed. This forming process is what Brian Massumi calls ‘back-formation’ (Massumi 2002: 8).
This suggests that the formation of a jo-ha-kyū grain consists of two parts: the dynamic of the passage and the realization of the arc. During improvisation, I experience the dynamic of the passage through embodied processes such as listening, attuning, sensing, feeling, or moving while the whole arc of jo-ha-kyū is realized in retrospect. That is, I realize each arc of jo-ha-kyū by construing the ending of each movement.
Moreover, in the studio research, I embodied each jo-ha-kyū arc in the presence of Janette. Thus, the formation (or back-formation) of jo-ha-kyū was relational to her. In the video, I experienced the dynamic of the arc and construed its ending while attuning to her attention. I explore this relational aspect of jo-ha-kyū in Enquiry 3.