SEI#1
DAS, December 2018, Amsterdam
Excerpt 1
Around ten minutes of performing have passed. A kind of inner liquidity is now mediating between conscious choice making and choice making originating from the deeper strata of the dancing body. Movement origination happens from an intermediary zone of awareness in between unconscious yet intuitively charged deeper layers of the dancing body and their conscious reflective cognition. The aesthetic imperative is to become one with the sound whilst at the same time attempting to communicate an interpretation of its essence via the dancing body. The velocity and sophistication of the articulation of the violin and the layering of the sound challenge the choice making of the dancing body to be immediate; there is no time to think or to consider options.
00:08 – 00:09
A second, more subtly audible layer of the sound is now being picked up. The quality of the fast movements made by the bow on the string of the violin is paralleled with a fast shuffling of the balls of the feets, carrying the dancing body towards the left corner of the space, seen from the perspective of the audience.
00:06 – 00:08
All the limbs of the dancing body managed somehow to arrive together with the sound at a new place in the space. While the right and left foot suspend a next choice by digesting the impact of the motion that has propelled them towards a new place in the space, they transform it into a three quarter turn towards the left hand side, deviating the impact of previous motion downwards and around.
00:18 – 00:22
She lets the dancing body go by itself, trusting that it will somehow take care of the distribution of balance.
00:00 – 00:01
An inner melting is supported in its spatial exteriorization and hence visibility by the slipperiness of the floor.
00:04 – 00:05
Anticipating the following short short long rhythmical segmentation of the most audible layer of the musical landscape, the left heel sees a chance to slide out into the space. It is taking a risk outwards, off the center of balance, transforming the matter of fact slipperiness of the ground into a dancerly proposition, but not yet knowing where it will end up and what it will lead towards
00:09 – 00:11
Again a switch of focus towards another layer of the composition, initiated by an immediate response of the dancing body to the intensity of that sound. It is an inner breaking that causes the following movement articulations, of the right shoulder, arm and leg, while the left side of the body keeps matching the segmentation of time of the composition through affirming the weight of the body into the ground.
00:13 – 00:15
The left leg seems to have remembered that it had brought in the idea of sliding out into the space on the heel, it re-iterates it, three times, in the same direction. The right foot assists by pushing against the ground, towards that direction.
00:22 – 00:27
Yet another inner breaking has occurred, caused by the sound. But the left shoulder keeps everything suspended upwards, so that the legs and feet are free to continue their shuffling dance together with the sound of the violin. From the suspended left shoulder, the entire left arm reaches towards the right upwards corner, seen from the perspective of the dancer, and brings the rest of the body there.
00:02 – 00:04
Planting the left foot into the ground so that it may function as an anchor around which the rest of the body can become a spiral. To match the thrust of the spiral with the segmentation of time in the sound, the left and the right foot exchange the responsibility of carrying the weight of the body: right left left right.
00:16 – 00:18
Another inner breaking occurs, this time supported by the left leg. The torso and the left leg align themselves along a diagonal line tilting downwards towards the right back corner of the space. The dancing body seems to have liked the movement motif of sliding across the space. The right foot now uses its upper surface to slide and push the diagonally aligned body forwards towards the audience.
00:26 – 00:33
As soon as the rest of the body arrives where the left arm had reached towards, the left arm changes direction towards the left downwards corner of the space, seen from the perspective of the dancer. The heels are off the ground, no fixed stability, a precarious situation. The left arm is asking for divine grace. It seeks to embody an interpretation of the spiritual essence of the sound.