Body Thinking & Vocab Of Form (LizB)

“Body Thinking”

---“Jumping is a kind of thinking” (163)---The body has its own internal logic which we often ignore. In Andrea’s beginning dance class, which I took as a freshman and am now repeating as a teaching assistant, a significant portion of the class is dedicated to identifying how we know what we know through our proprioceptors. Additionally, the author notes that “proprioception also includes how we feel viscerally and emotionally” (165). This statement interests me as it relates to my current research on the Graham technique as a means of training the body to enter specific physical and emotional states. Visceral knowledge is also at the heart (ha,ha) of my current choreographic process, in which I am investigating how language and metaphor are derived from physical sensation.

Another quote which drew my attention was the following: “our emotions are expressed largely by our facial muscles; every one of them is a gut muscle…the psychical association between our emotions and our viscera is closer perhaps than we realize or would like to admit” (174). This is an element that I have been exploring in my choreography through the distortion and exaggeration of facial expressions. I believe that dance like any other discipline is a form of rhetoric, but as dancers we persuade our audience by inducing in them “sympathetic action” (175). Rather than solely repeating facts, we seek to communicate a fuller and deeper understanding, which engages not only the mind, but the entire body.

The author’s discussion of Jackson Pollock’s artistic process and how his paintings can be viewed as a record of his movement, reminded me of a dance performance I saw of Shen Wei. During the performance the dancers dipped their hands in paint so that as they danced a document of the patterns they were making in space was left behind. I thought that this was an interesting example of how even when work has a concrete product as its outcome; we must still keep in mind the physical process behind the final piece. I am going to take this into consideration as I begin Jen’s homework for the week of mapping my dance.

“The Vocabulary of Form”

Reading this article was useful as it clearly and concisely articulated elements I had recognized in successful choreographies but had previously been unable to adequately describe. The two definitions that particularly interested me were for “harmony” and “variety”. They are defined as opposites, yet both are essential to developing a cohesive and dynamic work. I am endlessly fascinated by paradox and paradoxes such as these are what drive my work. Thus as I enter the studio this week I will keep in mind how to balance my need for diversity and individualism with harmonizing principles that tie these disparate elements into a coherent whole.