Stepping Into the Unknown (LizB)

One of my favorite quotes from this article is as follows: “In scientific research the world’s most advanced researchers spend years conducting experiments that “don’t work” in order to eliminate possible explanations for problems they are exploring. When something doesn’t function, it contributes to our understanding of what does” (pp.28). I like this quote because I am a perfectionist by nature and this reminds me that there is no line between “failure” and “success”, but instead my art is a constantly evolving process. I can also connect this to my daily life. The first week I arrived in Guadalajara I would get lost every single morning on my way to the university. It was only when I was able to eliminate every “wrong” route that I came to consistently follow the streets that I needed to take me to my classes. At the time, wandering lost and alone through the streets of an unfamiliar big city, I felt frustrated and angry. Now looking back I understand that the process of getting lost was necessary in order to find the best path for me.

My work this semester deals a lot with this idea of “losing oneself”. As the author writes; “Transformation occurs when we lose our way and find a new way to return” (pp.25). Thus instead of worrying over charting the route beforehand, it is best to simply dive into the process. By creating work we are able to begin to identify patterns, themes and interests that then lead to new avenues for exploration, which in turn breeds more work. The author’s desire to encourage students to engage in “free expression” and view whatever emerges with interest allows us to understand that anything can be of interest and value; it all depends on how we choose to engage with it. Thus, it is our quality of attention that affects how we perceive an object. One of the difficulties and delights of being an outsider in a culture is the sense of seeing everything for the first time. I remember taking great pleasure in learning the names of ordinary objects in Spanish, and in the process, re-discovering each object as if I had never truly known it before. Nothing inherent to the object had changed; only now, instead of taking it for granted as I had done before, I paid attention to it and this changed my relationship to it.

By changing our frame of reference an object, gesture or event takes on new significance. I enjoyed the author’s discussion of how in surrealist painting the distorted image becomes something entirely new, not defined in relation to something else (pp. 44). This is relevant to my current choreographic process as I am interested in distorting and exaggerating certain aspects of the movement and the dancers’ relationships to one another as a way of shifting the attention to previously unnoticed structures in our society and culture.