I've been thinking a lot of dance as form and the relationship between dance and video (after all, these were my initial interests in the project). I've come to the point that the exciting thing about hybrid work, and the reason that I wanted to be invovled in the project is because I do feel that some kind of itneresting dialogue can occur between the spatial, temporal, and aesthetic sensibility of the dance, and the spatial, temporal and aesthetic sensibility of the video. In many contexts, artists
are working outside of the parameters of their own practices when they come to work that is hybrid, interdisciplinary or collaborative, but in many ways, this is the point isn't it? In this context I've started to feel like what is important about bringing two different disciplines together (in this case dance and video) is to examine what it is about the processes, practices, and strategies for resolving things in one particlar medium or discipline that make that medium interesting - and then to ask the question: what can the traits and strengths of that medium offer to the other disciplines involved in the collaboration?
This line of thinking makes me feel like I'm wasting too much time resisting my own process, and that I need to get my hands dirty, immerse myself in the work a bit, experiment, take some risks, and allow things to emerge. I think that it is only after some work has been made that a true sense of criticality might emerge - a space where we all might be able to reflect on how that emergence is happening, what is interesting about it, what needs to be taken out, and what needs to be added etc. This is not to say that the final work can't be critical, or conceptually rigorous but I do think that criticality needs to come from a process of emergence - from seeing the dialogue that can be created between the video and the dance and then trying to refine or extend on the tangible outcomes of that process.
In that context, I felt like this quote was appropriate:
'To draw a Carp, Chinese Masters warn it is not enought to know the animal's morphology, study its anatomy or understand the physiological functions of its existence. They also tell us that it is necessary to understand the reed against which the carp brushes each morning while seeking its nourishment, the oblong stone behind which it conceals itself, or the rippling of water when it springs toward the surface. These elements should in no way be treated as the fish's environment, the mileau in which it evolves or the natural background against which it can be drawn. They belong to the carp itself.. The carp must be apprehended as a certain power to affect and be affected in the world' Feher and Kwinter.
Perhaps the carp in this context is the dance. If so, the question is, what kind of potential does the dance have to affect and be affected in the world (pehaps the world of Needfire, as performance). For me this is a kind of seed, that has the potential for a really exiciting process to emerge - and sometimes, an exciting process is the key to opening a space that can be both conceptually rigorous and aesthetically interesting. I feel that the recent discussion that happened between Cheryl and I started some very exciting energy around this process - and a deeper understanding of where she is coming from will allow me think video that is more responsive and sensitve to the dance itself.
