Nov 25, 2014 - Engagement

Choreography, engagement and participatory integration

Things I learnt performing my own work at the VANDOCUMENT party:

 • you cannot predict how one audience will respond versus another, best to be ready for any and all outcomes
 • the pleasure of a responsive audience is felt in the body
 • the energy body practice has provided me with skills to feel some level of comfort in a vulnerable and intimate expression of the body
 • when a state (body, mind, relationship, heart etc) is imprinted upon the energy body and guides the choreography, there is plenty of room for the dancer to be present with the particularities of space, time and viewers
 • setting up multiple visual cues and ways that the audience can access the work is an exciting structure to work through the state of improvisation and be clear about why you are doing what you are doing

I am by no means saying that any of these things were complete, or even good for that matter. I am simply saying that these are aspects of performance and creation that were further brought to light for me.

I think about some of things that I am trying to do and how they relate to the energy body practice that Karen has been leading me through. I want to make obvious and apparent a subtle and patterned way that we think about and relate to the environment, any environment.

When I think about the transference of a space upon my body, I feel the memory of a change in breath, a change in the ways my eyes are seeing, a shift in heartbeat and sensation of skin. I feel an altered sense of gravity that shifts based on where I am. These can all sound a little general, but what I am really excited about is using an energetic body (sensing the inner dance, and sensing the dance that occurs in between) to define and make visible those rhythms and how they affect our engagement with the world.