online: 28 april 2007
modified: 20, 21 april 2007

12 april 2007 choreography without meaning


(continued from 10 april 2007)

20:06 ...sitting back and looking up at the branches and spines of a pine tree, and of another tree that has a network of fine twigs and branches, against the pale sky in the dusk... and seeing a line of white geese progressing towards the water... i put aside my thoughts of ergonomics and of Heidegger's writing, and relapse into enjoyment of the evening...

...and i turn to walk back though the forest... no, not through the forest... i walk back across the lawn... treading on closed daisies... towards the mansion and its broad moat... which the white geese are now entering, one by one...


...a few days ago i asked a fellow passenger if this was the right train and we talked and travelled together, finding that we shared many thoughts about art and performance... he is Rob List, a choreographer, and today i have been looking at his work*

here are some phrases from his description of this new form of dance:

In my work I want to create an elementary theater removed from all psychological elements ... one without text, characters or socially coded gestures ... not a representation of human experience but rather a source of it ... (as) an anonymous everyman whose eyes and ears share the same sensations as those of the audience...

...i was astonished by the newness, and by the presence of 'extended calm', in the sight of people dancing without intended meaning or significance....

...i am also encouraged by the way that simply reading his descriptions, and looking at photographs and videos, gives me the feeling that i might myself stand and move thus, given his encouragements and example... perhaps anyone can?




...as i walked back in the dusk i felt inspired by his example to prescribe new and less manipulative aims for fiction, as he has for dance?... and i felt that such could comprise my return to design on my own terms (after several decades in what others may see as the wilderness, though to me it is part of the new!)


*[21 april 2007: back in London i find that my computer won't fully open the website of Rob List's work - http://www.ozu.nl - i hope other computers will open it!]



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