You're the Stuff that Sets me Free
Since November 2008, CorpusCorpus has been making a new performance work.
With newest members Andrea Jenni and Stella Fotiadi, this is CorpusCorpus Movement Association's first time working with an international cast.
Which may not sound like a big deal, but it is. The skillset of Stella and Andrea is quite unique for me as an American choreographer. Stella is from Athens, Greece, and carries a firey nature. Her vested interest in social justice and political activism are the energies that she channels physically and emotionally with the content matter we are working on. Her contribution of personal history is far different from mine as an American.
Andrea is our Switzerland (Literally! She hails from Basel). She is methodical, tremendously gentle, and, a choreographer in her own right, intuitively understands our creative process. She completed her studies in Austria, and gracefully dovetails the conceptual trends in dance while validating working from the heart. Between the two of them, I am the goofy American thread of laughter, and a guide to the curious nature of this piece.
“You're the Stuff that Sets Me Free” is a ritual of confusion: From methodical water pouring ceremonies, to repetitious movements coaxing dream and stillness, to a vigil of Wunder-kurzen for a talking brick. This work calls to mind man's intent search for knowledge, for accuracy, for something that will either collapse our world if or set us free. This piece calls to mind of the witchy chaos that spells demand.
While engaging in a consistent practice of improvisation, CDP (Contemplative Dance Practice) and Authentic Movement, we dug into writings we had generated about our pasts, finding deep personal connection and story in movement. Yet, we also found a more demented in-accuracy of our memories!
Thus was born the process of random choice making. An act of creating born from the inspirationals Brian Eno, Deborah Hay, of course also Cunnigham & Cage. I found myself wanting to ask,“What if we could be free, at least free-er, from this story of our past? What if we could, out of mischevious examination, abstract these important stories of our lives, so that the Mystery of our experience contained more value than the value we may have falsely assigned it?”
“Curiosity about the infinite potentials of random choice-making...
is the ground from which we can offer the most freedom to the viewer.” (Deborah Hay)
Yet, these random choices are infused with innumerable associations.
Imagine this:
In the middle of the performance, we placed an found object, a 8 kg brick, on center stage. We began to notice various unintentional suggestions/references automatically came into being. The brick was just a brick laying by the road outside the rehearsal studio in Pankow; now it is an instant symbol, a loaded representation of many potentials. These potentials for meaning are what interest me. Our need to make meaning, to intellectualize, to emotionalize...I suppose this is an really search to find the middle way, the groundless way, the way that is beyond concept and lachrymose. I sense it is about some seed of intelligence in the heart that transcends all these habitual reactions. Now, we are also made of drama; it is the Stuff of Life! So for the choreographer, the question rises: Can the performance of this work matter?
This random choice making then becomes primarily about the audience and their relationship to meaning, archetypes, personal story, and historical references, to Life. This concept is most interesting in its ability to invite in more than the performance of storytelling, more than what we could possibly consciously create. This concept allows us to question what is necessary in creating? If we do not create out of a story/personal need, can this absence of purpose create meaningful beautiful stories? Can we, the performers, as useful gifts, support the audience's exploration of values, importance, and subjectivity? “You're the Stuff that Sets Me Free” ultimately encourages the viewer to find their connection to imagination and to explore their construction(s) of meaning-making. It also offers a lot of uncanny surprises; gold bikinis, priestly robes, a talking brick, a wild antagonism to diffuse potential saccharine, sound effects (bombs exploding while the performer has just, in slo-motion, kicked the front row audience in the shins). Still, the subconscious visions are infused with our unavoidable personal associations and history. Yet we tempt the Unknowns...and this temptation becomes our playground. We activate this playground by activating stillness, using prayer and meditation as a instrument of listening.
This is a dance, a real dance, a real work of using the body to express this concept. I/we are still trying to figure this out. Dance can get so heady and alienating in the name of research. Seems to me, like the piece has mostly made itself, and we are just its vehicle. I have little idea where the actions of this performance come from (except the title: Stella spoke it when she was explaining a partnering lift). Maybe it isn't so much about confusion as it is courage. The courage to create out of stillness; This is where the strangeness of things can take form. The courage to play, keeping open and willing to go for a ride not knowing where we'll end up. Isn't this the stuff that sets us all free?
This concept is capable of becoming a philosophy and an artful practice; not to douse the flame of the heart, or make our histories meaningless; but rather to gain more of the distance necessary for becoming witness of our lives, like a meditation in action...like setting yourself free.
