I was caught up in the movement not just of the dancing body in front of me, but also of my own body. We generally say that movement takes place in space, and we regard it as a transition from one position to another. The way we speak of motion, how we mentally represent and communicate it, often confuses it with space. Our memory and verbal language operate by turning movement into an object of perception: homogeneous and divisible into structural, formal, of other kinds of unit for that matter, projected as points in space. This kind of perception excludes time in the sense of how time proceeds in movement. The process by which the moving body passes from one position to the other, however, eludes space. Dance affirmed this inversion: it made movement emerge out of duration, a multiplicity of co-existing durations, and it suspended the importance of space as the visual parameter of movement. The movement in Dance made time pass differently in such a way that attending analytically to parts of a movement structure as if it were a homogeneous object would completely miss that which propelled the movement: the change itself. Kinaesthetic Wonders. Check it out with meI hope you feel the same way, tooBy Bojana Cvejic on Dance (Practicable) by Frédéric Gies http://www.dancepraticable.net/ “At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless; Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is”  T.S.E

I was caught up in the movement not just of the dancing body in front of me, but also of my own body.

We generally say that movement takes place in space, and we regard it as a transition from one position to another. The way we speak of motion, how we mentally represent and communicate it, often confuses it with space. Our memory and verbal language operate by turning movement into an object of perception: homogeneous and divisible into structural, formal, of other kinds of unit for that matter, projected as points in space. This kind of perception excludes time in the sense of how time proceeds in movement.

The process by which the moving body passes from one position to the other, however, eludes space. Dance affirmed this inversion: it made movement emerge out of duration, a multiplicity of co-existing durations, and it suspended the importance of space as the visual parameter of movement.

The movement in Dance made time pass differently in such a way that attending analytically to parts of a movement structure as if it were a homogeneous object would completely miss that which propelled the movement: the change itself.

Kinaesthetic Wonders. Check it out with me
I hope you feel the same way, too
By Bojana Cvejic on Dance (Practicable) by Frédéric Gies http://www.dancepraticable.net/

“At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless; Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is”  T.S.E

Permalink

30
Cuerpo propio: para ser propio, el cuerpo debe ser extraño, y así encontrarse apropiado. El niño mira su mano, su pie, su ombligo. El cuerpo es el intruso que no puede sin fractura penetrar en el punto presente a sí que es el espíritu. Este último es por lo demás tan puntual y está tan ceñido a su ser-a-sí-en-sí, que el cuerpo no lo penetra más que exorbitando o exogastrulando su masa como un bulto, como un tumor, fuera del espíritu. Tumor maligno del que el espíritu no se recuperará.

34
En verdad, “mi cuerpo” indica una posesión, no una propiedad. Es decir, una apropiación sin legitimación. Poseo mi cuerpo, lo trato como quiero, tengo sobre él el jis uti et abutendi. Pero a su vez él me posee: me tira o me molesta, me ofusca, me detiene, me empuja, me rechaza. Somos un par de poseídos, una pareja de bailarines endemoniados.

35
En la etimología de “poseer” se encontraría en la significación de “estar sentado encima”. Estoy sentado sobre mi cuerpo, niño o enano subido a los hombros de un ciego. Mi cuerpo está sentado sobre mí, aplastándome bajo su peso.

41
El cuerpo guarda su secreto, esa nada, ese espíritu que no está alojado en él sino que está esparcido, expandido, extendido completamente a través suyo, de modo que el secreto no tiene ningún escondite, ningún repliegue íntimo donde un día sería posible ir a descubrirlo. El cuerpo no guarda nada: se guarda como secreto. Por eso el cuerpo muere, y se lleva su secreto a la tumba. Apenas si nos quedan algunos indicios de su pasaje.

Cuatro de 58 indicios sobre el cuerpo de Jean-Luc Nancy via Emilio Bassail

Permalink

There is a basic thought-feeling process to all perception. This is to expand, swell, reach out and then pull back, shrink, contract. We go toward the world and then return to ourselves in a never-ending cycle. Sometimes there is a conflict between these two poles: we reach out and shrink at the same time. We over-extend and lack the ability to pull back. Or we shrink and lack the ability to expand. Text & image of Pulsation of Cells from Stanely Keleman´s Emotional Anatomy.

There is a basic thought-feeling process to all perception. This is to expand, swell, reach out and then pull back, shrink, contract. We go toward the world and then return to ourselves in a never-ending cycle.

Sometimes there is a conflict between these two poles: we reach out and shrink at the same time. We over-extend and lack the ability to pull back. Or we shrink and lack the ability to expand.

Text & image of Pulsation of Cells from Stanely Keleman´s Emotional Anatomy.

Permalink

In his book Action in Perception, Alva Noë describes perception as already being in action: “Perceiving is a way of acting. Perception is not something that happens to us, or in us. It is something we do […] The world makes itself available to the perceiver through physical movement and interaction.” He also argues that: […] seeing is much more like touching than it is like depicting. Consider the bottle again, which you touch with eyes closed. The bottle is there in your hands. By moving your hands, by palpitation, you encounter its shape. Vision acquires content in exactly this way. You aren´t given the visual world all at once. You are in the world, and through skillful visual probing – what Merlau-Ponty called “palpation with the eyes” – you bring yourself into contact with it. You discern its structure and so, in that sense, represent it. Vision is touch-like. Like touch, vision is active. T: Move; Choreographing You /// I: Herbert Bayer

In his book Action in Perception, Alva Noë describes perception as already being in action: “Perceiving is a way of acting. Perception is not something that happens to us, or in us. It is something we do […] The world makes itself available to the perceiver through physical movement and interaction.” He also argues that:

[…] seeing is much more like touching than it is like depicting. Consider the bottle again, which you touch with eyes closed. The bottle is there in your hands. By moving your hands, by palpitation, you encounter its shape. Vision acquires content in exactly this way. You aren´t given the visual world all at once. You are in the world, and through skillful visual probing – what Merlau-Ponty called “palpation with the eyes” – you bring yourself into contact with it. You discern its structure and so, in that sense, represent it. Vision is touch-like. Like touch, vision is active.

T: Move; Choreographing You /// I: Herbert Bayer

Permalink

Lulu Sweigard defined ideokinesis as “repeated ideation of a movement without volitional physical effort¨ In 1929, she initiated one of the few studies available on the effects of imagery on alignment to “determine whether ideokinesis… could recoordinate muscle action enough to produce measurable changes in skeletal alignment”  In meeting with dance students for weekly 30-min sessions over 15 weeks, Sweigard discovered nine lines of movement along which most postural changes take place.  Lines of Movement (as mental images) Lengthen the spine downward Shorten the distance between midfront of the pelvis and 12th thoracic vertebra (releasing tension in the erector spine) Properly align top of sternum to top of spine (depending on needs to balance upper spine with pelvis and release tension in neck and shoulder muscles) Narrow rib cage Widen back of pelvis (weight transfer between legs and pelvis) Narrow front of pelvis (ex. imagine a zipper closing up your pelvis) Align center of knee to center of femoral joints Balance weight between big toe and ankle joint to ¨resurrect¨ the arch Lengthen body upward along central axis (release superficial muscle tension) -Eric Franklin´s Dynamic Alignment Through Imagery 

Lulu Sweigard defined ideokinesis as “repeated ideation of a movement without volitional physical effort¨ In 1929, she initiated one of the few studies available on the effects of imagery on alignment to “determine whether ideokinesis… could recoordinate muscle action enough to produce measurable changes in skeletal alignment” 

In meeting with dance students for weekly 30-min sessions over 15 weeks, Sweigard discovered nine lines of movement along which most postural changes take place. 

Lines of Movement (as mental images)

  1. Lengthen the spine downward
  2. Shorten the distance between midfront of the pelvis and 12th thoracic vertebra (releasing tension in the erector spine)
  3. Properly align top of sternum to top of spine (depending on needs to balance upper spine with pelvis and release tension in neck and shoulder muscles)
  4. Narrow rib cage
  5. Widen back of pelvis (weight transfer between legs and pelvis)
  6. Narrow front of pelvis (ex. imagine a zipper closing up your pelvis)
  7. Align center of knee to center of femoral joints
  8. Balance weight between big toe and ankle joint to ¨resurrect¨ the arch
  9. Lengthen body upward along central axis (release superficial muscle tension)

-Eric Franklin´s Dynamic Alignment Through Imagery 

Permalink

“It’s rare to find a person with structural integrity, a body stacked properly with respect to gravity, free to move …Mind. I’m not talking about posture. I’m talking about structure. Posture is holding your structure as well as you can. When the structure is properly balanced, good posture is natural. A man slouches not because he has a bad habit but because his structure doesn’t make it easy for him not to slouch. Structure implies the relationship of parts and it implies gravity … ” -R.Gustaitis Rolfing after Rolf

“It’s rare to find a person with structural integrity, a body stacked properly with respect to gravity, free to move …Mind.

I’m not talking about posture. I’m talking about structure. Posture is holding your structure as well as you can. When the structure is properly balanced, good posture is natural. A man slouches not because he has a bad habit but because his structure doesn’t make it easy for him not to slouch. Structure implies the relationship of parts and it implies gravity … ”

-R.Gustaitis Rolfing after Rolf

Permalink

¨A desire to avoid oblivion is the natural possession of any artist. It is intensified in the dancer, who is far more under the threat of time than others.  The invention of systems to preserve dance-steps have, since the early eighteenth century, shared a startling similarity. All these books containing interesting prefatory remarks on the structure of dancing do not tend to work from a practical point of view; they don´t determine the essential nature of old dances with any objective authority… making the language very difficult to decipher.  ⌇This profound and informed frustration reflects the essential dilemma of narrative designs- how to reduce the magnificent four-dimensional reality of time and three-space into little marks on paper flatlands. Perhaps one day high-resolution(sensor) computer visualisations, which combine slightly abstracted representations along with dynamic and animated flatland, will lighten the laborious complexity of encodings- and yet still capture some worthwhile part of the human itinerary ⌇ -Notes: Kirstein´s Ballet Alphabet, Albert Zorn´s Grammar of the Art of Dancing from Tufte´s Envisioning Information

¨A desire to avoid oblivion is the natural possession of any artist. It is intensified in the dancer, who is far more under the threat of time than others. 

The invention of systems to preserve dance-steps have, since the early eighteenth century, shared a startling similarity. All these books containing interesting prefatory remarks on the structure of dancing do not tend to work from a practical point of view; they don´t determine the essential nature of old dances with any objective authority… making the language very difficult to decipher. 

⌇This profound and informed frustration reflects the essential dilemma of narrative designs- how to reduce the magnificent four-dimensional reality of time and three-space into little marks on paper flatlands. Perhaps one day high-resolution(sensor) computer visualisations, which combine slightly abstracted representations along with dynamic and animated flatland, will lighten the laborious complexity of encodings- and yet still capture some worthwhile part of the human itinerary ⌇

-Notes: Kirstein´s Ballet Alphabet, Albert Zorn´s Grammar of the Art of Dancing from Tufte´s Envisioning Information

Permalink

Systems of dance notation translate human movements into signs transcribed on flatland, permanently preserving the visual instant. Design strategies for recording dance movements encompass many of the usual (nearly universal, nearly invisible) display techinques. Our understanding of the aesthetics of information is enriched by examining dance narratives and their visual texture. We come to appreciate how the underlying designs bring about and enable the joy growing from the comprehension of complexity, from finding pattern and form amidst commotion.  ¨How beautiful it was then,¨ writes Italo Calvino about a time of radiant clarity in cosmic prehistory, ¨through that void, to draw lines and parabolas, pick out the precise point, the intersection between space and time when the event would spring fourth, undeniable in the prominence of its glow..¨ Tufte Notes & EWMN

Systems of dance notation translate human movements into signs transcribed on flatland, permanently preserving the visual instant.

Design strategies for recording dance movements encompass many of the usual (nearly universal, nearly invisible) display techinques.

Our understanding of the aesthetics of information is enriched by examining dance narratives and their visual texture. We come to appreciate how the underlying designs bring about and enable the joy growing from the comprehension of complexity, from finding pattern and form amidst commotion. 

¨How beautiful it was then,¨ writes Italo Calvino about a time of radiant clarity in cosmic prehistory, ¨through that void, to draw lines and parabolas, pick out the precise point, the intersection between space and time when the event would spring fourth, undeniable in the prominence of its glow..¨

Tufte Notes & EWMN

Permalink