{"id":37,"date":"2022-03-07T15:43:33","date_gmt":"2022-03-07T13:43:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nivel.teak.fi\/carpa7\/?p=37"},"modified":"2022-10-04T10:18:23","modified_gmt":"2022-10-04T07:18:23","slug":"having-to-write-or-say-anything-at-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nivel.teak.fi\/carpa7\/having-to-write-or-say-anything-at-all\/","title":{"rendered":"Having to write, or say, anything at all"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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As dance artists what is this writing we do? What are these marks in space we make? While writing offers the possibility of permanence, of (supposed) archival stability, at the same time, dance\u2019s very ontology is traditionally marked by its disappearing nature, it\u2019s resistance to sitting still. There are arguments to be made as to what this ontology offers in terms of resistance to certain hegemonies of visibility (Phalen 1996), and perhaps also what it neglects in terms of a certain melancholic notion the disappearing now (Lepecki 2005). This tension between the ephemeral written asks how we can think with the dancing body as a site of research where knowledge is generated in unconventional forms not easily taken up with the words. Words will surely fail, (as much as succeed), just as dancing will also both fail and succeed (whatever this might mean at the end of the day), and yet words or writing are always also there. It is with this continued tethering to the place of writing or the writing of place in both their \/ practices that Canadian dance artists Thea Patterson and Lin Snelling ask the questions: what can writing teach us about dance? And what can dancing teach us about writing? Conceived as a lecture performance this work unfolds as a scored improvisation where Snelling and Patterson source from conversations and written correspondence over the period of the pandemic about their relationship to dance dramaturgy, improvisation and dance pedagogy. In this work they speak directly to each other, interrupting and querying each other as they share their thoughts and their written letters about dancing; and sometimes dancing their way out of having to write, or say, anything at all.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Post sharing words<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Thea writes \u2013 Oct 15, 2021<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

On Aug 31, just three days after we presented writing dancing <\/em>at CARPA7 \u2013 my life partner and the videographer and editor on this project, Jeremy Gordaneer, was violently taken, in, an as of yet unsolved, murder. It is from this place of loss and bewilderment that I come back to the page as we contemplate how to speak about the work we presented and to find meaning, reflect and remember.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A large part of this project exists in the space between dancing and writing and between Lin and I through a roving interweaving of talking and writing and dancing and walking and transcribing. This culminated (before any idea of an intended culmination) in the creation of a score \u2013 which we repeated 3 times a day over 5 days in July 2021. This was tenderly witnessed and supported by Jeremy through his eyes and two camera positions. Jeremy then minimally edited the footage which became the presentation for CARPA7.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In trying to think about how to capture the weaving of this project that was already without a necessary aim; which is to say not intended to be productive or over-determined \u2013 but rather as a jumping off point, or as a kind of gentle mode of inquiry emerging over time and without fixed form; we write about it now as a way to continue to follow its meandering weave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To consider what forms best hold this is where we begin today. So, this may not end up being about writing and dancing as an object of study or it might be just that, a way to turn the thing around, as reflection and archive \u2013 probably it will be a little of both\u2026. and.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The writing that comes out of this process is in large part in the form of poems \u2013 or in Lin\u2019s case poems that then desired to be drawings \u2013 as she traces a path from words to forms \u2013 (not that words are not also forms). For me \u2013 the lure of language maintained its hold \u2013 crossing from Lin\u2019s body to my fingers in the space between the dance and the page. Some of these poems and drawings exist now as traces. They hold (or perhaps carry) the memory of the dance. Or perhaps even the dance itself in a manner less discrete or delineated, but there nonetheless. Just because the dance is no longer seen does not mean it has disappeared. But the traces are also not the dance \u2013 or not that dance, but something else \u2013 another kind of dance perhaps across the page or in the mind, or as yet to be. The poems, for us, evoke the memory \u2013 of either dancing or witnessing \u2013 and in the touch of the word, that ephemeral passing is traced underneath and evokes wisps, things not fully formed as images in the language of memory but as a tone skipping across the water \u2013 touching briefly towards recall that is moving ever outward into the ungraspable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The score<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Enter and take a seat at the table<\/em>
Begin the conversation<\/em>
Follow the threads<\/em>
Listen<\/em>
Use papers on the table from previous talks, walks and iterations as jumping points<\/em>
Feel for the natural conclusion (whatever that means)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Decide who will write first and who will dance first<\/em>
Move the table<\/em>
One person dances<\/em>
The other person writes<\/em>
Switch<\/em>
Read the writing (or drawing)<\/em>
Move the table<\/em>
Both dance while (attempting) reading the other\u2019s writing<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Exit when the end arrives.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then there were the conversations themselves as we iterated it in walks, phone calls and zoom sessions and in each scoring over the week in the studio. The conversations unfolding through each other and opening other skeins of thought that circle a core \u2013 around this question of writing. Along with this we carry other modes of writing as memory captures from previous conversations \u2013 while walking, while on the phone \u2013 this other mode of address\u2026 and the question of archiving opening questions\u2026around how to write and what to write\u2026 From our conversations and walks we asked questions and collected words: Here are a few of the poems \u2013 some from that week of scoring, some from a practice shared over zoom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lin and Thea dancing\/reading together (video) \u2013 August 28, 2021<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Itself (because we said it together)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

 It\u2019s over,
               noticing \u2026
                         many things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She starts.
echo,
tempo \u2026
                        splash opening,
to puncture the echoes,
the way,
the page \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

           Music and dancing.
in silence.
                  by,
                       she starts,
                              echoes,
                  nerves
                              threading
music and
        lost
             loss
music and
        echo
            music and
dancing
             and
             and
             and,
                      her eye.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And,
sweep \u2026
she starts,
arms, elbows
back,
one point,
of the sweep;
the tension of. \/(or \u201cattention of\u201d \u2026 from your book Thea?) Did you get a chance
to take a look at this?<\/p>\n\n\n\n