30.11.07 CENTERS OF GRAVITY [diego]

29.11.2007 Pablo

today I felt very tired, and I think in some way we all were. it’s been a very nice week, quite curious how many things we approached already in so few rehearsals. and quite nice to start a process with so much openness. I like this being able to take rehearsals as practices, and not necessarily as productive processes. or, to think that what they produce is transformation in us as performers-creators-observers-parts of something. I’m happy not to be thinking yet how does it become communicative or perceptible. the ‘moments/images’ I get most excitement of in the rehearsals all happen inside me. this is no narcicistic statement: it’s just a reflection of the dual feeling of doing and observing, being performer and audience and space, and experiencing perception, sensing feeling, observing observation, ja ja, what a mind fuck with all this words. oh, and I’m also enjoying the writing a lot.

have a nice weekend you all.
have nice weekends, in general.

29-11-07 maria

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restart – relation ships

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28-11-07 maria: rehearsal & floating session

the long silences in between the moments of noise
the still spots in between the spirals
dead points in between liveliness
longer than necessary
curious

nothing is boring when it gets longer
nothing is dead when it really dies
…and bullshit like that (as i always have to add in the end, before, during and right after I finish my sentence- referring especially to the sentence about death…)

longer than necessary
till the moment it dies     and even longer till the moment  it  starts        rotting and it      sssstinks like hell.

excuse my language – how pathetic
but, what a pity! the womb was made of plastic…

28.11.2007 Pablo

On today’s first round of Shavasana, for the first time I connected for real with the idea of the Pose of the Dead. I felt the weight of my body change, becoming really heavy and static, and cold. And I thought for a moment that I was observing/sensing a dead body. I wondered if that is how a conciousness after death could be.

Today I seemed to be very concerned with dead bodies, wether they are people or cats.

28.11.2007 Pablo

If whenever you observe an experiment you affect the outcome, what happens if you are not only observing it but you are the experiment, and you are the container in which the experiment is taking place?

I imagined we are at the same time Schrödinger and Schrödinger’s cats, and we have a 50% chance of killing ourselves.

Later on, after getting inside of the floating capsule and closing the lid, I thought: if I am both Schrödinger and Schrödinger’s cat, it’s probably better never to open it again.

28.11.07 [n]

Meditation: my brain was hurting me. I mean: my brain as an organ, in the sense as I would speak about my liver or small intestine. Was reminded of Yvonne Rainer’s title “The mind is a muscle”. My brain felt like a cramped muscle. But I wouldn’t say that my mind is only in my brain. Telling myself to drop the thoughts down, into the pelvis, limbs, etc. Just drop it. Had enough of corpse pose and brain investigation: need to move. Playfulness and humor seem to be vital to a living body.

I am interested in the center of gravity of the spacial composition. Let’s say the center of gravity of the entire audience composition. I would like to compose that center completely off center and up in the air, floating above the ground. (that means we do need to use a tribune at least partially).

My task today: keep observing and relating to the composition of x x x (hotspots/landingsites) even when moving like crazy. Keep the same observational sense from the chair score also when not in a still position.

Hotspots/landingsites: there seem to be stations or energy condensations in the space, those might be people or objects, creating strong relational resonances. I am tending towards and away from those landingsites, but I never really arrive on one, I only tend towards and satalite past. I might become a landingsite myself for others. I am observing circular motions, elipses, attracted by hotspots. My own sensation of the brain as an organ also produces circular and spiraling motions.

4: I thought 4 performers would create a very square and symmetrically balanced static situation. In fact I am surprised to find mostly triangles. All I see: triangles shifting, two triangles inserted into each other, one triangle disturbed by one mover-satelite.

28.11.07 diego

attitude

FLOATING [n]

First 5 min: complete disorientation in a dark space. I am diving head first backwards into the universe, with a roll. My body drifts through space (no stars or planets though). Very soon body re-orients and feels at home (pity). Noticed that my organs are floating upwards and that my large intestine on the right side is sticking out more than it probably should be. Oh well. Corpse pose without floor. After maybe 30 min I understand that my body is mostly water, I feel that way. Very aware of my blood-fluid. Body becomes all spine. Going back in evolution. I am a head and a spine wanting to wave itself through the water. So I wave. Lateral spinal waves. Could become a new habbit. Would have liked to take an embryotic position but that was not so possible in the float. After 1 hr I open the capsule: welcome on planet earth. I think I am Sun Ra arriving with the space ship from Saturn.

27.11.07 [n]

Today we seemed to agree that if spectators are not grouped together as a whole, but seated in a more singularly distributed way, they would be identifying less with “an audience” and become more part of the composition themselves (rather than “another” observing a performance).

Corpse pose/Savasana: We practiced 30 min meditation and then lay down for corpse pose. Throughout meditating I had become quite sleepy, though I also noticed how many states just came and went, always changing (focus opening/closing, sleepiness coming and going, a feeling of rising, or spreading, minor thoughts, major thoughts, breath…) I mostly noticed a lot of CHANGE while I was relatively still. When lying down, I became quite energetic and awake. I also had the sensation of my feet rising upwards, my entire body turning upside down, as if I was pinned to a bridge that opens.

I would like to investigate corpse pose after different types of activities.

Already after 2 days I am having a rather specific experience of my brain. How I look at the room, how I relate to the situation, how I move.

Tasks given to myself: brain initiated movement, relate brain to gravity, gravitational tendencies (magnetic attractions) of the brain towards ’stations’ in space (people, objects), finding the center of gravity between all people in space + go there, mark it. Treat spectators as performers. Treat myself when moving as an observer. Treat people and objects alike.

27.11.2007 Pablo

coexisting with my own preconceptions, coexisting with my attempt to figure out what would someone want me to coexist with and how… projecting on the observers, trying to figure out the observers, observing myself through the observers… observing the coexisters (!), searching for comfort, witnessing our roles dissolve.

27.11.2007 Pablo

X                          x                          x

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-piano-door-corners-center-backwallcenter-

27-11-07 maria

hole

26-11-07 [s]

on meditation – perceptible vibrations

I was having a vision-oriented day. Sometimes I see particles in the air, like visible white noise. During the second medition, eyes unfocused, thoughts coming and going, I saw a flat transparent layer of ‘air’ moving over the carpet in a wave pattern as in a fast flowing stream but very regular. The texture of the carpet and meditative soft focus produced the illusion but was it hallucinatory or simply a perception of something usually imperceptible?

on chairing – the relational frame
again this dominant visual framing in which every scenario became a dynamic composition. All movement tended in and out of the frame. People passed through. Unlike a photographic or cinematic surface there was depth and invasive nearness. Observing was hyper-performative. A flaneur on amphetamines.

26-11-07 maria

disperse

vibrations

floating objects

& the magic carpet

the failing attempt to resist the beauty of an image in front of my eyes

26.11.07 diego

focalize

26.11 Pablo

My problem with the meditation is that I tend to enjoy the thoughts that come up, it feels hard to let go of them. Today, the longer we worked and the deeper I felt I could go into the meditative state of mind, the more I felt my attention turned towards my body and the more information I started receiving from it. At some point I had to wonder if my body was trying to get my attention, or my brain manipulating my body to get my attention… I started seeing the meditation as something quite playful and in dialogue, a pulling and pushing of concentration. And I kind of enjoyed the puzzlement of feeling that maybe I’m neither my body nor my brain, but someone who inhabits and interacts with them.

I like the question of wether thought is also perception.

26.11.07 [n]

Meditation: I was feeling my brain. My vision seemed to invert and turn inwards into the head to look from inside under my skull at the brain. I heard a high vibrating sound somewhere in my ears or head. An object being there or not made no difference. Vision was soft, sounds were violently attacking me.

Observation of space / chair game: I was being observed as I observed. Whenever the other observer left, it was the wall continuing to observe me. I had the impression that objects or space in general was attending to me as much as I attended to it. I had little concern for the visual composition of the frame. I rather felt presences. Whenever we happened to be close to each other I had a surprisingly warm feeling of community, togetherness or even intimacy.

Sorry this is not as short as it should be. Shouldn’t ever appologize.

I am looking forward to dance. I haven’t danced for a very long time. I wonder what comes out.