Back to bone strips dancing back to what it is made of. After 20 years of deconstructing movement, my interest no longer lies in the movements themselves, in whether some movements are better than others, but in the attention of the dancer to what produces the movement.
The choreographic practice engages the dancers in a specific decision-making process where they invoke the potential of every part of their bodies. At any moment, any part of their body could initiate, in any direction, at any speed, with any effort, for any duration. Through a rigorous training of paying attention to where movement is forming in their bodies, their attention is continually in the present moment. The dancers’ attention is not on the movement that is produced, not on presenting polished, perfect moves. Their attention, rather, is on the emergent form, and in this gap the body has to adapt and may do some extraordinary moves. The dancers are liberated and empowered to allow whatever physical response is driven out by the imperative to respond to what their attention compels them to do. The innovative potential of the body to create new forms has been exhausted and in the wake of this collapse, the infinite potential of attention is exposed. We may find ourselves in a most extraordinary unfolding, where everything is unfastened, each moment a tear in time.
In the stripped bare space of Stary Browar’s Słodownia 2nd level, it’s choreographic decisions made by the dancers, in the moment, that burn the brightest.