THE YEAR IN SCIENCE, GAME (AND CHOREOGRAPHY):
SHEN WEI, EMANUEL GAT, THOMAS DEFRANTZ, PILOBOLUS
What has taken the place of conventional (or even unconventional) narrative, so devalued among some contemporary dance artists? One answer: the scientific and mathematical frames around several major new works, a development suggesting, among other things, a future in which a number of choreographers might also be termed chief investigators.
(…) But one week before, audiences who stayed for a post-performance discussion heard EMANUEL GAT delineate the underpinnings of his captivating new work BRILLIANT CORNERS in a manner eerily similar to a psychologist or sociologist describing the protocols and methodology of a behavioral experiment.
“We don’t invent. We discover,” Gat asserted. “I choreographed none of the movement. It was generated by the dancers through a long process in which I define their environment. The movement doesn’t precede the situation; the movement comes as a reaction to the environment and situation they are in... I try to determine a very clear environment: what are its mechanisms, what are the rules, the constraints they have to work in. The movement is a by-product of the situation.”
Indeed, what initially struck me upon first viewing as enviably articulate—but essentially random—phrases and gestures (so much so that an early line in my critic’s notes included the Pirandellian assessment, “Six dancers in search of a choreographer,”) slowly revealed a deeper structure and organization. Looking back, both were required, in significant amounts, to keep that number of people moving at that velocity from devolving into a mosh pit of collisions. In BRILLIANT CORNERS I saw a work filled with fast and agile changes, accompanied by (or in response to) similarly drastic variations at times in sound and light.
On the surface, it was hardly the first work of the 2011 season that appeared to over-rely on poses—YOSSI BERG and ODED GRAF’s early filibuster, ANIMAL LOST, and to a lesser extent, TAO DANCE THEATER’s 2 did as well.
But in retrospect, it’s likely that a number of the pauses in Gat’s work were actually deliberative in nature. In their post-performance discussion, Gat and his performers described series of detailed instructions which changed from sequence to sequence; protocols affecting the parameters of their proximity, relationship, velocity and direction, not with one dancer on stage, but several dancers, simultaneously. “It’s very challenging,” dancer Fiona Jopp said in understatement. “You have to be concentrating.”
The performers also spoke of differing outcomes in every performance. “It’s not something you learn and create fifty times exactly, and after the tenth show you slowly get bored with doing it every day,” dancer Michael Löhr noted. “The moods the people are in will effect what I do. It’s just very interesting to see what actually happens.”
“There has to be a lot of flexibility in this structure,” Gat continued. “[The dancers] are very interdependent. They’re linked in so many ways… It’s like jazz: the musicians will improvise within very clear harmonic or rhythmic patterns, but they’re still in a very precise context.”
On the basis of what I saw and heard, I conclude that on one level BRILLIANT CORNERS actually constitutes a scientific experiment, one designed to explore the limits placed on autonomy, self-expression and kinesphere or personal space, when ten people are placed in a finite environment and are then compelled to interact in different ways.
It interests me that Shen Wei seemed to be asking similar questions about the limits of individual expression, autonomy and kinesphere, only within the context of a much more strongly-regimented on-stage “culture,” in the final, Chinese section of his 2006-2009 triptych, Re-.
By comparison, Gat seems to ask in BRILLIANT CORNERS, “What does it take to carve out individual space in a disharmonic, chaotic system when everyone else is trying to do the same?”
This question raises a host of related queries. How much individual space—and how many individual spaces—can be established at any moment in such an environment? By what means? How long can they be maintained? As the total available area becomes occupied, how do these people negotiate room for expression, and maintain the growth and movement of their individual spaces? How does increasing and decreasing proximity affect the stability of those spaces’ co-existence? Where does individual space “go” when systemic demands encroach or erase it?
The significant differences in velocity during the work seem to ask at what sustained rate can change take place in an environment before notions of individual space and order break down completely?
The consequential element of dancers almost constantly watching one another—mandated to maintain programmed distances and relationships—asks how does surveillance change the idea of individual space?
I think sociologists and psychologists attempting to investigate various models in overcrowding or over-population studies are very likely to be interested in questions like these.
In the past half-decade, scientists have engineered algae cells and colonies of bacteria into so-called bio-computers capable of solving problems. In the last century, they’ve turned to distributive models including crowdsourcing to tackle imposing computational and scientific dilemmas.
Given BRILLIANT CORNERS, it now seems possible: if choreographers and dancers are given appropriate protocols and parameters, they may be capable of generating useful data that could help predict specific sociological or psychological scenarios, effects and outcomes.
In the near future, will Gat, his performers and similarly motivated choreographers be regarded, not only as artists, but scientists as well? I predict we’re going to find out. With results like those in BRILLIANT CORNERS, more research is clearly justified.
Monday, November 7, 2011 at 09:43AM