For this work, who is the person-in-need? I make many claims about the world around me—the people around me—that are unfounded. People need grounding. Which people? Do I need grounding? Do my friends, family, professors, co-workers, grocery store clerks, etc. need grounding? I make many claims about life in America. People eat poorly and spend too much time looking at their phones, televisions, and computers. Which people? I have done enough research on collective memory to understand that when I recall information I am doing it for a specific purpose. Recollection affects how I think and act. When I recall the world around me in a way that makes life seem dire and actions urgent, this is carried in my body. “When you start making work in a space, you want to be careful not to colonize it. Be with the space…” (Dilley, 2005).
On the phone with my brother this weekend telling him about our project, I started to talk about feeling unsure whether or not claims that I was making about people in general and, specifically, people being not-grounded are accurate. His response was, “no, they absolutely are.” He talked about walking around prison—a space so contained, filled with bodies that appear as separate containers, no interaction between one person and the next. “You can live with someone for a year,” he said, “and not be aware of their presence.” I am noticing that this too is a generalization. I read an article in the New York Times Magazine about hospice in prison that presented a different perspective. It seems to me that I shouldn’t wrestle too much with generalization, and rather I should be aware of it when I and others are using it. I too should remain vigilant staying grounded and connected to the people and realities in and around me.
Less lofty and more specific to our project, I have been reading Site Dance. They write about the different aesthetic in site specific dance. They write something to the effect of people who have tried to analyze site specific dance through the lens of other dance techniques or styles have failed. Having noticed in my own dance how my movement changes in different environments, this idea drew me in. They write about movement in site specific dance being developed in conversation with the site. Once again to bring up the “don’t colonize the space” idea, they too see that part of having integrity in site specific dance is creating every piece of the dance with the space as a partner. For me, this relates back to what I wrote about in response to our Olsen/Grapefruit rewrites. “Dancing…required that I partner with the environment. I had to ask how I was going to place my body in the environment and manipulate it over time and space. This required that I think about the ground underneath my feet, the sun shining in my face, and the texture of the wall, fence, and tree bark against my skin…”
All food for thought.
Works Referenced:
Dilley, Barbara. This Very Moment: teaching thinking dancing. Naropa University Press, 2015.
Kloetzel, Melanie and Carolyn Pavlik. Site Dance: Choreographer and the Lure of Alternative Spaces. University Press of Florida, 2011.
Jaquad, Suleika. “The Prisoners Who Care for The Dying and Get Another Chance at Life.” The New York Times Magazine, 16 May 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/05/16/magazine/health-issue-convicted-prisoners-becoming-caregivers.html. Accessed 29 July 2018.
