One more thing about “humanity”: I realized that long time ago human being had become extra terrestrial. Since we had lost any connection with a sense of univocal “experience” of the world, since our senses are out of orientations and we became tourists in this planet, we had already fallen away from here. As I told Igor: Icarus flew away and fell to earth without dying: he is reborn in another words. But he did not fall down; he fell up and away from planet earth into another one. Deleuze will say that the only way out from our humanity (to become total extraterrestrial) is to continue the movement of non-humanization into singularization. Every one needs to learn how to leave into its own extraterrestrial world without loosing connection with the other planets!! We are not touching this world, but our own re-creation of senses that relate us to it.

Here it goes.

6/10/08

What fall are we talking about? Are you really stumbling on stage? Are you dancing release technique letting rise and fall of gravity operate along your body while using as minimum of effort as possible? Are you existentially falling in a primal state of being?  Yes, a little bit of all that, but in fact, something else. We are falling into different ways to deal with the task of transmission and communication on stage. We are following the process in which attention focus to identify what we call “humanity” of a human entity.  I like the way in which Jessica said it: firstly you perceive the person in movement, secondly you meet him/her face to face in a communication full of pretensions and over reactions and finally the theatrical game falls down and you catch glimpses of what the nature of that person could be.  In About Falling there is a developmental passage from abstract movement of the body to theatrical movements of signs into the movement of personal presence on stage.

Hey Igor.

 I found an interesting video work by Anri Sala “Now I see”.

I will explain what are the points of interest and connect them with some ideas I have in mind for “About Falling”.

Please check the video in the link below.

http://www.ubu.com/film/sala_see.html

 One point is the use of light, clearly dived in two zones of light and no light and a threshold.  At the threshold is where the protagonist, a puppet balloon, remains for a while suspending the time of the whole scene.  The puppet stand right at the border where the action happens: the band playing rock and roll; and right at the border where the gaze of the audience encounters it clearly “cut off “ and in “front of” the action of the band happening behind it.

 Here I connect with About Falling in relation to the action of being launched towards the audience. Performer meets their gaze falling in state of suspension. The body stops continuous movement, but don’t drop in total inertia. It maintains a state of physical gravity suspension. When suspension is impossible to hold, the performer moves back towards the action of continuous movement.  Moreover, when something comes to the front and it is exposed, it becomes even stranger than what it was before at a larger distance in the back.

 Another point is the two types of bodies: flesh (the rock band) and air (the balloon puppet). The physical fleshy body of the members of the band cant stop moving. They are bound to not ever stop. The only possibility to stop moving and to arrive to a  (semi) fixed position in space is to become a thinner body of air. 

 It is extremely interesting the paradox of a heavy body than cant stop moving and a light body than instead can not move anymore.

 Yesterday, before finding the video, I thought that at the moment Lucía remains alone dancing the “soaring moment”, she cant almost move in opposition to the excess of movement at the beginning of the performance. I like the idea that the performance offers and experience of movement (with three performers moving continuously) and an experience of body (when one performer almost don’t move).  When continuous movement becomes stasis inside of a body, the body has not carnality anymore, but it is almost transparent, with no content, ready to float.

 Well, that is all by the moment.

Some more things could be said about the video in relation to things we had been talking about: like the metaphor of performers being a music band, the flickering aspect of movement, things falling down and up like the singer and the balloon, etc.; but I thing this is not the space to develop those ideas.

Fall is always fall into (in)visibility.

What truly folds the movement and with a movement the whole space is the process of imaginary mirroring Whenever the glance of anybody on and off stage is caught by the other (either directly on indirectly) the mirroring is starting. The one that is looking see his own movement, action, behaviour in the movement, action, behaviour of the other toward whom he is directing his gaze. What he see is mirror image of himself. The one that is looked at, by realizing that it has been observed, encounters its own mirror image- 
“it is caught in the act”. The mirror of “what is seen” (in the first case), and the mirror of “being seen” (in the second case) are not identical. If the mirror is other body seen in movement (in a case of looking at) this mirror image inspire further movement and it is kaleidoscopic in nature. If the mirror is awarenes about somebody’s else gaze (in a case of being looked at) this mirror image inspire contemplation, stasis and a minimal movement – gesture and pose. It seems logical that under this conditions, first mirror of “looking at” (which i would call field of gaze) is generating outward activity, facilitate communication and exchange while second mirror of “being looked at” (which i would call field of objectification) is generating internal activity, minimal disclosure and stasis. The overall structure of the piece should be, in this term, an orderly game of mirroring whose different possibilities and moments are folding space upon itself. When the multiplications of mirroring on and off stage reach its maximal proliferation of foldings, movement finally stops, encounter finally get fully realized and a new situation starts – starting from a square piece of paper, through a process of mirroring/folding, origami of a bird appears. Combinatorics of possible relations between two mirroring positions – field of gaze and field of objectificaton, generate the third field of (in)visibility.

Although formally cut up in two by sharp distinction between light and dark, space in terms of movement consist of three fields. The light and dark area meet at the line of horizon, place of optimal visibility where bodies finally emerge from darkness and expose themselves to the gaze. If light and darkness are first and third field of movement, line of horizon constitute the second field of movement, in between place, the only place where three singularities appear in the same time and can be observed in their relation to each other. Second field of movement is also place of language. From the perspective of this intermediary space, first field of movement (front-light) is the field of individual exposure, space of carrying on toward the audience, while the third field of movement (back-darkness) is the space of disappearance where individualities are melted into the invisible machine of movement. Three fields of movement are corresponding to the three register of movement. In fact, fields of movement are spatial representation of the registers. 

Third register is the register where movement follow projection (or should we say introjection) of conscioussnes/perceptual attention/the gaze into the body itself. In this sense movement becomes the internal sensation, something connected directly to the materiality of the body and is characterized by certain absentmindedness. This type of movement can be characterized by the notions of warmth and animality.

Second register is the register where movement follow projection of conscioussnes/perceptual attention/the gaze toward the edges of our personal space. Our personal space  is the invisible spatial bubble aprox. one meter in diameter. This bubble is a kind of negative space which surround our body and define our identity/ego. Second register type of movement by its direction and force is touching limits of our personals space through an act of self expression which is attempt toward communication. This is the place where the signs of language are constructed, place from which we speak (name, imitate, give form). When moving in the second register, person is doing actions (as opposed to dancing) and these actions tend to become meaningful. They speak. This type of movement could be signified by the notion of the letter. Each movement become the letter. 

First register is the register where movement follow the projection of consciousness/perceptual attention/the gaze toward an “indefinite” external space. In this sense first register type of movement by its direction and force is touching limits of the physical space in which our body exist here and now. “Indefinite” external space become at its immediate limits transformed into concrete physical space, creating for performers and the audience “sense of place”. When moving in the first register, person is dancing “sense of place” in an expansive, concrete (this wall, this ceiling, this floor, etc.) yet abstract almost geometrical manner. What the person is touching is out there and its never fully reached, thats why the body project itself beyond its limits – as if it is trying to get hold of something but its never fully reaching its objective. We could also say that this type of movement “operate on distance” and in this sense is close to the notion of electric current. It is cold in its intensity.