Critical Correspondence

MR Festival 2009: For All the Movers Out There: Intention Research

by Clare Byrne
MR Festival Spring 2009: Roll Call

Here’s a quote from the Roll Call press release on the free UNESCO Dance Day Event this Wednesday 6pm – 9pm, at Fred Torres Collaborations, 529 W. 29th St:

“The future of dance lies where there are persons who do not dance. These belong to two categories: those who simply did not learn, and those who think that they are not able to dance. In line with UNESCO’s struggle against prejudice and discrimination, we are trying to expand the boundaries of dance and to change the current perception of what a dancer is. Dance performances are not necessarily exhibitions of extreme physicality, accurate precision, or bursting emotion – they can be celebrations of interaction between performers. CID holds to the philosophy that everyone can dance. Dance Day 2009 is dedicated to inclusive dance. Let us include all members of society into our classes and our performances.”

– Mr. Alkis Raftis, president of UNESCO’s Conseil de Danse Internationale

What a statement. Do we need to say anything more? Okay, just a bit more – here’s another quote – related in my own rambling mind – that’s been obsessing me:

“…the language of birds is very ancient, and, like other ancient forms of speech, little is said, but much is intended.”

– Gilbert White, 1778

I’m listening to birds, trying to grasp the much that can be intended. Much isn’t the same as many – though it can contain it. Much is a depth, eons of evolution that made the bird call what it is, recognizable pointedness and variation. The bird makes its point, over and over, to another bird, in a form developed through imitation.

I’m wondering if it’s not movement invention that needs researching right now. If there’s nothing new on the table, that doesn’t mean anything’s wrong. I don’t doubt we are stepping into a time of greater necessity for movement as an art form, and we don’t have to do anything about it except get in or get out of the way.

But an over-emphasis on individual movement invention, with recycling, rehashing of “innovations,” is an obstacle to the question that, however directly or indirectly, needs to be asked and answered in movement (and an obstacle to invention that might just happen).

Why are you doing this? Better said, for whom? For what? I don’t mean “targeting audience,” I mean at your core – what are you trying to get done by doing this? What are your desires? What or who are you drawn to, and what or who are you pushing away? Seems to me this – along with living, dying, and playing with pain and pleasure, of course – are what movement does. It doesn’t fundamentally explain or describe, it acts.

We don’t usually know the answer to “why” as we are making art, but the intention shows up as nudges and intuitions that we accept or refuse at points in the process. But that we have set the question on the table – that it is hanging mid-air as we make art – is an important step, an appreciable offering. And finally the intention finds us, or emerges – and gets done. Following the direction of fundamental intention may lead us down ways we don’t want to go – dark back alleyways or dark meadows – along with the sense that we are taken there, that art is done through us.

Intention – Purpose – These are tricky ideas to pin down; they tend to lead off onto highways. And I don’t mean anything about naming or categorizing. I like the way it was put in The Gift by Lewis Hyde – you recognize “the spirit of the thing” in the art, a generosity or I’d say a “muchness.” You recognize art that is done with “goodwill,” even its action is violent or destructive. When something is greatly intended, you recognize it.

The Gift talks about art as part of an economy of gift giving, of shared abundance. I like the idea of making and experiencing art meant for, thanksgiving for, praise for, enacted to – something! – you fill in the blank. Or you leave it blank. But something particular was done to something. Even if we don’t know what it is.

I’m listing some reasons to move, or reasons for moving. All can be done in your bedroom as well as on a stage:

Move to move

Move for pleasure

Move for the birds

Move for your dog

Move for your god

Move for your lover

Move for someone else’s lover

Move to pass the time

Move to mark the time

Move to begin

Move to end

Move to join

Move to sunder

Move to surrender, move to rebel

Move to train, move to catch on fire, move to burn yourself up

Move to restore

Move to show off

Move to play with power

Move to attract

Move to place your whole body into one organ

Move to dissolve opinion

Enough from me. For all you movers out there – don’t look far. What you need to do is in you, or next to you. This list from Walt Whitman, a mover’s co-patriot poet from the 1800’s:

“What is commonest, cheapest, nearest, easiest, is Me,
Me going in for my chances, spending for vast returns, 
Adorning myself to bestow myself on the first that will take me,
Not asking the sky to come down to my good will,
Scattering it freely forever.”