Creative Process as Performance
I have been thinking about performance work that is deft framing of process.
Years ago I saw a piece at PS 122 for which the choreographer had constructed a large enclosure with small windows. Inside the enclosure were several pieces of furniture and two cats. The audience was invited to look into the windows and watch the cats lounging, playing, sleeping. We were watching behavior, experiencing time passing.
I did not feel cheated. I was fascinated.
I think about this all the time when working with horses.
Framing process.
Last week we were in Florida working with an amazing natural horsemanship trainer. Our assignment was to go into a field with horses, choose a horse and create a kinetic dialogue effective enough that the horse would willingly follow us to the exit gate. An hour later the five of us had gathered our horses. This was a performance of a sort. Gradual time. Gentle outcomes.
That afternoon we learned some new horsemanship tools. The next morning we had the same assignment. This time we gathered our equine partners in less than 20 minutes. Each horse followed its dancer with curiosity.
What would make this event a performance?
A slowly unfolding event.
Posted by JoAnna Mendl Shaw at 2:37 PM - Permalink
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Agreement(s)
When dancers improvise together there is usually the tacit agreement to make something happen, to meet, to dance together in some fashion.
In most improvised dances the participants are able bodied, adult human beings, courageous enough to entertain the notion of moving in an improvised fashion with one another and trusting that all participating movers will try and find common ground.
Even in the most unsuccessful improvised dance there is some common ground, if only the fact that the movers are all bipeds.
In our work with horses we have found that the rules of kinetic engagement are different for humans than they are for horses.
Many of those clever, human dancer assumptions do not mean anything to our equine partners.
Posted by JoAnna Mendl Shaw at 1:52 PM - Permalink
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On Even Footing
To Our Equine (and human) Partners:
I want to meet you on even ground
You and I as equals
I prefer to think that our interaction is not only about negotiating alpha status
Is that even possible?
I ask myself this question when I am in a round pen with a horse
Sometimes when I am at a party with lots of strangers
Occasionally in faculty meetings
I ask myself this when I return from the summer and greet my colleagues
I ask myself this when my husband and I argue
When my son wants attention
Are we always negotiating for power?
Posted by JoAnna Mendl Shaw at 8:18 AM - Permalink
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Daily Practice
Dancing with horses ought to be a daily practice.
We create kinetic dialogues with equine partners.
This means learning their language, fine-tuning our equine ground skills, developing an exquisite ability to read a horse, adjusting the choreographic score day-to-day, reading the temperament of our equine partner, letting go, paying attention.
This is definitely not a skill one visits occasionally.
Posted by JoAnna Mendl Shaw at 8:28 AM - Permalink
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