SHOWING WITHOUT GOING

Connections

A dance programme in the form of exercise videos

We are going to create a dance festival

where the different pieces are exercise videos that we commission.

Each exercise video is a dance. 

A dance which you learn, which you incorporate. 

By learning this dance, you also exercise. 

The dance festival 'programme' will be curated so that each dance - each exercise video - works on a different part of the body, or mind. 

La Otra Gente - 2021

Examples

Rosas danst Rosas

Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker

www.rosasdanstrosas.be

Precisely 30 years ago, dance company Rosas put itself on the map with the production Rosas danst Rosas. This choreography has since been staged all over the world. And now it's your turn. Dance your own Rosas danst Rosas, make a video film of it and post it on www.rosasdanstrosas.be. In the following videos choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and dancer Samantha van Wissen will teach you the moves, step by step, from the second part of the performance. After that it becomes your dance: you dance Rosas. In a different setting, with a huge number of dancers... any way you like!

Approaches

Dance Instruction

To demonstrate a sequence of movements based on a set choreography via instructional formats (can be a score, a video tutorial, etc), to be implemented in different performance contexts. This can be solo dance or group dance pieces.

#participation

Questions

Impact

Is there a possibility to share the impact, the (beneficial/adverse) consequences of the not-going? John Cage: "Each something is the celebration of the nothing that supports it." (from 'Lecture on Nothing') How to 'sense' the nothing, the absence?

Questions

Consequence / Impact / Usefulness

Showing Without Going can produce forms and proposals that may not immediately be recognisable as art. 

Stephen Wright among others has noted “the invisible parentheses that bracket art off from being taken seriously as a proposition having consequences beyond the aesthetic realm. Art judged by art’s standards can be easily written off as, well... just art. Of contemplative value to people who like that sort of thing, but without teeth.” (see "Toward a Lexicon of Usership")

Could certain SWG approaches allow for a work to be more disguised as art, stepping out of the ‘safe space’ of art’s autonomy to have greater reach, impact or consequence? 

Questions

Responsibility of the Audience

At what point does an audience become responsible for the work; how it unfolds or turns out? 

Is there a risk they do not realise this point arrives? Where might confusion arise? 

What conventions pre-suppose a lack of responsibility from a paying public? 

In what ways can you be responsible for something you 'witness'? 

Approaches

Exercise Video

Someone appears on a screen and leads you through a series of movements that allow you to exercise and get fit in your own home. This was popularised by Jane Fonda in the 1980's. 

#participation