practicing space
To consider active perception as a means to fully engage with the nature of space; with no expectation yet a moment of gratitude for the science of being. The role of the viewer to construct a frame work in which to construct a logic or non logic for an occurring action or non action.
“Do not try to become anything.
Do not make yourself into anything.
Do not be a mediator.
Do not become enlightened.
When you sit, let it be.
What you walk, let it be.
Grasp at nothing.
Resist nothing.”
(Ajhan Chah)
Suspension of all activity; pause from life; momentary death; deprivation of all life and sensation as a search for a non existent void which cannot exist within life force. A pulse which gathers force and will not allow such sensation to exist. Admit defeat from such quest and allow action.
A slow walk that allows the body to become accustomed to space. The sensation of air touching every surface of the body. A motion of weight and certainty as to wear it falls and rises, the sensation of texture of the surface of which the foot encroaches. A determination in stride; a focus both internal and external that allows rhythm to be noted and forgotten, the memory of the last step does not consume.
The body is used by the performer as tool to highlight and explore the landscape; curating the form and emotion of the land through the diversity of the body. This performance explores notions and contexts the body become a mirror and a reflection of the landscape of the environment to espouse notions of the emotional and psychological impact of landscape of the body both internal and external. This performance seeks to cultivate the conditions for the audience to encounter a form of experience that defies classification or explanation of human behavioural form; an encounter with a new mode of perception that allows a lightness and new sensibility to the existence of the body in space and time.
A memory:
I stood. Still on a hill top. The wind consumes my body. It took it and allowed it to rest. I stood for what seemed like years; willing the wind the hold me still. A gaze cast to the sea, feet cemented in the heather field. I watched. The land form took passages of flight; the sand dunes erupted in imminent storms; a passage only of stillness
With special thanks to Benjamin Bailey and Seng Jariangroj
This project is a part of my practice based research improvisation for an upcoming site performance at Dartington College of Arts final festival.
June 16th to 22nd 2010
Urban re:passages 
I glimpse, an emerging time lock between the beginning of last century and the beginning of this (Loie Fuller!?)..only the used and worn urbanscape evolves, the structures and the symbolic decay glisten through the veil of past. The body, its impressions, its needs and its language stays the same. Changing is the meaning it conveys. A movement done with a smiling face is different in meaning to the same movement done with a sad face.
The choice of where one places the gravity of serenity is what composes the defining expression. This can never be exactly calculated, as the precision lies in the eye of the beholder.
Repetivity abstracts. Its like digging a deep hole into the awareness of the perciever. When one hits water, a shift in conciousness takes place. This is a space where all great work has arrived. Consistent in its changing textures.
Thanks for the images Beatrice.
or…the artist articulates a frame, leaving an audience to blow there own bubbles.