Making and un-making: Part Two

Entering the studio I had a sense of separation, through the tiny involvements that had come before- all non-verbal- which had disarticulated me from any sense of grouping- somehow taken me into the filaments of these patterns, trailing off in different directions. I go out on to the balcony- well really a ledge of rusted metallic red leading down a fire-escape the total length of the building. The ledge catches the sun- throws it back out in a kaleidoscope way from building to building, ricocheting and opening up London in this way from surface to surface. I re-enter the space and lie down. The score allows for this. For many things:-

Many states that can lead on from one to another. From activity to inactivity. Feeling into the miniscule of detailed touch with the surface of the floor. Sinking down. Walking around speedily or at leisure. Stopping, flaying arms and limbs, bouncing, twisting. Laying down again, rolling, tumbling and rising. Minimal encounters; glancings. Stoppages. Aversions. Moving on- small lean-tos, propulsion out. Turning on the core of these small propositions, in these glancings or physical contact. The one becoming the other or inhibiting the other. Played out scenarios. Facings and unfacings.

I at first feel uncomfortable. Disinclined. The stoppage and holding apart has gone too far. My vision, in the periods alone had poured out in the other direction, again too far. The elastic connection of falling in and bouncing out appears broken. Everything too loaded. An affray of short bursts and non-starters. How to use that? Emotionally I feel contorted by the fray of bodies. Like the swash of a tide churned into foam but effervescent- untouchable. I too feel this way. Too fast, or suddenly imploding on the spot into inertia. I lie down again. Wait. Do nothing. Even when someone approaches I bury my head in the sand. Nuzzle into the black cold floor. I am cold and burrowing into the conditions that make that so; make me colder. Exploring this as possibility. Strangely that becomes a link. The first viable linkage because it is a physical sensation and a feeling-pattern; one of contraction. I contain the coldness and wonder about the reserve.

All grouping would seem to push for maximum contact- for sociability and an openness to others. Not in this score- maybe Contact Dance is wrongly named, because it would seem to offer opportunities for staying in what is occurring however that may be positioned. It follows the way things build up and how opposites become generative of one another. It’s the core of stillness- the suspense of something that seems untenable to the dance- to association- to commonness that goes somewhere deeper, to situations that are not tidy- where groupings are not easily resolved into hard-wired parties. It goes to the ebb and flow of circumstances- the edge of how a space becomes made through ignition of parts and revulsion of parts- working off and on one another. Considering these things in ones own responses is a kind of border crossing- but is also only possible in the careful fostering of constraints. How could these opposing values be so intertwined? And yet they are.