Before I sit down to observe the choreographers, dancers, scholars, and other observers, I slowly, somewhat timidly open the door as not to disturb those in the room. I feel like there should be a welcome mat. I self-consciously tip toe into the doorway and slip my shoes off as a sign of respect to both the space and the people — a very important ritual. I see the mirrors and the curves of other bodies in the ’empty’ room. I recognize this as a studio for dance or theatre making or practicing. This space and place is a home away from home for me yet I still have fleeting moments of feeling like an outsider. Perhaps it is because in the reflection of the mirror I see the Taipei skyline, mountains, unfamiliar faces, bubble tea, rice rolls, books or magazines written in characters I cannot read. Sometimes I feel comfortable and relaxed in the shared communal canvas filled with shades of different colours painting a new picture, telling a new story each day, each hour, each minute, each second…in such moments I feel inclined to lay down, slouch a little bit, look out the window if I want. In this relaxed familiarity I am able to soak in every encounter within the shared environment; an intersection of emptiness and possibility. The studio, this home, possibly provides some level of certainty and safety for each dancer, choreographer, and scholar (most of us have some history of using a studio).
Other times I feel like I need to behave as a guest in someone’s living room or kitchen. I feel the choreographers, the hosts, are inviting me to dinner or to come over for an afternoon tea. It’s as if I have the rare glimpse of individuals embarking on the most intimate of daily routine. It’s as if I am peering over the shoulder of someone concocting a feast using a secret recipe or I am in the room while someone dusts family pictures with an accumulating sense of nostalgia. Perhaps I feel like I am an intruder in a house, spying on a family.
I embody a tension between the familiar and non-familiar as I recognize my home sweet home in the studio and then, realize I am indeed 10000 miles from my first home- a place that always leaves very specific imprints. What do our various homes and senses of home grant us as observers and makers? What have my homes allowed me to embody and dis-embody? What is being recognized and what is being longed for?
Yes the familiar experience of the tension between the familiar and unfamiliar! This has helped me construct the Abstract for the conference paper I will present on 20th August – an interesting exercise as the experience of ArtsCross that forms the core of the paper, is not complete – I have to engage in contingencies as well as stating what is apparent now.
The question of the familiar came to mind as did the return of the performative nature of this project, focused on performance processes and practices – but also a significant gesture in a wider context.
So I wrote as the Abstract:
We are grounded in the familiar – the working environment of the studio, and we are focused on artistic processes and practices. But we are also aware that performance can act as a barometer, reflecting changes that are yet to come; or can serve as an agent for change; or can activate reminders of our roots and traditions. We are also aware that we are meeting and exchanging at a time of extraordinary change – the globalised, interdependent world is a reality, and the impetus for greater understanding has never been more acute.
In the studio and on stage, we witness the familiar and unfamiliar, and our engagement with the unfamiliar leads us to question the familiar. In this way we discover the invisible, everyday assumptions that shape our thinking – they become visible and open to question. This is the reflexive awareness that offers new insights and which feeds our understanding of others and of ourselves. It also strengthens our partnership and will act as a compass for our journey through the three events that are planned (Taipei 2011, Beijing 2012, London 2013) and, we hope, further into the future.
That’s a lovely post Kate, and really gets into something of what it is to be in those spaces. It’s a very different sort of watching from spectating. There’s a lot of listening going on, but maybe also, as Ted mentioned in a post a couple of days ago I think, an effort towards also feeling together with the people in whose processes we are engaged. The dancers were getting so tired on Friday, that it became hard to watch.
I like the idea of the barometer Chris. It occurred to me at the end of last week that much of this experience has been to do with taking sorts of atmospheric readings – not least because of a need to adjust to the humidity. In this air-con culture, one walks out of the heat and into the cool and out again, and your whole physiology has to adjust. Its a very somatic response to environment. Although its’s less acute in some ways, I find not dissimilar adjustments needing to be made in moving in between the different rehearsal rooms. The atmospheric conditions are so different between and amongst them. This is at times to do with the quality and the nature of the work being undertaken, the content or timbre of the piece itself, or at times just the disposition of those in there, variously tired or alert, some marking through moves whilst waiting their turn, others going over a move again and again until the sense of it comes through in line with what the choreographer wants. But as Kate notes, there’s also a sense in which these rehearsal room atmospheres are connected to a climate outside of them. Outside Li Shanshan’s rehearsal in Studio 4 on Thursday, a group of young girls watched open mouthed as the performers did a run through, trying to pretend that they weren’t watching, but utterly compelled to do so all the same.
Hello Kate, and thank-you for taking me into the room from afar. This reply comes late but am eagerly catching up on the observations of you and all.