Asymmetrical Time

A Practice / Laressa Dickey (an account by Omer)

We quickly spring into action. Laressa, already shifting through the space, invites us to warm-up, for 9-minutes, with the score “I would never do that” – warming up in all the ways that ‘I’ would never warm-up through. A chaotic energy fills the space through fragmented actions. She then introduces her interest in the complex complicity, the tension of language and embodiment, inviting us to play with another score: “me; not me”. This score, much like the former, is felt as a paradox, a problem to be contemplated, imbuing the studio with introspective concentration. After several minutes she introduces another score, “asymmetrical time”, which she mentions arrives through her study of early embryonic development, in which different kinds of cells develop at different temporalities. After a few more minutes of play, she prompts us to put the provisional ‘solutions’ we found for these linguistic-embodied ‘problems’ into language – to verbalize how one configures these linguistic problems into action, into the domain of movement-practice. For example, “me; not me” can become a relationship between movement that feels authentic to movement that feels contrived; “asymmetric time” can become simultaneous movement of different body parts at different rhythms, momentums, directions. We then take moments to exchange our solutions in pairs, intersplicing a continuous exploration of the proposed scores.

We shift into another form, working in pairs. One practitioner is a mover, re-using the previous three scores and the material they generated, playing with them in a softer, more open manner; the other practitioner is a director, directing with the prompts “leave that” and “stay with that”.  When we switch roles (staying with the same partner), Laressa encourages the directors to become more physically involved, shifting through the space with the mover; to play with the dynamics which the two prompts generate; and to work with soft-focus so to include the general composition of the space – the other movers and directors – in the decision-making process.

Unfoldings / Omer Keinan

After the break, I again invite the group into a circle and introduce the experimentation process: This practice we’ve all just practiced did, and is probably still doing, something. One way of thinking about that is that it generated a shared material, a body/world we’ve tuned to together, participated in, experienced. I invite us to experiment in and on this practice, articulating this shared material. To do so, I’d like us to take some time to think through writing about the question “What did this practice do?” I’ve brough some loose pieces of paper and writing utensils, let’s write for three minutes. Now, I’d like us to share with the group 1-2 of the things we wrote down. As we go around the circle, I invite you to note down, to collect things you hear and resonate with.

In this iteration of the format, we find ourselves in a longer conversation. The shared material feels wobbly, Laressa’s proposed form-of-practice having had generated a disaggregated diffraction of experiences – what is it like to be together with difference? We then go for two sessions, roughly 9-minutes each. For each session, there are three roles: a director, who holds and guides the space in different ways; a videographer, who traces the knowledge that unfolds in the studio; and practitioners, who (in this case) can choose to enter and leave the practice space, to participate as movers in or to witness the dance.

Session #1

Practitioners: Adela Jordakova, Anna Biczok, Irene Gregoriou, Kseniia Salikhova, Laressa Dickey, Omer Keinan, Yari Stilo (Laressa and Omer mostly perform witnesses, Anna joins as a mover towards the end of the session)

Director: Claudia Bosse – Claudia decides on a track of recorded music, which sets the duration of the session. Transversally, she enters the space to whisper directorial prompts to the movers.

Videographer: Israel Aloni

Session #2

Practitioners: Adela Jordakova, Anna Biczok, Claudia Bosse, Israel Aloni, Laressa Dickey, Omer Keinan, Yari Stilo (Adela and Yari mostly perform witnesses)

Director: Irene Gregoriou – Irene decides on a track of recorded music, which sets the duration of the session. Before beginning the session, she invites us to work with the score “asymmetrical time” as a way of relating to one another and composing.

Videographer: Kseniia Salikhova