Public body public dance
Is a research project, for both the creation of dances in the public space and the development of a deep understanding on the existing diversity in ways of perceiving and making use of our bodies.
I depart from the idea that the presence and behaviour of our bodies in the public space collaborate with the creation of an imagery of this space and with the development of its history and daily realities and, therefore, with the development of collective behaviour patterns.
My interest on the study of the body and its behaviour in the public space comes from my understanding of the creative process as a communication process and from my understanding of the body as a basic essential tool for the assimilation of contents. Therefore, from the body as a tool for communication among people, in terms of its expressive and receptive-interpretative potentials, appealing to kinaesthetic resonance, sensory perception and intellectual assimilation processes.
As a dancer and artist, it is my interest to share my creative processes with the audience, not in terms of the exhibition of a product, but in terms of meaning creation during the event of the performance. I consider the audience as both receptive and creative, since they create their own readings and meanings of the event perceived.
Now, if what I want is to participate of a communication process through the body, I need to learn the diverse possible languages of my interlocutors. This is one of the main motors of my research.
The public space is an infinite container of information on how we people make use of the communicative potential of our bodies and those of the other people as readers.
If we consider the public space as a space where socio-cultural, political and commercial values are inscribed; a space where the diversity of interests from different sectors of society live together, we can also understand that this values affect, delineate, feed the behaviour of the bodies inhabiting this space so far as they become public space themselves, they become containers and reproducers of these values.
From this perspective is that I speak of the “public body”, having in account that the limits of what is public and what is not public in our bodies are very complex to delineate, if not almost impossible form my artistic perspective.
Our bodies are a constant source of information about the state of things in the specific time and space they inhabit.
A line of people standing in the walk side makes me thing there stands a bus stop, or an office in search for workers. Always depending on the city I am in, my mind will prioritize one possibility or another.
A surprissing reaction of a walking body will make me think that he or she is about to fall, or that something urgent has occurred: an emergency situation.
With the same criteria we can pay attention to subtle gestures, to body attitudes of stress, paranoia, relaxation, which will give us information about our own position in relation to the diverse bodies-persons we are sharing a specific space with.
Our bodies are also containers and reproducers of values as they bring by an amount of learned codes within the family life, schools, offices, TV… The way I dress, the words I use, the gestures, the openness or rejection to direct communication with certain people, the body posture, they are all learned or absorbed values.
And if we take in account the resonance factor, we can close the circle recognizing how other persons repeat my own actions almost as a reflex. And there is where our body behaviour in the public space and even in the “intimacy” of the family home, becomes a political action: because it possess the power of affecting other people.
Through this reading of the context, of the public space and the public body, I begin my creative process in specific sites.
Taking these processes in account my dance is one more action of my own public body. Integrating my body in this process I intend to reveal behaviour patterns and created relations, which are so impregnated in the daily life that we all have lost awareness of them.
The intention is to make visible the spaces where there are still options, where we still can choose the next direction. To open our attention towards the alternatives given by the places for the development of fluent relationships amongst our bodily, organic, emotional realities and the context we inhabit. Transforming the spaces of transition in spaces to inhabit and therefore in option-offering spaces.
The support method to reveal these patterns is mainly intuitive and depends on the sensitivity developed through specific physical training as well as on the composition tools, learned not only in the academic theatre context, but also in the observation of street situations, publicity techniques and political speeches.
Valeria Primost
Caracas, 26 de Mayo de 2008
Instituto Universitario de Danza