Walking in a cage: Attuning to atmospheric intensities through corporeality

This article discusses an artistic act: walking for seven sequential days inside a cage made of chicken wire in the grounds of a former mental hospital in Lapinlahti in Helsinki, Finland and its potential to offer insights into past events in mental hospitals through the notions of corporeal attunement and atmosphere. The idea for Walking Cage was prompted by a word in the data, which included memories by patients and non-patients of Finnish mental hospitals gathered in connection with a multidisciplinary research project. Passers-by, occasional co-walkers, weather conditions and the grounds of the former mental hospital partially formed and deformed the atmospheric qualities of the artistic research event. These qualities were experienced through corporeal attuning influenced by the Skinner Releasing Technique, a somatic movement method. The article proposes a singular way of approaching the possibilities of corporeal openness and sensibility in a choreographic process in which, illuminated by, among others, the notions of threshold and limit, one becomes a stranger to oneself by surrendering oneself to atmospheric intensities. This artistic research study adopts a phenomenological approach, drawing mainly on the ideas of Jean-Luc Nancy, Mikel Dufrenne and Emmanuel Levinas.

On self-extraction

Written under a pandemic stay-at-home order, this article conceives of flamenco choreography and performance as an artisanal craft, likening several of the tradition’s practices to the act of making a coffee. Drawing upon historical descriptions of the art form, theoretical debates from the postmodern shift in dance-making and personal anecdote, the article scrutinizes the notion of ‘self-expression’ and confronts flamenco’s enduring reputation as a dance of extravagant emotion, passion, spontaneity and authenticity. The article experiments with experiential and poetic modes of address to ruminate broadly on artisanship as a creative model for dance-makers, and proposes an interdisciplinary frame-of-mind for choreographers, from a time when traditional live performance was on pause.

Corporeal Politics: Dancing East Asia, Katherine Mezur and Emily Wilcox (eds) (2020)

Review of: Corporeal Politics: Dancing East Asia, Katherine Mezur and Emily Wilcox (eds) (2020) Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 355 pp., ISBN 978-0-47207-455-6, p/bk, $39.95

Objects of curiosity: In conversation with Kate Marsh

This conversation opens up questions of agency and visibility in performance practice.

Mix(tap)ing: A method for sampling the past to envision the future

This article outlines the theoretical and aesthetic considerations of Love’s performance-as-research method for developing interdisciplinary tap dance work – a method he identifies as Mix(tap)ing. By first narrating how he arrived to his current practice as a dancemaker and artistic researcher, Love is able to show the ways in which his method samples strategies, voices and traditions from the cultural past to imagine and work towards futuristic locations of liberation and possibility. Ultimately, Mix(tap)ing allows Love to layer intellectual concepts and theatrical conventions in order to design an approach to rhythm tap dance improvisation and choreography that is expressly Black and queer. This article is, in itself, a demonstration of Love’s method as it joins written analysis with a performed lecture script to evidence how Love has previously presented one of his Mix(tap)es.

Time, being, discourse: Elements of professional friendship in the collaboration between a costume designer and a choreographer

This article examines joint creation in contemporary performance making by analysing the collaboration between two prominent Finnish artists – costume designer Karoliina Koiso-Kanttila and choreographer Carl Knif. Using personal interviews along with performance analysis framed in relation to the Aristotelian term ‘friendship’ as components of this case study, the author draws conclusions from the process of a solo performance and its costume that foregrounds elements of friendship: sharing time, being and discourse. Viewing this relational understanding between parties as an asset, this study introduces elements of a positive approach and tools to achieve such in the making of dance performance.

The artistic practice of exorcism: Shabnam Shabazi (in conversation with Simon Ellis)

This is a conversation between artist Shabnam Shabazi and choreographer (and Choreographic Practices co-editor) Simon Ellis. They discuss Shabazi’s practice and focus on her interest in the archive as a creative resource, the role of the concept of home in her creative work and in the ways in which our bodies are sites of transformation for artists and participants.

Crossing over: Choreographing audiences over borders – Forms and problematics

This article considers the potential of participatory artistic practice that debates borders through dance. It also asks why so many dance artists choose this form to debate borders, and what practices are typical of participatory dance investigations of borders. I discuss the range of border debates in works investigating dance and borders, and I begin to consider how privilege is dealt with by the work. I examine how dance works with participation and, alongside, look at the choreographic embodied invitation concerned. Particularly, I examine these questions through the dance work Rope Piece and consider how this dance practice as research generates a collective and participatory process in relation to borders and privilege.