Landing/Shifting: Bodies, Gender, and Ecosexuality
During April 2016, I was invited as a visiting artist/scholar by Movement Matters at Middlebury College --a 44-month institutional exploration of how human bodies literally and metaphorically shape our physical and political worlds, headed by Andrew W. Mellon Interdisciplinary Choreographer Maree ReMalia —to offer a series of events addressing bodies, gender, sexuality, ecosexuality, choreography, and Butoh. Brief descriptions of these events and photo documentation are below:
Embodiment, Dance, and Writing Gender and Sexuality:
For this session, I worked with students in Catherine W. Wright's Writing Gender and Sexuality Course. I offered a brief introduction to considering both gender and sexuality as embodied and attributed to others based on visual cues, including movement, behavior, physical features, modes of interaction, etc. I offered dance and writing about dance as an optimal site at which to attend to both the embodiment and attribution of sexuality and gender, using writing about dance as an exercise towards putting words to ways in which we live and view gender and sexuality as bodies.
Butoh Workshop:
This workshop introduced students in Katie Martin's Dance Improvisation Course and other members of the Middlebury community to the practice of Butoh. Nearly 50 people participated.
I describe Butoh as a postmodern approach to movement that originated primarily in the work of Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno in Japan in the 1950s. Synthesized in the aftermath of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, butoh —also known as Ankoku Butoh or “the dance of utter darkness” —is now practiced around the globe and has developed through many strategies for generating movement. My approach to butohcultivates shifting experiences of embodiment as a mode of becoming. Through a series of layered improvisations, the body passes through various states of awareness, duration, and deterritorialization as it is given over to a range of images and other modes of materiality. In this process, we surrender certainty of what a body means or what it might become; we experiment with the potential of the body in relation to others and task-based scores, opening possibilities for how else we might experience ourselves. In this sense, butoh provides a context in which to investigate the relationship of the body to the world; to explore what can emerge out of states of complexity, crisis, or impossibility; and to practice staying open to what might not be known.
Faculty/Staff Movement Lab:
Movement Matters hosts a weekly movement lab for Middlebury faculty and staff from a range of different departments. In this session, I had the opportunity to work with professors and staff, exploring material related to a choreographic research process for a new dance entitled FROM HERE. This was a really rich opportunity to introduce movement as a research method to faculty and staff who may not have a background in dance or dance studies.
Ecosexuality in Performance:
This talk was hosted by Mez Baker-Médard's Space, Place, and Mental Health course and was open to the public. In this presentation, I introduced ecosexuality as a framework for considering the entanglements of human sexuality with the nonhuman world, and in turn, for analyzing the ways in which performances figure possible perspectives of such entanglements. Looking specifically at Annie Sprinkle and Elizabeth Stephens' Green Wedding to the Earth, we considered how the performing arts might offer resources for reimagining, rethinking, and enacting differently the ways we understand ourselves and the more-than-human world of which we are a part.
Bodies, Gender, and Ecosexuality:
Following the "Ecosexuality in Performance" talk, I had the opportunity to have lunch with students and faculty in a more discussion-based format, hosted by the Chellis House, the Women's Resource Center on Middlebury campus. The Chellis House serves as an informational, educational and cultural resource for the students, staff and faculty at Middlebury, and provided us a space in which to discuss ecosexuality, gender, sexuality, agriculture, ecological ethics, pornography, and academic practices.
Choreography in Action:
As part of the residency, I had the opportunity to choreograph a new dance work entitled FROM HERE, a solo performed by Maree ReMalia. This piece explores pathways for movement that become available through their work together as collaborators, specifically investigating how a body approaches space and moves through effort. At the end of the residency, we shared our work-in-progress and discussed the work and our choreographic process with students, faculty, and staff who came to watch. It was a great opportunity to open our process up to the public, and to receive feedback on the work as we continue to develop it. The dance premieres on April 23 at Denison University.
Embodiment, Dance, and Writing Gender and Sexuality:
For this session, I worked with students in Catherine W. Wright's Writing Gender and Sexuality Course. I offered a brief introduction to considering both gender and sexuality as embodied and attributed to others based on visual cues, including movement, behavior, physical features, modes of interaction, etc. I offered dance and writing about dance as an optimal site at which to attend to both the embodiment and attribution of sexuality and gender, using writing about dance as an exercise towards putting words to ways in which we live and view gender and sexuality as bodies.
Butoh Workshop:
This workshop introduced students in Katie Martin's Dance Improvisation Course and other members of the Middlebury community to the practice of Butoh. Nearly 50 people participated.
I describe Butoh as a postmodern approach to movement that originated primarily in the work of Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno in Japan in the 1950s. Synthesized in the aftermath of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, butoh —also known as Ankoku Butoh or “the dance of utter darkness” —is now practiced around the globe and has developed through many strategies for generating movement. My approach to butohcultivates shifting experiences of embodiment as a mode of becoming. Through a series of layered improvisations, the body passes through various states of awareness, duration, and deterritorialization as it is given over to a range of images and other modes of materiality. In this process, we surrender certainty of what a body means or what it might become; we experiment with the potential of the body in relation to others and task-based scores, opening possibilities for how else we might experience ourselves. In this sense, butoh provides a context in which to investigate the relationship of the body to the world; to explore what can emerge out of states of complexity, crisis, or impossibility; and to practice staying open to what might not be known.
Faculty/Staff Movement Lab:
Movement Matters hosts a weekly movement lab for Middlebury faculty and staff from a range of different departments. In this session, I had the opportunity to work with professors and staff, exploring material related to a choreographic research process for a new dance entitled FROM HERE. This was a really rich opportunity to introduce movement as a research method to faculty and staff who may not have a background in dance or dance studies.
Ecosexuality in Performance:
This talk was hosted by Mez Baker-Médard's Space, Place, and Mental Health course and was open to the public. In this presentation, I introduced ecosexuality as a framework for considering the entanglements of human sexuality with the nonhuman world, and in turn, for analyzing the ways in which performances figure possible perspectives of such entanglements. Looking specifically at Annie Sprinkle and Elizabeth Stephens' Green Wedding to the Earth, we considered how the performing arts might offer resources for reimagining, rethinking, and enacting differently the ways we understand ourselves and the more-than-human world of which we are a part.
Bodies, Gender, and Ecosexuality:
Following the "Ecosexuality in Performance" talk, I had the opportunity to have lunch with students and faculty in a more discussion-based format, hosted by the Chellis House, the Women's Resource Center on Middlebury campus. The Chellis House serves as an informational, educational and cultural resource for the students, staff and faculty at Middlebury, and provided us a space in which to discuss ecosexuality, gender, sexuality, agriculture, ecological ethics, pornography, and academic practices.
Choreography in Action:
As part of the residency, I had the opportunity to choreograph a new dance work entitled FROM HERE, a solo performed by Maree ReMalia. This piece explores pathways for movement that become available through their work together as collaborators, specifically investigating how a body approaches space and moves through effort. At the end of the residency, we shared our work-in-progress and discussed the work and our choreographic process with students, faculty, and staff who came to watch. It was a great opportunity to open our process up to the public, and to receive feedback on the work as we continue to develop it. The dance premieres on April 23 at Denison University.