perpetual mvmt<>snd

emily from memory/1 w/ jil from memory/2

Our selves are porous. We take behaviors from one other, and occasionally memories, rituals, or desires. We create representations of ourselves that float free from our bodies. We tend to see ourselves in others. I have occasionally felt too permeable.

Dancers visit one another via our imaginative bodies.

imaginary is also real

Concept + video: Emily Sweeney
Performance: Jil Stifel + Emily Sweeney

I created the video by merging unedited footage of my collaborator Jil and me performing the score below (*) for 25 minutes. I selected portions of the coincidental side-by-side composition that I found particularly engaging. This work is in its earliest stages. I am developing it as a video and performance piece.

Notes:
We express ourselves through actions. Thoughts are actions that have physical properties within the brain and are therefore acting on the physical world. Targeting thought in certain ways can impact the physical world. Imaginary is also real.

My cognitive process is spread throughout my body. The state of my body/mind influences my capability for opening to interactions. Dancers alter our body schema when we move together, generating a collaborative associative state. What does this do to our sense of ourselves in the world? What has dancing done to my thinking? What type of thoughts do I distribute while dancing? To my fellow dancers? To my audience?

“Homo Sapiens is a tendency, not an entity. Every living organism is on its way to becoming, and the human organism even more so because among all living beings that we know about, we are the most open-ended.” -Kevin Kelly, What Technology Wants

*Score: our physical methods for entering into this dialogue across space and time
Each solo should take place in a space where your body feels comfortable and free to move. It should also be an energetic location where you feel capable of connecting with me, for whatever reason. Wear anything you want to. Include whatever accompanying sound you like, or move in silence.

Solo/1: Dancers find movement convergences

• Improvise for 25 minutes while meditating on your image of the other dancer moving.
• Ask yourself: What does it feel like to move as she moves? Which decisions would her body make in this moment?
• This is loosely meditative and requires no significant preparation, like a first meeting.
• Find stillness whenever you feel that you have lost the thread of connection with the other dancer’s logic and have begun to follow primarily your own body once again. Each time this happens, reconnect to the other dancer in stillness until you are brought back to movement.
• Document your improvisation with video. Please place the camera close enough that your movement fills the entire frame and something of your internal experience can be perceived by the viewer. Upload your footage.