2018-19 / Concept & Direction as Ludic Collective
06/2018, Re-boot workshop, National Center of Dance, Bucharest (CNDB) 08/2018, Re-boot residency & workshops, Seoul Dance Center, Seoul 02/2019, Re-boot workshop & performance, Teatru Fix, Iasi
Re-boot: Unlearning Schemata Technique is a research project which is an extension of the immersive performance project Planet i., which had started in 2016; experimenting the recovery procedure of cognitive re-development from collective trauma.
After 2 years of investigation for Planet i., Ludic members began to specifically focus on the common interest in somatic re-boot as an independent technique: could we disorient our perception in such a way that we rewire our soma, and create new patterns and schemata of behaviours? We would like to discover as we convey the process of phenomenological sensing, perceiving, acknowledging different types of somatic memory, etc.
Re-boot also takes the form of somatic workshops that were open to the public, mainly developed during the residency at Seoul Dance Center by Andreea David, Hennie Lee and Iulia Maracine. We had the first week to ourselves, then in the second week held workshops for people who were interested in our theme of "unlearning" and "re-booting". Five days of workshops were designed around five different themes per each day:
1. The ‘zero’ point
Q. What is a zero point, is it a pre-conscious state? Does it contain infinite possibilities of becoming?
Process: meditational exploration; focus on breathing, then slowly activate one’s sight; protolanguage exercise.
2. Imaginary/reality
Q. How do we find ourselves in the images produced by our own projection of reality?
Process: engaging senses, especially touch; shortcutting our imagination, we will try to suspend the logic and anticipation of actions
3. Deconstructed walking
Q. Can we unlearn automatic functions of our soma? What happens when we interrupt the trajectory to the embodiment of action?
Process: exercises inspired by the Feldenkrais technique and R.Shustermann’s theories on somatic memory.
4. Memory
Q. Can we be projected by the past whilst also projecting into the future?
Process: movement exercises into long-term memories in order to reinterpret the present.
5. Otherness
Q. How do we relate to otherness? What is the foundation of communication and language?
Process: appropriate new meanings to objects and people around us through the use of movement and voice.
On the second day of the workshop in Seoul, we questioned how we find ourselves in the objectified images produced by our own projection of reality, through engaging with senses, especially touch; shortcutting our imagination, expanding our trajectories from a “point” (of perception as consumption) to other points, to let ourselves be interrupted and to suspend or interrupt the logic of actions in a way that would surprised oneself.
We began the first part of the workshop, as a warm up, with the speculated gravity exercise in 6 levels from Planet i., and when everybody reached the second lightest gravity (-2G), we introduced the phenomenological sensing exercise inspired from Ponty's text.
The second part of the workshop was introduced with the idea of reality, as something which appears to us via the contact points we acknowledge, which in this workshop was mainly investigated through the senses from our palms. It started from establishing a relationship between one's soma and a "point". Once the relationship was consumed via touching (sensing every possible information through it), participants were asked to move onto the next point in space, and by repeating this task the past encounters with points started becoming trajectories, and the forthcoming encounters were anticipated as the future. The workshop finished by interrupting the trajectories by surprising oneself, and letting the actions be transformed as its consequence.
After the workshop, Ludic members and participants shared their reflections with everyone. One participant responded with a question "could there be a such a thing as movement completely free from anticipation (purpose/intention)?" which opened the discussion on whether, first, the acknowledgement of an anticipated point, is perceived consciously or unconsciously, then also whether its way of interruption is made by a conscious choice or unconscious reaction. This discussion was closely related to the theme of "conscious, voluntary vs. unconscious, automatic" division found in cognition paradigms which was investigated more in depth later again in Day 3.
Another question which was shared was “to what degree do we interrupt our anticipation?” Since if we say no to every possible anticipation, one would end up not being able to make any movements apart from automatic reflexes that we have no control of. Similarly, pure interruption or transformation that occurs entirely independent from one's higher cognition or intention is (almost) impossible to perform, at least when one is trying it as a task in this context of a somatic/movement workshop - because the movement decisions will be processed consciously at a certain level as a response to a verbally guided instructions which needs to be processed at such high cognitive level. However, by actively denying a highly anticipated movement, one can be relatively (more unconsciously) let oneself be surprised by one's own transformed movements.
Participants and the Ludics, in their own ways, were trying to let the conscious and unconscious minds shift from one to another at various points of repetition, acknowledgement, interruption and transformation throughout this workshop, and the post-discussion/sharing ended (hopefully) with emphasising the importance of trying to achieve this mutual shifts and interaction as a method of unlearning one's bodily patterns. To “re-boot”.
Concept & development Hennie Lee Iulia Maracine Andreea David Judith v/d Made Andreas van de Kuit Patricia Vane Mircea Andrei Florea
