Photo: Noah Lewis
Shelter-in-Place Dance Dictionary as Biography as Bibliography….
By Christy Funsch
Self-space:
“You are changing space. The space has never been changed quite like this before.” Deborah Hay
Spatial awareness:
Zaha Hadid; “Architecture is how the person places herself in the space. Fashion is about how you place the object on the person.”
Spaciousness:
“One part of the body is not compressing any other part” Julie Mayo; Skinner Releasing class, Movement Research; April 2020
Site-specific:
Carsick, John Waters; 2014
Site-adaptive:
Dogville;Lars von Trier; 2004
Exorcism of Desire:
Improvisation:
Aura Fischbeck Shelter in place score (written 3/27/2020):
“Occupy as much space as you can, with your body, your breath and/or your mind/spirit. Hold onto this feeling for a while (as long as it takes to feel a change) and then gradually let the feeling evaporate. There is movement in this (as much or as little is pleasurable). Then. Slowly. Deflate. It’s ok. Time to disappear. Rest like it’s your fucking job. Like it’s your fucking paycheck paying job. Rest. Really, really rest.”
Studio practice:
Inging and nonstopping; Jeanine Durning; “…as opposed to continuous, [which] implies 'going with the flow,' nonstop points to the critical nature of what it takes to keep going in the midst of, and despite, questions, doubts, limitations, and of course, inevitable failures.”
Solo practice:
Patti Smith; “As far as I'm concerned, being any gender is a drag.”
Daily practice:
A Choreographic Mind; Susan Rethorst; “Dailiness and nothing. These too are critical to this choreographer’s work. Susan often cites John Cage as a major influence. Cage once said 'I have nothing to say, I am saying it, and that is poetry.' To this Susan might reply 'I have nothing to do, I am doing it, and that is dance.' ” Judy Hussie-Taylor
Rigorous Fun:
Michael Maslin; dailiness and whimsy
Teaching:
Cynthia Oliver: “I want to get dirty, acknowledge demons, hail the angels, tell secrets, question and celebrate conflicted, complicated, glorious lives fully lived.”
Moving together:
“You Can Have it All;” George McCrae
Time:
Luciana Achugar: “I make work with a desire to escape the oppression of the arrow of time; to arrive at a place of beyond time, Body time… In Marissa Perel’s words when writing about OTRO TEATRO (2014): 'But then to think about time differently. To go toward the slippage from one kind of time into another. OTRO TEATRO was three hours long, but it felt to me like no time. It was ritual time. It was a suspension of that other time, the schedule. […] It was an experience of another time with other bodies, it was an experience of a space that held all the bodies, and it was also a mass revolt. It was our task to be in this together, to allow ourselves to be overcome and to surrender to sensation.'”
Tempo and Pace:
Vera Mantero; “Life is a terribly complicated and rich phenomenon and I see the work I do as a continuous fight against the impoverishment of the spirit, both mine and others, a fight that I consider essential now and always.”
Rhythm:
Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan; process and perception
Duration and unconscious continuance:
Lydia Davis; pushing the form; “There was a very useful writing book, whose name I’ve forgotten now, that I used to give to students. The author had an interesting pattern of conscious versus unconscious. In other words, conscious writing and organizing and then unconscious and less controlled writing. It has to do with allowing the less conscious and controlled part of your brain to continue to work. I find this happens all the time and it’s very important. I’ve been working on something, and then I stop because I’m going to make lunch, but my brain doesn’t stop. That’s why I feel the advice is crucial, because if I went to the kitchen and turned on the radio or started talking to someone, then this couldn’t happen, it would not be possible. But if I don’t do any of those things, then, as I’m making the sandwich, or whatever, my brain will continue to work on what I was working on and come up with another idea or a better phrasing or an expansion of a sentence.” From Five Dials interview, Winter 2019-20
Audience:
“A landscape doesn’t demand from the spectator his “understanding,” his imputations of significance, his anxieties and sympathies; it demands, rather, his absence, it asks that he not add anything to it. Contemplation, strictly speaking, entails self-forgetfulness on the part of the spectator: an object worthy of contemplation is one which, in effect, annihilates the perceiving subject.” Susan Sontag; On Style; 1965.
Process versus product:
Cornelia Parker; process; “I like to take man-made objects and push them to the point where they almost lose their reference, so that they become something else, take on other alliances.”
Documentation:
“What’s the difference between reading about something you’ve experienced and being exposed to something that you’re opening yourself to for the first time through that exposure? Can words and images actually convey movement worlds? I believe they can.” Nancy Stark Smith; “Sensation as Portal: Worlds within worlds within words;” Contact Quarterly Journal; Winter/Spring 2015
Reflection….Refraction:
Sarah Cooper; @sarahcpr; https://thecooperreview.com/10-tricks-appear-smart-meetings/; How to Be Successful Without Hurting Men's Feelings
Self-care:
“Breathe and be ready to change. Change is here to stay.” Irmgard Bartenieff
Christy Funsch formed Funsch Dance in 2002 and has since been presented nationally and internationally. She has enjoyed rich collaborations with Stephen Pelton, Nol Simonse, Julie Mayo, Peiling Kao, and she has also worked with Susan Rethorst, Katie Faulkner, Dandelion Dancetheater, and many others. She holds an MFA and a Laban Movement Analysis Certification, and she has been awarded choreographic residencies at CounterPULSE, Djerassi, Shawl-Anderson, the U Cross Foundation, and Yaddo. She has been an artist in residence at James Madison University, University of Nebraska Lincoln, and Virginia Commonwealth University. In 2014, Christy was mentored by Tere O’Connor, presented in Yerba Buena’s Bay Area Now Series, and named one of Dance Magazine’s “25 to Watch.” In 2015 she taught her improvisational practice 100 Days Score at ImpulsTANZ, and she became the first woman to be granted permission to perform Daniel Nagrin’s 1965 solo, Path. She was a Fulbright Scholar at Lisbon’s Escola Superior de Dança in 2019. Visit www.funschdance.org.
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Related posts:
Artist profile: Christy Funsch
Artist profile: Jeanine Durning
The Choreographic Moment: Jeanine Durning
Artist profile: Cynthia Oliver
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Posted by: Christy Funsch | 05/08/2020 at 05:47 AM