[Synapse elist] post for Synapse Mapping discussion

[Marnie Orr]

My creative practice is based on identifying internal systems of mapping the
external as well as the internal environments of the body. My background is
Bodyweather, having been trained and endorsed by Tess de Quincey who herself
trained under Min Tanaka - the founder of Bodyweather in 1970's Japan
working on the Bodyweather Farm with his Mai Juku Dance Company. 

 

My current practice I have recently termed Dance Ecology. For the last 3
years I am building a case to more definitively identify this practice,
looking at Dance Ecology as any research/practice focusing on body-place
relation. At large the proposed term refers to any participation of embodied
engagement with one's environments - those environments both internal and
external to the body. 

 

But Dance Ecology as a professional discipline may also need to include an
acknowledgement of: the planet as its own living organism (based on Gaia
theory); a process identifying the coexistence of opposing bodily states of
singularity and universality (inspired by Brazilian choreographer Marta
Soares); embrace parallel processes developing physicality with discourse
across art and science disciplines; and access sense-based rather than
style, shape or form-driven body/movement techniques.

 

I work in long term collaboration with butoh dancer Rachel Sweeney (Ireland)
under the title ROCKface, interdisciplinary performance research outfit. In
2007 we completed the first two stages of Mapping Project, focusing on
'triangulating body | camera | country', and developing immersive processes
of physicality and its associated discourse towards defining a compositional
blueprint for site-based performance research practice. 

 

We worked with a geographer from the Dartmoor National Park Authority,
developing communication processes and linguistic understanding of
cartographic processes whilst we together inhabited the wild and windy moors
of Dartmoor National Park, Devon, southern England. This process was held
over many meetings over the space of 9 months, culminating in 2 live-in
intensive collaborations and workshop with a small group of individuals
across various artistic disciplines.

 

The outcome of Mapping Project was indeed many more questions. However,
there were some major discoveries between Rachel and I that are very
interesting and I believe paramount in terms of 'use-ability' across
disciplines both within earth sciences and artistic processes, both
performative and non-performative. One that I am about to outline at the
World Dance Alliance Summit in Brisbane this month is Physical Approaches to
Terrain/Country. These are based on the walking body. The approaches
encompass dancing body, working body, domestic body, pilgrim body, tourist
body, aesthetic body and local body. All approaches are individually
encountered states of being, based on one's sensibilities and apperception,
levels of awareness and chosen focus at a given moment. Each approach has
its own degree of temporal and spatial content and will alter for each
person experiencing the terrain, and according to the weather of the person,
the weather of the day. There are so many more approaches that could be
applied to a greater variation of environments, for instance the
professional body.

 

I must note here that the notion of pilgrim and tourist bodies was adapted
from Z Bauman's writings on cultural identity. ROCKface has specifically
identified these approaches according to mapping physicality in context.

 

The importance of identifying Physical Approaches to Terrain enables the
individual to recognise from what 'zero point' (as the physicists have
offered) they themselves and their colleagues are beginning from, and how
this will influence their own process of mapping and charting their
immediate or local environment, their world, and hence responding to it.
>From a dancer's point of view this research is helpful in developing the
adaptable body, transformational being, capable of thriving or
subsisting/coexisting within many terrains and environments, and hopefully
bringing the world a step closer to identifying the role that physicality
plays in life, and the life of the planet.

 

Even though I have greatly reduced this line of enquiry for this entry, I
feel here is an important essence that is applicable to any discussion of
mapping, particularly as the importance of the role of the individual
becomes increasingly more accepted, in playing a part in what cultural
historian Thomas Berry defined as 'the great work'. 

 

I would love to hear your comments.

Marnie Orr

(Perth, Australia)

+61 (0)412 115 925

thebodyplot at bigpond.com

skype name: marnie.orr

 

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