Creative process - research's existence in and outside of the studio

Dear Practice,

As you continue to develop through reading, writing, moving, embodying, exploring, and sensing, I aim to successfully carry this progression with me, as I transform my knowledge into movement within a space of sharp form. This thought of endless flux, that is integrated in natural environments, becomes distant as I step into a unicoloured room where I am met by my own reflection staring back at me, critically observing my every move.

I close my eyes and let my mind transport me out of this space and into the realm of seemingly endless possibilities, that I have been exploring on my journey with you. I revivify the opportunities found in each living moment, easily explored though sensation, nowness, and connectivity to oneself. The imagery of fractals, patterns of chaos and flux, flow through my mind as I send my body into motion, grabbing onto the research through embodiment and intricate movements.

The natural diverse dynamics living just outside the windows of the room I move in, layer onto the motions of my body. Now, somehow, they feel easily accessible.

Our development and explorations together have created a new tool I can access, opening up a world of creativity that lives and breathes all around me.

In a way, the linear form of the room feels more transparent each time I layer onto my knowledge, and the lines between my movement and the natural environment we live in feel more intertwined.

Sincerely,

Íris

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Dear Dancer,

As we have been moving together through Qi Gong, Suryodarmo's principles, mindfulness, and outdoor open spaces, it feels interesting to step into the studio to compose material for our research project. In your practical experimentations you have considered sensations, sounds, patterns, visual and movement dynamics when creating and putting together phrases of movement in order to create a dance with nature. The way you have brought your new knowledge into the studio seems like a pathway you could keep developing so that this is easily accessible to you each time you enter a non-natural space. You have made sure to take time to connect to yourself before your dancers enter the studio, through mindfulness practice, Qi Gong and reflective writing. You have also been bringing with you visual imagery and recollections of sensations from your outdoor practice, that you have gathered throughout the project period, as well as points drawn from other practitoners' experiences working in nature. You have also tried to convey this to your dancers through sharing your reflective poetry before rehearsals, by providing verbal insight into your research and line of enquiry, moving outdoors, and including breath-work, connectivity, and Qi Gong movements in your phrases.

However, in an ideal setting, you would have composed and rehearsed all of the movements outdoors to acquire the maximum effect of your research. Due to weather conditions and time management with your dancers when it came to rehearsals, this was unfortunately not possible at this time, but for future projects this would be worth exploring and looking into. Moreover, including the dancers sooner would have helped them grasp the ideas of your research even better and helped them embody the specific intentions of the movements with more ease and understanding. It was good that although you intend to use music in the final 'product' of the project, you did not set any of the phrases to music and you did not play any specific tracks in rehearsals. This underpinned that the dancers were expected to connect to themselves, each other, and their surroundings, as the music could have affected the overall embodiment and produced a different effect.

Furthermore, the rehearsal that you did with your dancers outside in nature, proved helpful in the creative process. As you brought your research into a studio space to compose movements, bringing the phrases outdoors resulted in changes of some of the material, as the actual sensations of the specific environment proved to have a different connection to the movement and affect the flow of the phrase. This also proves Suryodarmo's point of each moment being in flux, how your existence in one particular space affects the way you move, and how movement in different environments is a new lesson each time (Sapp, 2016, 09:05).

I look forward to seeing how the filming process will capture your research and display the motions brought through your newfound embodied knowledge.

Sincerely,

Practice

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Dear Practice,

It is true what you mentioned in regards to the rehearsal outside with the dancers. Dancing outside put the ideas into a clearer perspective in regards to the research, as well as revealing some elements that needed altering. One thing we came to realise was that the choreography needed shoes when executing it in the outdoor space for an ideal movement flow, different from what I had experienced in my practice throughout the research process. After reflecting on this I realised I could make a link from this to previous investigations and research I have done for this project. As you mention above, the idea of constant flux and being in the moment is an inherent and vital aspect of practices around moving in nature (Sapp, 2016, 09:05), therefore perhaps the idea of utilising set-choreography could be considered a discrepancy when displaying movement research of this sort. When observing both Andrea Olsen and Suprapto Suryodarmo, both of them use improvisation when moving in nature, which is in line with being present in each moment as the movements are then clearly affected by what is happening in that particular time and space. Therefore, using phrases and rehearsed material is more of an embodied practice of a past moment in a specific space. I believe in order to bring the type of research into the studio for future practices, this is one way of doing it, but keeping up the more improvised practice in nature becomes vital in order to be able to reference and relate back when setting the choreography.

The dancers' experience dancing in water also springs to mind. As I spoke about before, in relation to research behind humans' experience of immersion in water, many people shared how it provided mental clarity and a mindful state. As I observed the dancers immerse themselves in the water, it took a few takes to get the material correctly in the filming process, as the dancers found it difficult to remember the phrase when they stepped into the cold water. They described to me later how their focus shifted solely onto the cold of the water and calming down their breathing and bodily state. It took time for them to settle into the environment, which can also be thought of as a process of 'blurring the lines between body and environment'. If I had more time, it would have proved interesting to bring this state of being they experienced back into the studio and see the results when putting it into movement.

Presently in flux, in motion, in creation,

- Íris