hardly the same: a dance guide to mess up body&mind

-Duo piece of 50’ minutes duration, 100 sqm surface and a musician on or around the stage.

The composition exhibits some coordinated organizational possibilities of spatial and temporal placements of the mapped movements of two bodies.

The simultaneous presence, and activation of the systems in which the organization consists, compose the common and enhanced function of the two dancers. Each of the 160 designed movements must occur in a specific spacing and thus timing in relation to both the mental mapping to which it corresponds and the other dancer. A chain of constructing and dissoluting embodied vector illustrations designed within a three-dimensional system of representation of space using the body as a metric tool.

To understand the limits of each form we set a zero point or equilibrium position: e.g. the "neutral upright position". Assuming that movement starts during the first shift from the z.p. and finishes when it returns to it, we applied different performance tactics and attempted some distortions of the principals. Some of the movement-forms are strictly defined from beginning to end, others have to invent their end real-time and others start before the previous one ends. Nevertheless, every form must appear and dissolve here and now.




The final score consists of the arbitrary determinations of specific combinations and sequences between the 160 common movement-forms and the successive transitions from one tactic to another. Finally, it contains areas and durations where what is done is put under "discussion" and "thought" by the two dancers. A set of open choices regarding where, when and what, impose the need for coordination and conciliation making the attention to the presence and operation of the other a precondition to continuing.



The body here is activated as a carrier of the aesthetic object which is the form. The form on the other hand does not exist outside or before the body. All the choreographic functions and orientations that have been selected (in relation to the spatial coordination, the combinations of movements, the kinetic instruction that is applied in each part) aim at the alienating the dancer from the form and the choreography requiring their absolute commitment with it while the viewer is called to appropriate in this unfamiliar kinetic state.



The music ‘s components are some fragments of recordings which were made using each movement-form. During the creation process, after completing the production of the 160 catalogue which was based on a mental map. We tried with a group of musicians to create a distinct sound for each movement-form.These had to share properties with the movements (for example synthetic or improvisational instruction) and also to coordinate with them.

 

Credits:

Choreography: Dimitris Mytilinaios
Co-creation / Execution: Nefeli Asteriou, Dimitris Mytilineos
Lighting: Apostolos Strantzalis
Sound design: George Provatopoulos
Photos / Video / Prints: Suku / Marina Skoutela
Thanks to Markella Manoliadi, Myrto Katsiki, Tasos Koukoutas, Nefeli Gioti, Venetsiana Kalampaliki, Alexios Avlonitis, Konstantinos Patsourakis, Toulis & Lambros, Lila & Christo, K. & X.