Τhe Young conference/ Kask & Conservatorium Ghent

'Me and a fly in an empty studio', is a micro lecture on knowledge and the conflicting desires of wanting to learn on the one hand, and the desire to get rid of the same learnt knowledge when it becomes a means of subjugation, on the other. Through this lecture, the audience is guided into an imaginary choreography based on only one sentence. The question is: ‘What is left to imagine together, when no bodies are on stage, no music is there, no objects are used, and we are left with only one sentence of six words that is repeated for 10 minutes?’.

Lights on, the performer enters the room, goes to the podium.

She reads from her papers :

I am here today to do my artistic research through writing, while taking into account an audience that is attending it.

Turns to the audience . she says : hi, hello. hey.

She looks at them, after a while she decides to leave the podium and go to greet the audience in person.

She goes and shakes the hand of each member of the audience saying hello, hi.

She returns to the podium. She says:

I am expected to have worked in terms of content. Do I make content while I am speaking? And dramaturgy. How am I presenting it?

How am I p r e s e n t i n g i t ? Gestures

How am I presenting it?

She freezes in fear she puts her hand on her mouth. Takes deep breaths,. She says : “Just please give me a second and I will be ok”.

Silence (she stays with her hands on her face ). She takes deep breaths, closes her eyes, in an attempt to find her normal breath.

After a while she continues in the tone she has started: How do I share, and what do I share , what do I leave out?

(turns to the audience- as if she replies to someone from the audience) Yes, I am a lot better now thank you.

A year ago I started discussing with my close collaborator (she shows a picture of her in which she is in a pondering position ) Anne, about what is it that we are doing. What is it that we are. As artists , as researchers? What are our basic questions are, what is it that we are as women.

What is it that we want to do, to show, to write, to say, to breath. What is it that we want to dance, to speak, to reflect, to take care of? What is it … (she leaves the last “what is it” open in her logos, without a full stop, open for interpretation)

I will borrow the idea that stayed within the group, yes, there was a group and but… emmmm… initially, it was only me. In an empty studio. And a fly. She shows with her hands the movement of a fly flying and says :zzzzz

Me and a fly in an empty studio.

(She shows photos of spaces, all are empty of people, some have furniture, others not.)

Looking for complexities, contradictions, and tensions.

(Exegesis) : I am that and the other, I am in language and in movement, I am both that and the other, both that and that, this as that, that as that, that not…

Starting there where something has already happened, this is actually the way Deleuze describes the difference between a short story and a tale. (but I read it in La Ribot’s book). So, Deleuze argues that the difference between a tale and a short story is that the former is oriented towards the question “what is going to happen”. In the short story, however, something has already happened, “not with the content or object of the secret to be discovered, but with the form of the secret which remains impenetrable.” La Ribot volume II, merz & centre national de la danse (2004, p.61)

Me and a fly in an empty studio

Exhausting dance in an empty studio

You know what? I wanted to show movement, while saying this line “exhausting dance in an empty studio” . But, I don’t feel safe with the representation of movement. Because I was trained as dancer, I judge myself for every movement I show to an audience. And I think I am bad at it. To make myself clear, what I think I am bad at, is showing anything that is danced outside training or technique. I don’t like my movement uncontrolled let’s say. Or maybe “unsophisticated” is the right word? And the paradox is that I spent years and years in trying to get rid of techniques that my body was trained in, because I felt trapped in them. So now , for different reasons, I can neither dance within technique nor outside of it. I reject my self in showing movement.

Pause

I started training in dance at the age of three. I loved it so much that I used to go from my house to the ballet school in first position with a perfectly pointed for the age of four, foot. People were staring at me , and the more they stared the more I tried to perfect my posture…(she shows the posture)

At the age of eleven I auditioned for the State School of Dance, (Kratiki) which back then was mainly a classical ballet school in which children trained to become most of the times ballerinas and were also prepared to enter the Greek National Opera. Children from all over Greece were applying to the audition, several rounds of classes and exams took place, and we had to show our capacities to a varied mixture of teachers and committees. Parents were boosting eleven year olds standing in line from 8 o’clock in the morning outside the school. Children were crying, and sweating and felt vulnerable sometimes only to be rejected after one class. The race, it felt like a race, was taking place for several hours and days. I passed the first day, the second, I was expecting final results. From the hundreds of children who took the audition only EIGHT would get in. The phone rings, I am at school, my mother tells me: You are in. I am in , I am in, I am good, what do I say, I am the best, I am eleven years old and one of the eight most talented children in Greece, who can do first, and second and third position and pirouettes and go on points barefoot no mater how much blood and flesh is left on the shoe after you take it out . My joy didn’t last much though, neither my feeling of being a talent, as from the first day it was made clear that all of us had to compete with each other, as if there was not enough space for all of us, as if the fittest was going to survive us all… We were weighted almost every week, spent days and nights perfecting fouettes, be thrown shoes when they were not well sewed, and had no free weekends . I could not hold my leg for a long time in the side and turn around myself (she goes to the center and shows the turn), my mother was told it’s ok to include a bit of pasta in my week menu, but cheese and tomato sauce should be forbidden from my diet.

At the age of 15, having reached my psychological limits, and having no more stamina to resist the competition, I quit the school, and with it the dream of a successful ballet career. (doing a ballet posture with grace).

It takes many more years and a lot of effort to take out of my body the style and technique I learned there, a style so recognizable that when for the first time after no dancing at all, I dare to go to a random contemporary dance class, the teacher asks with curiosity: did you study dance at Kratiki?

Yes. Thirteen years ago, I reply.

Pause

Back to my line. Exhausting dance in an empty studio. I was thinking as I was telling you, that because I don’t feel safe in showing movement maybe if you agree, we could imagine together a dance while I say this line.

I would like us to see if we can all together take the time to get rid of clichés, imagine dance in an abstract way, and also see what ‘remains’ to imagine together.

What possibilities do we have to imagine a choreography with only this sentence. In other words, what is left to imagine together as a dance when no bodies are on stage, no music is there, no objects are used, and we are left just with one sentence of one, two, three (she counts) six words that I repeat for about 10 minutes?

I will try to guide us through this imaginative choreography.

Ok ? let’s try!

She stands still. She says :

exhausting dance

in an

empty

studio

exhausting

dance

empty

studio

studio dance in

an studio

empty

empty in dance

in an exhausting in an dance

in an empty dance

exhausting an empty studio

studio dance

dance studio

in in dance

in an dance studio empty

studio

studio, studio, studio, studio, studio, studio, studio , studio ,studio

dance

an in dance, dance , dance, dance , dance, dance, dance, dance, dance, dance

exhausting

exhausting in dance

exhausting empty

exhausting exhausting exhausting exhausting exhausting exhausting exhausting

empty dance

empty empty empty empty empty empty empty emty empty empty empty empty

dance studio empty

an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an

in dance studio

in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in in

empty an dance exhausting studio in

dance empty in studio exhausting an

exhausting an dance in studio empty

in empty an dance studio exhausting

an in studio exhausting dance empty

studio an exhausting in empty dance

empty dance an exhausting in studio

dance in studio an exhausting empty

exhausting in empty an studio dance

in exhausting dance an studio empty

an empty studio in exhausting dance

studio dance in an exhausting empty

empty exhausting in studio dance an

dance studio in empty an exhausting

exhausting studio in an empty dance

empty dance an studio exhausting in

in an em in an em

-pty

in an em-pty

in-pty, an-pty, em-pty,

sti-pti-stu sting-sti-pty

sti-stn

di-da dio-da

dio- haus- o-ex-o –o, ex-o-o, ex-o-o

in an em – o

in an dance –da ex –ex-o

sting- sting-ing

exhaust

ex-haus (aspired)

ex-HAUST ex-hempt (aspired)

hempt

hem-pty

in –an – em

in-an-em

o – ou- i- studio

ex-o-i- ou-i-o

stou ouououououou

studio

stou di iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii sting

sting

exhausting

ing

dance –ing

empt-ing

stn- ing

ex-ing

di-ing , dying, dying, dyioying, dyioying ding, ng

dance

dann ccccccccccccc

stu-di-o

stu- dio (god)

stu-deus

stu-din-an-en

stu-di-I

stu-di-I I I

stu-di-I I I I I I I I I I I I I Fly

I fly

Empt- I

Ex-I

Ex-haust-I

fly

Ex- FLY

Ex-haus –dance- in empt-stou

Hosting-dance-in-empt-stu

Hosting-da-in –em-stu

Osting-da-i-e-st

Sting-da –i-e-ou

o-i-a-i-e-ou

e-o-i-a-i-e-ou

ex-ho-sting-da

ex-xo-sting-dance-ting

ex-ho-danc-ing

ex-ho-pti-stou

haus

aus

dance haus

dance hus

hus

in-an-in-an

dida da di da

ance

an-ce ance

ance

ance ance ance ance ance ance ance ance ance ance

d ance

tr ance

tr r

a -r

ai-r

flai-r

ca-re

care care care care

dance

studio

an in

ou –n

ou-ni

empty

ou-ni-ty

you-ni-ty

you-ni-ty, you-ni-ty

munity

mmunity

omuni-ty

o-mu-ni-ty

com-mu-ni-ty

co-mmu-ni-ty

dance dance

care

dan-ccccccc

ccccccc

iccccc

em-pty

mmmmmm

i-ccccc-m

ism

shism

schism

vism

ivism, tivism, ktivism, ektivism, lectivism, co-lle-ctiv-ism

collectivism

care

dance

community

dance

ance

She stops talking, remains still and silent with her eyes closed for a few seconds.

She says: ok, thank you. She leaves the room.