Choreographic Principles in 'Affective Choreographies'
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7577/information.5063Keywords:
choreography, artistic research, affect, choreographic principles, audienceAbstract
This article is based on my PhD project in artistic research, Affective Choreographies (2019), and the aim is to share this with focus on central research themes, research questions and choreographic principles developed within the practise. I will lay out two directions within affect theory; Brian Massumi’s theory of affect and Silvan Tomkins’ psychobiology of differential affects. The central research questions is “How can particular choreographic principles employed in the performances create potentiality for affect to occur amongst the audience?” Two perspectives are important to how these questions were approached; the audience as receivers of the performances where the questions were put into practise, and the idea of potentiality as something which can and cannot be actualized. The six performances created during the research period all took shape as what I have called choreography as assemblage. The choreographic assemblages contain both human and non-human movement which carry the potential for kinaesthetic transference.
Situated in choreographic assemblages and using kinaesthetic transference as a tool, three main choreographic principles were developed and employed through my research: minimal composition: slowness and repetition, multi-referencing and performer as matter. A particular focus is the affective potentiality within each choreographic principle and how these principles operate both within the realm of Massumian affect as well as within Tomkins School affect. This implies a blurring of the division between the two or working them simultaneously, something which might be a theoretical impossibility but still, I claim, possible in practise.
Cover image from Ingri Fiksdal's work Shadows of Tomorrow. Photo: Anders Lindén ©.
References
Agamben, G. and Heller-Roazen, D. (1999). Potentialities: Collected Essays in Philosophy. Meridian: Crossing Aesthetics. Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press.
Bennett, J. (2010) Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things. Durham, N.C: Duke University Press.
Blanc, Axelle. (2012). Kaleidoscope Eyes: The Art of the 60s Psychedelic Light Show. Revue October 2012.
Burt, R. (2006). Judson Dance Theater: Performative Traces. London; New York: Routledge
Deleuze, G., and Guattari, F. (2000). A Thousand Plateaus. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Fiksdal, I. (2018). Affective Choreographies. Oslo: Kunsthøgskolen i Oslo.
Fraleigh, S. H. (1987). Dance and the Lived Body: A Descriptive Aesthetics. Pittsburgh, Pa: University of Pittsburgh Press.
Frederiksen, M. B. (2012). Styr dine følelser! En affektiv vending. In Frederiksen, Petersen, Andreasen, Brædder, Baagø, Kladakis and Kokholm (Ed.) I Affekt. Copenhagen: Københavns Universitet
Galembo, P. and Okeke-Agulu, C. (2010). Maske. London: Boot.
Glissant, É. (2009). Philosophy of the Relation. Michigan: University of Michigan Press.
Gregg, M., and Seigworth, G. (2010). An Inventory of Shimmers. In Gregg, M., and Seigworth, G. (Ed.) The Affect Theory Reader. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.
Harman, G. (2009) Prince of Networks: Bruno Latour and Metaphysics. Anamnesis. Melbourne: re.press
Ingvartsen, M. (2016) (2 March 2018). The Artificial Nature Project – Or how to make choreography for nonhuman performers. https://www.metteingvartsen.net/texts_interviews/the-artificial-nature-project-or-how-to-make-choreography-for-non-human-performers/
Lepecki, A. (2016). Singularities: Dance in the Age of Performance. London: Routledge.
Massumi, B. (2000). Notes on the Translation and Acknowledgments. In Deleuze and Guattari's A Thousand Plateaus (p.xvi-xix). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
O’Sullivan, S. (2006). Art Encounters Deleuze and Guattari: Thought Beyond Representation. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK
Sheets-Johnstone, M. (1981). Thinking in Movement. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 39(4) pp. 399–407
Shouse, E. (2005). Feeling, Emotion, Affect. M/C Journal, 8(6). https://doi.org/10.5204/mcj.2443
Performances referenced
Ingvartsen, M. (16 March 2014). The Artificial Nature Project
Jerez, M. (26 February 2016). BLOB
Michelson, S. (28 January 2012). Devotion Study #1 – The American Dancer
Raad, W. (14 May 2011). Scratching on Things I Could Disavow: A History of Art in the Arab World
Wauhaus (15 December 2016). Flashdance
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2022 Ingri Midgard Fiksdal
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).