Wednesday 27 January 2016

Editta Braun (Vile thinking... so avoid, eh?)

Previously at Manipulate...

Editta Braun Company presented the first two shows in their trilogy (Luvos and Planet Luvos). Braun's signature choreography stretches the human body into apparently impossible shapes, inverting the expected limitations of movement and conjuring other-worldly creatures and stories.

Meanwhile at The Vile Arts...

I have become obsessed with epistemology. I now think I know what it means: the theory of knowledge. And I think I know what that means too...

I'm imagining a pair of teachers. One of them cannot move, the other cannot speak. They both have a single piece of information to pass onto their student. Because of their limitations, however, they have to find different ways to communicate.

This isn't the whole story, but it suggests one aspect of epistemology. The silent teacher will most likely use some form of physical process to communicate. The immobile teacher will use words. 

Both of methods will communicate the same information, but filter it in different ways. 

Braun's choreography operates in a disruptive manner. The contortions of her dancers don't just challenge the every-day possibilities of movement: they challenge the standard physical presentation of the human body. The climax of Planet Luvos saw the arrival of what one of my students described as penis bum monsters. That really ought to attract an audience.

But this description does not quite grapple with the emotional experience of seeing Luvos. Okay, the trickery and acrobatics are cool, but something else happens. I think it is to do with muscle memory.

There is an epistemology of dance - as Fleur Darkin off Scottish Dance Theatre said in an interview with The List, dance can express feelings in a unique manner. It gets inside the body. Watching dance causes a different reaction to watching a play.

get connected with own feelings, own memories, own phantasies, own ideas - triggered by our performance.


Just let yourself go 




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