Jinns and others
Confucius, Analects, XV.II.1-3. 'The Master said, "Ts'ze, you think, I
suppose, that I am one who learns many things and keeps them in memory?"
Tsze-kung replied, "Yes,--but perhaps it is not so?" "No," was the answer;
"I seek a unity all-pervading."' (Legge.)
Al-Ghazali, The Recitation and Interpretation of the Qur'an (The Revival
of the Religious Sciences (Ihya' 'Ulum ad-Din). 'Anas Ibn Malik said, "It
often happens that a man recites the Qur'an, and the Qur'an curses him."'
[...] 'A certain religious scholar said, "When a son of Adam [i.e. man]
reads the Qur'an, then mingles [good with evil], and then turns [to God]
and reads it again, he is asked [by God], 'What is your relationship with
My speech?'"' (Muhammad Abul Quasem.)
Genesis P-Orridge, Interview with Carol Tessitore, Painful but Fabulous,
The Lives and Art of Genesis P-Orridge. 'It's all very public; everything
is about being available and having access to everything. The web is
supposedly fantastic because you can find everything and everyone is on
there, you can talk to everyone. It struck me that in a way privacy is
taboo.'
Marco Polo, Travels. 'Having concluded his prayer, he cried with a loud
voice: "In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, I command thee, O
mountain, to remove thyself!" Upon these words being uttered, the mountain
moved, and the earth at the same time trembled in a wonderful and alarming
manner. The khalif and all those by whom he was surrounded, were struck
with terror, and remained in a state of stupefaction. Many of the latter
became Christians, and even the khalif secretely embraced Christianity'...
(Marsden and Wright.)
===
Distance.dancerun.2
Concept/Choreography: Foofwa d'Imobilite
Dancerunners: Franziska Koller, Anja Schmidt, Foofwa d'Imobilite
Some music/text/image: Alan Sondheim
{working notes and phenomenology on the piece, which appeared in two
forms at the Kitchen in NY and will be on tour in Europe,
a work which is difficult to visualize in spite of its relationship to
dance and running, terpsichore and sport. in the latter, one might say
that the spectator watches (in the sense of competition) the signifier
left behind by the runner - the overall time of the event. in the former,
the signifier is internal - what the body _does,_ not what it accomplish-
es. or the means as opposed to the end - or the process as opposed to the
state (x = time-constant) - perhaps operator/operation as opposed to
stating/state. the _regard_ of the spectator at the dance or race. or an
exercise-running or a competition. or the submerged competition among
dances, companies, choreographers, dancers, and the overt competition
among runners. or labanotations opposed to any-winning-articulations of
whatever form.
a work divided into two sections as well - exterior and interior, the
former brought into the proscenium, spectator arena. what of a reversal -
the audience along the route, mobile video carrying the interior section
itself. do we need theaters? do we need theaters any more? the route is
the flow of information, mitigated information and performance among the
city, citying; the route is negotiated, dialog, dialectic. the interior
part is institutionalized, financed, already an economy. within the
interior, the audience-organs perform specific roles; the dancers are the
lungs and feet - the dancers in this instance are the bodies of the
audience, we want to run.
neither dance nor running, but an alliance or allegiance with the air, the
atmosphere, the spacing of the globe. they're a breath of fresh air, who
let the air in, we're giving ourselves airs, the air's a bit thick in
here, the air is the window of the soul. wavering among forms and among
bodies poised for dance, competition, running, adulation, exhaustion,
dying, rebirth, presentation, re-presentation - the event or eventing is a
becoming, not of deconstruction or disinstitutionalization, but of a
loosening of territories, not a territorialization or deterritorializa-
tion, but an opening, which is also an opening, in these dark times, of
_gladness._ it's this gladness which breathes of landscapes without
viewers, of eyes without minds, of a natural world without tending, with
tendency.
a work shaking loose notions of _work,_ at the same time tending towards
exhaustion - dancers taking breaks when necessary, covering and recovering
similar grounds when unnecessary, always _untethering,_ from running, from
dance, from dance-run, from run-dance, run-run and dance-dance, a broken
cartesian skein. - then again, this prowess and opening towards gladness.
How easy it would have been towards accolade! Carlyle's bowing figures in
the early moment, pushed beyond their limits, arms in the air, breaking
the ribbon at last! Such that England wins!
...drowned or ruined cities, submerged accolades, momentary stases, the
coming recognitions, flooded sports arenas, flooded theaters, homes,
palaces, bunkers, markets, cathedrals, the world gone upside-down...
in which the body is found between function and form, or rather form into
function which returns to form, or rather decathecting and looking (rather
than watching, i.e. watching a dance or watching a sports event, we looked
at this performance
which keeps continuing, as if there's no end to the variations, nothing of
imminent logic for example, nothing of teleology (rather than figures of
violin, of tamboura or something slowly borrowed or roughly pulsing, of
which this is a segment
in which the body keeps continuing, or finding or found, or running or
drowning, as if there's no end and nothing of it (muscle, not brawn
submerged
===
STOP!
FLASH!
U.S. CARRIER JESUS-CHRIST DESTROYED BY NUCLEAR BOMB! NO SURVIVORS! STOP!
FLASH!
U.S. STEALTH BOMBER FREEDOM DESTROYED BY PAKISTANI MISSILE! DESERT CRASH!
NO SURVIVORS! ALL WONDER-BRED AMERICAN YOUTH MASSACRED! STOP!
FLASH!
U.S. DESTROYER RIGHT-TO-LIFE DESTROYED BY MOTHER OF ALL BOMBS! NUMEROUS
CASUALTIES! STOP!
FLASH!
PLATOON GOD'S-TRUTH SMASHED BY MORTARS! STALWART TRUE-BLUE AMERICAN BOYS
AND GIRLS SLAUGHTERED! STOP!
FLASH!
AIRCRAFT CARRIER RIGHTEOUS-HAMMER SUNK BY RUSSIAN TORPEDO! ALL HANDS ON
BOARD LOST! STOP!
FLASH!
FOURTH ARMY OUR-LORD BLASTED IN POISON-GAS ATTACK! ALL ANNIHILATED! ALL
PUREBRED AMERICANS KILLED! STOP!
FLASH! flesh!
to read the book one must have an open mind and articulate carefully!
stop!
flesh!
to read the book one must give oneself totally to the book! stop!
flesh!
to read the book one must understand inner and outer meanings! stop!
flesh!
to read the book one must follow the book! stop!
flesh!
to read the book! know it refutes all other books! know it contains them!
stop!
flesh!
to read the book one must obey its commandments! stop!
flesh!
stop!
===