The Alan Sondheim Mail Archive

Philosophy and Others of Dance, numerous pieces, feedback welcomed


Prolog:

Maud-enunciation of avatars, pre-duet: the occupation of virtual space -
sad pirouette sad dancer lonely dancer left behind magic wand paper stars
in paper skies tiny bows and pas http://www.asondheim.org/maudatar.mp4
d'une d'une, I will hide your tiny little URL, almost so real - When the
Role disappears from dance, dance is.

When the dancer disappears, when position and momentum disappear, when
energy and space disappear, when many and one disappear; when eidetic
reduction and the phenomenological stance are flattened, historicized,
demarcated, incapable of reproduction, incapable of recuperation; the
accumulation of the symbolic, dance is disappearance, no longer imminent,
immanent: then paste, defuge, tumescent shuddering of the real. Then
nothing of the real. Then "annihilation to the limit" which is nothing.
Which is nothing at all.

Paragraphs and Chapters:

Below: "dance is" - dance philosophy, not philosophy of dance. Short
analysis and explanation of the dance series in relation to the
virtual/real, analog/digital, and governance/community. There are five
dance-is to date: Foofwa*2, Alan, Maud, Tom where it all started.
http://www.asondheim.org/alandanceis.mp3

I always wonder about dance, participating in choreography or mise-en-
scene, or compositeur, even a bit of movement; I can't dance, am awkward
and far too nervous; I admire dancers but there are very few I relate to.
Foofwa's work is close to performance, sport, theory. But it's a question
of the Sign - which is always already mute; in writing, sign is signifying
- assignation. Dance reads, constructs, deconstructs the world; this is
also a characteristic of culture in general. Dance begins and ends with
the consciousness of the body; why wear clothes? Use props? Why work for
that matter within the institution of the theater? Writing and the gospel
truth - http://www.asondheim.org/mercigrotto.mp4

There is the gospel of dance, its history, which is something else, as in
photography or any other cultural form in these thick times - it's over-
determined, obstructive, overly cognizant of cultural form, of modes of
distribution, of theatrical and terpsichorean politics, of master-disciple
relationships, of the aporia of the knotted student.

There's the gospel of the virtual, its imaginary, elsewhere, as in the
shamanic or production of images in these exfoliated times - it's overtly
misrecognized, smoothed, the incipient production of culture, telecommun-
ications, any moment of being, of absenting relationship, but of techno-
logical construct as well. And of the real, of which the less or more said
the better or the worse. http://www.asondheim.org/virtualreal.mp4

[[ sed 's/writing/real/g' < The real dances around dance; writing dances
around the real; the real dances around writing; etc. sed 's/dance/X/g'
The real Xs around X; writing Xs around the real; the real Xs around
writing; etc. < analog < digital < etc. > sed 's/real/written/g' etc. |
sed 's/real/"real"/g' | sed 's/real/X/g' -> "X" < digital == analog >
faunal cultural history < inscription < digital ]]

[[ X* ]] perhaps another term than dance, for how should definition
function here? Or perhaps neither performance nor the body. One is left
with abjection, the sublime, real/imaginary; let us call this the "abject
sublime." For we are within this era, this positioning, dulled, imploded,
decathetcted, exhausted, condition of defuge. If defuge relates to
depression, then defuge relates to the real in a manner of none other,
nothing else. And if we do not think dance, we do not think culture, we
begin to think.

Postlog:

Two sound pieces in prealpine church of Pringy (chromatic and 'Weekender'
harmonicas) - http://www.asondheim.org/charmchurch.mp3 - within which the
church signifies the tumescence of the resonator.


=