TECHNIQUES OF RESISTANCE

Negli ultimi anni, ispirato dagli insegnamenti e scritti di Steve Paxton, dai miei studi di Rolfing e dalla mia collaborazione con danzatori e l'insegnante di metodo Alexander, Matthieu Gaudea, sono arrivato a domandarmi: “quali sono le tecniche interiori che sono alla base, o sono nutrite, dalla mia pratica di Contact improvisation?” Durante questo workshop intensivo condividerò la mia attuale ricerca che ho nominato “Tecniche di resistenza”.
Intendo condividere non il “cosa”, bensì il “come”. Come entrare assieme nella ricerca attraverso la danza, come trasformare l'esperienza in linguaggio e di nuovo il linguaggio in un piano concreto di esplorazione. Nella contact spesso parliamo di “non fare”, “lasciar andare”, “abbandonarsi” o “seguire il punto di contatto”... Durante il tempo che passeremo assieme vorrei proporvi uno scenario in qualche modo diverso, per approcciarci alla nostra pratica: tecniche di resistenza.
Asaf


Over the last few years, inspired by Steve Paxton writings and teachings, my study of the Rolfing technique and my close collaboration with dancer and Alexander teacher Matthieu Gaudeau, I have come to ask, what are the interior techniques that underlie or are trained by my CI practice. In my mind, just like improvisation, interior techniques are not something that can be taught. It is about auto-didactics. During this 4 days together, I will share my current research which I frame (at the moment) as ’techniques of resistance’. My intention is to share with you not the ‘what’ but the ‘how’. How to go about researching together through dancing, how to lab, how to turn experience into language and language back into a concrete research plan. The visual artist Vajiko Chachkhiani writes with respect to his work: "My main intention is not to work directly against a situation, but a certain resistance is part of it.” Alexander technique is based on the concept of inhibition. A similar intuition is often called upon by teachers of improvisation (when an idea comes to your head, don’t act upon it, wait for the next one, etc…). In Rolfing, the notion of inhibition is not foregrounded as such. Instead, the technique is based on the study of how the body organizes itself in gravity and how to let the tonic muscular system take care of these negotiations (rather than the phasic, voluntary, muscular system). In CI we often talk about ’non-doing', ‘letting go’, ‘surrendering’ or ‘following the point of contact’. During our time together, inspired by Vajiko Chachkhiani’s words, and by the event philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari, I would like to propose a somewhat different, but I suggest, more general framework to think these different practices and in particular CI: techniques of resistance. Instead of trying to name here what I mean by this term, I invite you to join me in the studio. A.B.