I would like to talk about the experience of my participation at the 1st University Symposium of Dance and Philosophy, organized by the Department of Philosophy and the Department of Dramatic Literature and Theater of the National University of México (UNAM). In this occasion I presented a coauthored lecture with Diana Palacio, who is a very talented Professional Dancer and Professor at the Department of Scenic Arts of Universidad de Antioquia. The title of the lecture was The contemporary dance as a new form of knowledge and creative experimentation, where we discussed how the contemporary dance constitutes itself as a particular way of interdisciplinary though, that reveals new ways of knowledge and creative experimentation, taking as reference the conception of the body and tis multiple lectures, trough different art disciplines. With this goal in mind we analyzed the choreographic proposal of Isadora Duncan, Merce Cunningham, Jiry Kylián and Philippe Decouflé, showing how their particular conception of dance and body changed the cultural and cognitive paradigms, and generated new creative possibilities.
On this lecture we analyzed a selection of choreographies and scenic montages from the dancers mentioned above, emphasizing the characteristics of the movement sequences, the scenic space, the musical composition, the clothes designs, the use of lights, and the contact with other bodies and objects that are translated into new spatial and dance relations. This theoretical approach allows a deep comprehension and interpretation of the world and the others, making possible a transdisciplinary epistemology and a convergence between different art fields, which generates a new kind of interaction between the audience and the dancers.
We also were invited to realize the Creative Laboratory: Body and Image in Movement, and we developed it in the Cultural Center from the National University of Mexico (UNAM), which is a place of cultural convergence on campus. One of the most interesting things of doing the workshop there was that it is an architectural space with lots of stairs, banisters, bridges, interconnected buildings, fountains, and gardens with lots of trees and flowers. It is a place that stimulates the creative exploration; it also has a profound symbolic meaning and allows the encounter of the habitants of Mexico City, not only the students.
In this occasion, Diana and I realized the Creative Laboratory in two different days, on the first one, we show a series of visual referents from Videodance and established theoretical inquiries around the configuration of this artistic language, making place for a discussion about it. Then we made an intervention of the Faculty of Philosophy and Literature, we searched a transited place and we found some stairs that goes from a low level to a high one, and arrive to the Faculty and the Central Library. The exercise consisted in an exploration of this transited space, and each of the participants approached to it in different perspectives and unusual ways of moving on it. The most interesting result of this exploration was that the people that use to transit this place incorporated themselves in a spontaneous way through the choreographies and movement sequences of the participants.
The second day of the Creative Laboratory was realized in the Cultural Center from the university, where we realized several exercises for activating the body and all the senses, including a dance technique called move architecture, which includes the use of the weight and the counterweight as a key for moving in a particular place. Then the participants explored different places of the Cultural Center, appropriated of them in a personal way and developed a collective project. The result of all this was the construction of a series of very interesting Videodances, where the participants developed their own inquiries. Here I share a video of the lecture that we gave, and also some images from the workshop and some of the videos created by the participants, I hope you enjoy them.