Can we do philosophy with our bodies?
How dance and choreographic practices be situated explicitly within philosophy. Not as a subject but as a methodology.
Choreophilosophy is a term I came up with to describe activities and practices that focus on the structures and contexts of philosophy. How philosophy is done as much as what is done. For example philosophy often takes place through lectures in universities (following conventions of listening and speaking), discussions around classroom tables, writing in offices, and reading at home. These bodily, spatial, scenographic contexts are generally not remarked upon because they follow seemingly well-established traditions. Choreophilosophy wonders whether those contexts might be modified to change philosophical thinking, and expand our ideas of where and how philosophy can or does take place.
Backwardist (2011-12) was a research project into backwards movement. It looked at retrograde movement (‘rewinding’ forward movement), reverse movement (travelling in a backwards direction), reverse chronology (stories told backwards like the film Irréversible, as well as questions in physics and philosophy about the direction of time). In 2013 this research informed my solo performance The corrosive effects of time redefine everything against our will.
Algorhythms (2012) by Hamish MacPherson and Martine Painter. Algorhythms was one of a series of events run by the Science Museum’s Dana Centre in 2012 in celebration of Alan Turing’s centenary. These events spoke about different aspects of his work on computers and artificial intelligence. Martine Painter and I delivered the event in which 60 members of the public tried their hand at drawing, painting and dancing using algorithms and automated processes in a hands-on exploration of whether art needs human guidance.
Commissioned by Dana Centre/ Science Museum. Sponsored by Winton Capital Management.
"Hamish and Martine came up with some great ways of presenting the ideas using artistic challenges to engage the audience.... It was a pleasure to work with people who have a nice clear vision for what they wanted to run. Feedback was unanimously positive and everyone involved would like to run similar things in the future!"
Rohan Mehra, Dana Centre/Science Museum
Improvising Politics (2011-19) is an ongoing series of workshops finding new ways to reflect on politics using our entire bodies; moving, sensing, writing and talking. Themes included power, time, borders, care, political speech and crowds. Neither formal dance nor formal political experience are necessary. The workshops were inspired by the New Dance Group's dance and discussion classes. Founded in 1932 in New York they were dedicated to social change through dance and movement. Declaring ‘Dance is a Weapon’, their school boasted 300 students taking their ten cent classes combining dance technique with discussions about Marxism.
Video recorded by Marco Benozzi.
“I enjoyed that the workshops pointed towards the political but through practical tasks... I felt like the workshops required me to think in a really new way.”
“I liked how I got to meet other people who don’t necessarily have the same opinions as me I thought that was really interesting and I don’t normally get a chance to talk so abruptly about power relations with other young artists or people interested in that topic.”
"I thought they provided a great forum for thinking about politics and I think there’s a great need for that. For alternative places to discuss politics…"
“…a playful, serious and very articulate locating of a showering practice amongst various perspectives or surfaces. It’s rigorous and carefully conceived, and I found myself being drawn to quite diverse ideas about how I attend (or not) to the quotidien [...] an intelligent, sophisticated and ambitious practice-as-research project.”
University of Roehampton
Showering practice (2013) was practice-based research into questions about the potential for the shower to be a place of philosophical and political activation.
How Do We Think With Our Bodies? (2014) Using a range of books from a Bethnal Green Library in London, I curated a small collection on the theme of embodied thinking.
Choreography after Henri Bergson: Between intuition and analysis (2014) A lecture workshop. Abstract: Philosopher Henri Bergson, in An Introduction to Metaphysics, makes a distinction between two forms of knowledge: intuition “by which one places oneself within an object in order to coincide with what is unique in it and consequently inexpressible”; and analysis “which reduces the object to elements already known”. Subsequent and diverse fields such as Social Choreography (Andrew Hewitt), Existential Anthropology (Michael Jackson) and Non Representational Theory (Nigel Thrift) however point towards a third, intermediate, form of knowledge that is experienced from within yet points towards to things beyond the immediate experience. Such embodied knowledge is exemplified by dance, performance and choreography. This paper, and the accompanying practical-workshop, suggests how these theories of embodied and performed knowledge might sit within Bergson’s original conception of analysis and intuition. And with reference to my own emerging practices as well as those of Michael Kliën and Guillermo Gómez-Peña it will suggest how choreography can then be applied practically as a mode of political thinking and action.
The world is at your feet: Perspectives from Choreography on Conceptual Metaphor (2014) I wish to argue that if in general the human mind generally is rooted in the human body, then in particular, the Enlightenment - the 18th century movement in science and philosophy seeking human advancement through logic and reason rather than tradition - is rooted in the human feature of feet which are the most fundamental device for measuring the world. And which even pre-date humans.
All The Things That We Can Do (2014) A choreographic exploration through discussion, physical actions sharing information and ideas, a nice lunch with people engaging the political aspects of the body. Each week for six weeks participants worked as a group with an idea that relates in some way to bodies, to choreography and to politics, for example care, the autonomous body and voice.
It's going to be called either ‘so where exactly did the future come from?’ or ‘I can see the future, so can you and here's how.’ (2017) A presentation about ‘the future’ reflecting on how this is a fuzzy concept, perhaps not quite out of reach after all. Mixing film, talking, dancing and a Roman coin passed around by torchlight.
Part of AltMFA’s a-n supported programme on The Future. Photo: Eldi Dundee
“Try to imagine what this talk will be like. You know the kind of thing. Like how the room will be laid out, what the other people there will be like, the kind of tone and references (maybe Henri Bergson but also something dance related, and something from popular culture) and images that I’ll be using (something collapsing, someone moving slowly). The sounds. Maybe some of the overspills (I might stumble on my words and maybe we’ll have trouble with the projector). Got it? Ok so it will be enough like that for you not to worry too much but also it will be a bit different too and will have more details than you can forsee so it should keep you interested too.”
NO CLIMAX YET (2018) by Hamish MacPherson with Antonio De La Fe, Kimberley Harvey and Paul Hughes. A series of overlapping, one-hour performances of passivity and activity, movement and stillness. These vary from wrapping a limp body to giving an anatomy lecture; from exhausted, wild dancing to asking the audience ‘What shall I do next?”. Over six hours, four performers assemble themselves in ever-shifting configurations of ones, twos, threes and fours. The 14 one-hour performances overlap so at any one time there are two performances taking place - merging, contrasting and cohabiting the space. Changing their costume, lighting and scenography, they draw the audience in to different worlds of care and intimacy - from sex club to salon to mortuary, and things in between.
“Hamish MacPherson’s work has a tendency to expand in all directions, and with NO CLIMAX YET he’s taken this even further, starting with the topical, even trendy subject of care and wandering away from all the trodden paths toward its dark and disinterested side. His stops along the way bring him in touch with some really varied interlocutors – from a massage therapist to a person who likes being used as furniture. And then he brings it all into a room and invites us to hang out with it for a while.”
Lauren Wright, Siobhan Davies Dance London, UK
How Many Chairs to Build the Future? (2014) sits somewhere between choreography, sculpture, conversation and play. A simple set of rules turns 50 chairs into an environment for people of all ages to think and talk about big ideas in simple, physical ways.
“Saying words can have an effect on your physiology. Arranging chairs in a room according to a concept is obviously going to have a larger effect than merely uttering the word.”
Jonny Blamey
