LEAP

Teaching Across Borders Finland

with Pavle Heidler & Roos van Berkel

idoc by: Roos van Berkel

This idoc started on the plane from Helsinki to Amsterdam, four days after ‘TABbing’ in Outokumpu Finland and a lovely 3-day digestion weekend in Helsinki. Actually up to this point of pre-publication, I'm still digesting. It was a rich exchange that rang a surprising amount of bells inside of my body. Those bells continue to make music with sounds that ask for a reflective connection between 2 distinct teaching practices and a discussion of the work of Zygmunt Bauman and Alain de Botton. 

The document is a work in progress of impressions and reflections, with the aim to conclude it the third week of April. 

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Pavle and I were invited to Teach Across Borders with students from ISLO Movement and Dance Education and North Karelia College for Dance. The sessions were mixed groups of students from both educational programs.

Before going into content, I would like to thank Elina Ikonen, Ulla Maikinen, Pavle Heidler and Pia Lindy for a wonderful five days. Teaching happened. Exchange happened. Inspiration happened.  Deepened embodiment happened.

Introduction Pavle 

‘I’m from Yugoslavia….no that’s not true! I was born in Croatia. One of my favorite childhood memories is from the war when I was about 4 years old. The sirens go off so we all go to the basement for shelter. Somehow it was always really busy in ours – I guess we had the deepest one which meant that the neighbours would come there as well.

That day was a special day because my aunt had just arrived. She lived in Bosnia and travelled to us in Zagreb. Instead of the usual 1-hour drive, it took her the whole day to reach us because she had to travel through Serbia,  Hungary and Slovenia before being able to enter Bosnia.

The basement was full with people and I’m lying on a bed. Because my aunt was really tired from the journey, she lied down next to me and fell asleep. And during her sleep, she turned around and ended up lying on top of me.

So… I’m lying on this bed with my aunt on top of me and I feel all the air being squeezed out of my lungs. Because she covered me with her body, I could only see a little bit and that was the backs of a bunch of people huddled in front of a very small t.v. – eager to follow national television.

I’m trying to make a sound but I can’t.

And then I realize this is really funny: no one’s seeing or hearing me. This could mean that they could find all these people who died because of the bombing, and then they would find this small boy who was just simply squeezed to death by a sleeping aunt.’

The class laughes…

And why is this one of your favourite memories? ‘I just felt so excited!’.

The class laughes again…

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Pavle has created and researches a performance practice called ‘the Moon Practice: a process of materialization of fiction’. The title of this practice and the introduction above give some insight into how I got to know Pavle this week: curious, open-minded, critical and investigative. Ready to be surprised. By others and by himself.

Pavle and I did not really discuss how we would facilitate the exchange during the week. Sensing an open, curious attitude towards each other’s work, we simply joined each other’s sessions to see what would happen. No recipe, no instructions.

4 days of ‘Moon Practice: the process of materialization into fiction' 

During the sessions and after the sessions I wrote down words, later worked out in text.

                                                                          Day one – session Pavle

‘I’m lying on the floor and listen to Pavle as he verbally guides us into the process of materialization of fiction. As it is his intention to allow you to sink back into yourself with the option to fall asleep, I find myself doing just that. I drift off on the sound of his voice, cognitively making less and less sense of what he’s actually saying. The weight of my body releases into the ground and seems to become more and more heavy……

….I must have slept for a little bit, because suddenly I find myself still lying on the floor and hear how Pavle is still speaking.’

Don’t let the thinking lead, let the sensing lead.

‘I don’t ask myself what I missed, I just continue listening to his voice. Starting to move from this sense of heaviness that at the same time feels very sensitive and alert, I start moving the fingers of my left hand. Small, quite sudden movements –  tentacles sensitively engaging with space.’  

Slowness…slow hand.

‘The movement of the fingers leads into slow movement of the hand. With my eyes closed, I observe and track how the movement sequences from the hand into my wrist, elbow, shoulder joint and left half of the ribcage. I continue to sense how the left hand slowly moves and I am listening to Pavle’s voice – listening and following merges with heightened awareness of his intention.’ 

Listening and following

 ‘Listening and following become an internal dialogue where both actions happen along two frequencies that are in constant contact: the self relating to the self and the self relating to the other.’

Sensing from the anatomy.

‘Pavle’s verbal guidance is geared towards the experience of the body’s anatomy. Nothing else. In the way he leads you in, I do not feel space for anything else. Or let me rephrase that: I don’t feel tempted to engage with anything else. There is a luxury of isolation. I sense and find myself enjoying very much how isolation of attention and particular parts of the body can be experienced as full and very sensitive.’

Engaging with space

‘Enjoying this luxury of isolation, I continue to move and am aware of how the sense of isolation connects to a full-body awareness that leads me into and through movement. I hear Pavle giving the option to open the eyes. And catch myself wondering whether I want to do that. It feels like a risk to leave the place of undivided attention – do I want to visually open up to the environment and will I be able to place the visual information in a balanced relationship with all that I am already sensing from an inner perspective?’

What do the eyes do? 

‘Actually, not much important in particular. They are just part of the body and can be perceived as such. I notice that my gaze is relaxed. The eyes are moving but whenever I …(I sense how the plane is starting to land. I feel a slight pressure of my body into the seat, center of that attention resides mostly in the belly)… find myself to give more attention to the eyes in relation to other parts of the body, I invite more awareness to the other parts – whichever they are.’

Unfamiliar

‘There is a sense of unfamiliarity towards my body. I enjoy it. The preconception of my body seems to have slipped to the back, and I therefore preconceived movements seem to have also. My frontal brain seems to be mostly occupied with perceiving from the various senses, listening and responding. I am starting to move through space with level change – moving into and through various stages between lying and standing. I become aware of people and things around me but not actively responding – only for brief moments when the response springs from spontaneity’…. 

Safe, sharp and sensitive

‘After a while, Pavle adds sound to the exploration. The tracks are in this case mostly text-based, but I now know that the music choice is diverse and he likes to switch between very different things. After some time, Pavle starts counting back from 10. But not in a metric way. He takes short and long pauses between the numbers and plays with the number themselves. This disturbs the preconceived moment of arrival and invites (almost forces) you to stay engaged with the moment. When he finishes counting, he says ‘welcome to the other side’.

And it really feels like that. Same body, same mind, different perceptions buzzing through the various systems within my body.’

Conditioning of mind and body.

‘The Moon Practise is preceded by an introductory movement exploration as decribed above. Pavle does not guide this introduction along a set format. During the workshop days, I find that he plays with it. By doing that, he tackles the idea of a preconception of the practice itself. It does not become static but stays dynamic. And this does not seem to be for his own pleasure or benefit, but it a purposeful choice to condition body and mind towards a place where ‘readiness’ seems to get another meaning. Instead of following a specific ritual through f.e. imitation, the introductory exploration actively taps into the body memory as a place to access at any time and to have available to you. It trains a somatic focus from an anatomical perspective.’

Let’s moon!

‘We have arrived ‘on the other side’ and Pavle sets up the Moon Practice. It involves an audience/spectators and performers/movers. There are chairs and mats for everyone to sit, and then he asks volunteers to come on to the floor. He prefers having an uneven number on the floor – and with this group the number usually ranges between 5 and 9.

Before continuing, he explains that the division between spectators and mover is deliberate but not to be considered or experienced in the traditional sense. This triggers me, because he deliberately chooses a traditional ‘proscenium arch’-format and then asks you to reconsider the role that you have implicitly assigned yourself to. To not think: ‘I am an audience member, so I sit and watch’. But to shift the focus to a place where your self takes part in the event. This brings up a whole other section but that I will discuss later.

The preparation continues with a very simple explanation: all form a line facing front and place the line a little off center towards the left (seen from the spectator).

Now: moon!

Confused eyes, question marks on faces. One student asks what he means exactly. Pavle does not say much – he asks the line of movers to engage with the moment and to see what happens.

More confused looks. But also a fragile readiness to engage with the practice in the way it is presented.