The March Issue

dear members of the IDOCDE community,

A conversation we’ve been coming back to this past year at IDOCDE regards the practice of documentation. Documentation happens to be one of IDOCDE’s primary focuses and oldest concerns. It also happens to be an example of a familiar thing that gained a whole new meaning this year that saw most if not all professional interaction take place online. 

Something of what’s happened moved documentation from functioning primarily within the context of archiving and preserving––and possibly the context of the institutionalisation of knowledge––into the context of communication, interaction, and indeed, the context of a necessarily mediated performance, a place where knowledge is fluid, negotiable, transforming and transformative. 

We began outlining this observation early last April via a comment made by one of the Team members that went something like this: “I’m having to teach online next week. I’ve never done that. I don’t have time to prepare. What do you know about online teaching, about somaticising (!) touch via the internet? Help me, please.” Today we are thinking about featuring documentation as one of the focal points of this year’s Symposium. Imagine: documentation, a practice reexamined. 

What have we learned, as individuals and as a community, about documentation having had no choice but to engage in a mediated performance of a familiar practice? What have we learned about dancing having had no choice but to engage with the practice indirectly? What have we learned about writing, about photographing, about social-media from how engaging with these mediums enabled continued practicing? How has, in other words, technology helped us survive, how has it helped us to keep on working?

And what has continued practicing through this stressful period––albeit in a mediated way––taught us, taught you about the values that practicing dancing (inevitably) brings to this world and represents in this world? And how documenting can support that work, instead of weight it down?

not all screams ©pavleheidler2021

changing gear, i suggest you take a look through the window before continuing to read

“Why is measure of love loss?” writes Jeanette Winterson in the opening to her novel Written on the Body. Reversing Winterson’s equation, we could ask: “Why is the measure of loss love?” And it seems that it is exactly love that is found and celebrated by those who experienced loss, which many have in the year 2020. It seems that it is exactly love that is named as the value worth fighting for, even at the risk of loss. Or maybe exactly because of the risk of loss.

“Without this risk of loss,” writes Martin Hägglund, “our efforts and our fidelity to the project would not be required.” The project, in Hägglund’s case, is any project deemed worthy of your time and attention. The project, in our case, is continuing dancing during the reign of an airborne virus.

In the introduction to his book This Life, Hägglund writes: “Even when we fight for an ideal that extends far beyond our own lives––a political vision for the future, a sustainable legacy for generations to come––we are devoted to a form of life that may cease to be or never come to be. [...] If we seek to engender, prolong, or enhance the existence of something––to make it live on in a better way––we are animated by the sense that itmay be lost if we fail to act.”

When we first started exploring the potential of “documentation reexamined,” we didn’t expect to find ourselves facing the notion of loss. But we did, and quickly. We came to loss, unsurprisingly perhaps, following the trail of love. Documentation reexamined, as described above, suggests recalibrating “documentation,” it suggests turning “documentation” from that thing we know but have no feelings for to that thing that helped us protect what is most precious, that which we love at a time most stressful. Namely, the art of dancing. 

Which is how we’ve come to thinking about featuring loss as another one of the focal points of this year’s Symposium. Imagine: from loss to love, or why we fought for stuff during the pandemic.

Because, of course, we didn’t only fight this past year for our right to receive governmental support when theatres and dance schools closed their doors. We didn’t only fight for ways to continue practicing when we couldn’t get access to physical or other resources. We fought for our right to vote, we fought for our right to cross borders in search of asylum, we fought against racism, fascism, and an endless number of standards that reproduce inequality. We fought against hunger, we fought against cold, we fought against emotional, spiritual, and physical violence being inflicted on those who are already vulnerable, already under- or misrepresented. Those of us who are already at risk of losing everything, including our lives. And indeed, in all of these accounts, we fought and continue to fight against premature, unnecessary, and/or unjust death.

This hasn’t been an easy year. And the future from some perspectives doesn’t look bright. But resources we have, however ephemeral they may be. And to creating the space for their sharing we are committed.

In closing, stay tuned for updates on the 9th IDOCDE Residency and Symposium. More information will be released in the coming weeks and months.

with love,
pavleheidler for Team IDOCDE