Pedro Penuela

horizons of perception 

Approaching Steve Paxton’s work:

This workshop is based Pedro’s PhD investigation, which focused on modes of presence in the works of Pina Bausch (German choreographer, one of the main artists of dance-theater), Steve Paxton (choreographer from the USA, creator of Contact Improvisation) and Kazuo Ohno (Japanese dancer-choreographer, one of the founders of Butoh dance). 

In this research, I discussed how presence is always paradoxically interconnected with absence, especially regarding perception, memory, and our relationships with otherness. I find in the notions of horizon, trace, and ghost names for important aspects of the works of Paxton, Bausch and Ohno, respectively, where what is present implies many forms of absence. 

The notion of horizon names the way we conceive the presence of the unknown and not yet perceived, but potentially existent. 

The notion of trace names how we make present something which belongs to the past and is currently absent, but still leaves its marks, formatting the ongoing experience. 

Finally, the notion of ghost helps us to name radical forms of alterity that we can access when crossing borders between masculine and feminine, life and death, animal and human. 

All these three notions summarize important aspects of the works of the three choreographers studied. They also name different forms of what we call presence-absence, or paradoxical modes of presence. 

In the workshops I do about this research, the main aim is to translate some essential parts of this conceptual discussion into practical body-movement experiments and dance/performance creation. 

In this specific proposition, we’ll focus on the work of Steve Paxton, and in the way he investigated presence and how this investigation was fundamental for the development of his work in general and specially of Contact Improvisation. Our focus inside the rich and varied work of Steve Paxton is put on perception and the architecture of our sensorial experience. Paxton, in his artistic works, calls attention to the many ways in which present phenomena usually are not perceived by us (and therefore are made absent), mostly because of their subtility or because they are so always present that we tend to ignore them. Some of the phenomena he focuses are gravity, the small dance of the skeleton to adjust vertical position, some somatic experiences linked to breathing, organ functioning and others, and the complexity of our spine structure and movement. 

To explore these themes, we will share some practical tools and experiments from Contact Improvisation and Material for the spine, both developed by Paxton, as well as other practices created by him, like the “small dance”, and other propositions I developed based on principles of his concerns and investigations We will also investigate how our perception of movement and image is constituted, focusing on identifying and deconstructing some perceptual habits we usually have. Finally, we will also explore how different senses (vision, audition, touch etc.) correlates to each other to form a whole perceptual experience and how their disjunction can feed improvisation and movement investigation, in solo improvisations and in contact with partners. 

Bio 

PEDRO PENUELA 

Dance artist, psychologist and researcher. PhD in Performing Arts (University of Sao Paulo, Brazil); Bachelor and Master degree in Psychology (University of Sao Paulo); certificate in Dance (Sao Paulo Technical School of Arts). In his PhD research he investigated the works of Steve Paxton, Pina Bausch and Kazuo Ohno, focusing on the theme of presence, having interviewed Paxton and artists who worked with Bausch and Ohno, and investigated in many dance archives and dance institutions (University of Bologna, Kazuo Ohno Dance Studio, Contact Quarterly Magazine, VideoDa archive, Pina Bausch Tanztheater Wuppertal). Teacher of Contact Improvisation and Contemporary Dance Improvisation. Has taught in schools, dance companies, cultural and social centers and other institutions in Brazil, Italy and Spain. Studied CI, somatics and correlated practices with Nita Little, Lisa Nelson, Daniel Lepkoff, Ray Chung, Bonnie B. Cohen, Otto Ramstad, Diogo Granato, Eliana Bonard, Ricardo Neves, and many other teachers from the US, South America and Europe. Works as an independent dancer and choreographer, having developed solo improvisation performances, as well as choreographies for dance companies and collaborative dance works with different artists from Brazil and Argentina. On the internet: http://pedropenuelaeng.wordpress.com https://www.youtube.com/user/pedropenuela https://www.facebook.com/pedro.penuela.313/ https://www.instagram.com/opedropenuela