PRACTICE & POLITICS OF EFFORTLESSNESS LIST

List #2:
Articulating Effortlessness and Non-violence in
Movement Practice
"Life is a balance of holding on and letting go."
Rumi 

FINDING EFFORTLESSNESS FROM THE INSIDE OUT

The starting point and primary lens through which I am investigating and hypothesizing
effortlessness is located within the body's tissues in regards to motion and movement practice. From
there I am drawing conclusions into professional and semi-professional areas of dance, as well as
into regular every-day movement situations, physical therapy and many other realms where bodies
are and where bodies move.

My journey into studies in effortlessness started from the practice and teaching of movement classes
inspired by the work of the Axis Syllabus and my creative work as a choreographer with my methods
around movement as language. These activities led me to re-discover Daoism, and to pursue
connections between my movement research and more spiritual approaches, to indigenous voices,
to honorable harvests, to non-violent communication, to disability studies, to animal liberation and
to attempt to write a philosophy of articulation that ties all of these together. Facilitated
substantially by the practice of the axis syllabus and the pedagogical tools it suggests, these
connections to other ways of being, thinking, and moving slowly emerged through practice and
reflection. When I say 'articulation' I am talking about an articulation that is an expression in the
linguistic sense, and in a creative sense, and an interrelational sense, and in an embodied sense. In
order to describe the nature of the articulation I am exploring more precisely, I am adding the term
relational before articulation. Relational articulation is inherently dependent on an interplay between
entities, a communication, and a multidirectional flow of information.

The articulation I am after is marked by joint mobility and congruency which contributes and
facilitates a beautiful orchestration that results in potential, choice, reliability, and responsiveness.
The joints of the body are fleshy microcosms of multi-material macrocosms of interdependence and
relationality.

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PRACTICE & POLITICS OF EFFORTLESSNESS LIST

The movement practice I am exploring facilitates a sort of healing (from other ways of moving and
being) and supports a process of discovery, a (self) awareness, and a (self) appreciation.

This list focuses on two major areas of effortlessness that both relate to the practice of effortlessness
in movement. In contrast to the context of list 1: "Disarticulating" which outlines the problems we
currently face in movement practice, the "Effortlessness" list (list 2) represents an attempt towards
one of many other possible solutions to the problems brought on by the violence practiced today. I
am here positioning effortlessness practice in movement as a naturally occurring counterpoint to
violence. Effortlessness practice is within this not seen as the absolute opposite of violence, but
rather as a tool for becoming aware of violence and choosing less-violent options in life. It is an
invitation to thinking differently and imagining a different way of being a body, moving a body, and
treating a body. The question "How can we do something other than violence?" is investigated trough
these two areas:

1) Part one of my list "undoing the familiar/intrinsic intelligence/ways of thinking" looks at other
world views, providing a different gaze onto the body and the relationality of body and world.

Current ways of moving in western culture still largely rest on practices that reduce the moving body
and the methodologies for moving to abstract simplified concepts that are superimposed onto the
body and which the body is molded into, be it a good fit or not. The body is in essence hindered from
fully and 'naturally' articulating. In concert dance practices, such as ballet and modern dance classes,
scientific findings around bio-mechanics are often misunderstood, habitually ignored, or, in the case
of dance, thought of as inapplicable to dancer bodies. Sometimes they are seen as a challenge to be
overcome. Science is also relied upon to fix the broken dancer body. The thought of the body having
become a machine is at hand. The word 'bio-mechanics' speaks for itself. The goal of this list is to
investigate how to allow the dancer, and the body in general, to exist in its particular, 'natural, and
unique state or articulation. The investigation in effortlessness is two-fold: 1) What are the actual
practices that facilitate finding articulation within the body, what are some exercises and concepts to
explore this way of moving? What has to take place and how do we have to move if we want to
transform the hegemonic paradigm of abuse, the narratives of struggle, and the systems of
domination?

How do you work with dancers to encourage articulation?

1) what do i actually do to move in a more fluid way, move towards articulation, towards
effortlessness. look at axis syllabus primarily. (frey) kevin, my teaching.

2) In this second part I am looking at how to create fertile ground for change. Change has to be
brought on by the individual through a process of discovery, it can not be imposed or demanded.

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PRACTICE & POLITICS OF EFFORTLESSNESS LIST

Inversions and reversals have proven ineffective in interrupting the cycle of violence or in generating
any kind of real change, so this list investigates how we can bring ourselves closer to a state of not-
knowing so we realize that there are other options that pose real, doable, experiential alternatives for
us. How can an environment be created in the pedagogical setting to facilitate a paradigm shift in a
student that is so used to the current way of working that resistance to change will prevent openness
to something other than dis-articulatory ways of moving? I am still in he process of discovering this
and find it, of the two areas, to be the real challenge for me personally, as it fundamentally affects
the ways we relate to one another as human beings, how we offer instead of demand, how we feel
empathy and compassion for the stages and the speed at which people take to our offerings and how
we respond and process rejection. I want to stay focused on in-class practices and stay with the body
in order to tackle this question.

What are the conditions for allowing the person to consider possibilities beyond the structures they
inevitably have already learned and embodied?

For creating environments that are conducive to exploring new ways of moving, being, and
becoming, a process of de-familiarization can be helpful. I am particularly interested in how the
improvisation is a tool for de-fmiliarization. Furthermore I am interested in examining how verbally
articulating movement experiences of improvisations informs and facilitates change.

For thinking about other ways of knowing I am engaging with authors that consider ecological
environments of all kinds and often completely different societal paradigms. These authors come
from varied backgrounds and practices. Particularly insightful I find indigenous and Daoist
philosophies. This list does not focus on researching their ways of moving, but rather to explore their
ideas and ways of moving for the purpose of cross referencing them with our ways of moving and
with proposed methodologies for changing those ways. I am focusing on the work of Frey Faust and
the Axis Syllabus, who I have studied with since 2011 and whose work has profoundly influenced my
ways of moving, teaching, and relating to people.

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PRACTICE & POLITICS OF EFFORTLESSNESS LIST

1)

I am structuring this list into 3 major areas:

1) undoing the familiar/intrinsic intelligence/ways of thinking

2) becoming more sensitive/listening/conversation

3) touch/response-ability/improvisation

1) Practice: undoing the familiar/intrinsic intelligence/ways of

thinking/becoming more sensitive/listening/flow of
communication/conversation/ alignment/response-
ability/tensegrity/mobilizing/relationalities/fascia/neutrality or middle
path/reconnecting/
repeat in a short way: introducing the problem, the hope.

1) body mechanics of how to do this

2) learn to do this. don;t just do this. is it natural or cultural? the way that culture sets upo certain
images. how do you teach and learn? efortlessnes take so much more resonsibility for learning,
and listen to what your body is saying to you. responsibility on the student. can talk about failures
as well. Lynette question: if youa re going to move away from authoritarian demand structure of
normative dance teaching are you ind ancer of letting it all go and saying do what you want. give
examples for a positive structre that includes guidelines and interrelational conversation between
teachers and students, include rewarding ones and unrewarding ones.

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PRACTICE & POLITICS OF EFFORTLESSNESS LIST

defamiliarization to begin ... introducing indigenous ways of thinking to help change thought
structures. introducing Daoist structures as alternative way of thinking about your body in the
world.
how to reimagine your body. how to come into conversation with it in a different way than you did
before. the parameters are closer in...
what do you do as a teacher when youa re dealing with dancers who are used to pushign past the
edges and limits of their bodies when you try to get them to listen to their limits. this is great for
native american stuff. so much about how a person's body is constantly in ecological relation with
animals, water, food, not oushign past anything. your are delicately following the knitting of those
thigns, youa re attending to them in a different way. attention and attending. paying attention to
things that are not as loud as the stuff you are used to. How do you bring the dancesr attention
abck to their relational embededness into wher they are, how do they listento their body? when
theya re trained not to do that. this would involve defamiliarization techniques, showing dofferent
ways of thinking about the body. need a couple of case studies.

case studies: my classes, freys's classes. talk about difficultes in teaching. what have I done to
attempt to... account of workshop I have done...with bodies that have been trained in different
ways.

two carefulyl detailed cases studies and allow the discussion to build up around those.

frey's classes
my teaching
the way I study/exprience/feel

talk about that it requires diferent ways of teachign dance and choreographing,e tc. because it is
asking so much of teh dancers bodies which are always pretrained you have to think about the whole
ambience for teaching and choreographing.

talk about work with a dancer using that system and what I have to tell them and how to set up
the environment, so they do something positive and joyful and wonderful
pragmatically
what is it they do when they walk in the room
tight case study
how do I start, do I start with a warm up and what does the warm up consist of.
pick some exact examples.
case studies first. then speak about this requires effort , but its an effortless effort, becuase its not
imposing, authoritarian, not makign the body do soemthign ist is not made to do, relate to other

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PRACTICE & POLITICS OF EFFORTLESSNESS LIST

people inw ays that are embracing trust, are rewarding, real communication and real change
going on.
1) pragmatic about joint articulation and stuff.
vanessa watts, robin kimmerer
touch respnonsibility, hannah, paxton etc

How do philosophies of effortlessness and wu wei translate to movement practice and how is
movement practice affected by them?

One goal is to become more eloquent and expressive in movement and movement-language. becoming
more articulate, refined, more articulate, expressive, detailed, sensitive, perceptive, what a huge
difference the axis syllabus has made in my life, as opposed to executing conceptual ways of moving, I am
investigating the ease of movement how my body wants to function,orchestrate...naturally... fluid, easy,
powerful,. I use different tools for refining my vocabulary and abilities.

Tools for fine-tuning effortlessness: feminist pedagogy, axis syllabus, non-violent communication,
somatic work/BMC, Hanna somatics, improvisation, Daoist studies, butoh, tanztheater, site-specific
performances, creative community work, meditative movement practices, meditative walking,
mindfulness exercises, touch, awareness, mindfulness, bodyfulness, etc

People to consult with here are the Axis Syllabus/Frey Faust, Thomas Hannah/Hannah Somatics,
Moshe Feldenkrais, Ida Rolf, and other movers, bodyworkers, performers, and scientists. All of these
share ideas around the intrinsic interconnections between psyche and movement.
Questions emerge around perception and the embodied experience which I will encounter through
engagement with authors such as Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Gilles Deleuze, and others.

(Lynnette: listenign and conversation, similar procedure, the conc=versation is often marked more
intimate, elss socially instructed, listenign with all the deep listenign practices, foucault
: book on listening, books on listening by loads of other people, they all try to become sensitive, trying to
understand how to open to things they don't know.
what you actually do to realize those relationalities and generate intrinsic intelligence, or ways of
thinking that are part of the body potential. you can point out three that dancers are inevitably
affecetd by how dancers have been trained. experience i am interested in my own work or seing in
other people's work is the ability to 'relational articulation'
paragraph, also need to set up an environment for that. how do you create a site where people
become more sensitive, where they engage in conversation rather than debate, or demand, how
do you do that? there you cans ay this is a question lots of people are asking: indigenous, donna

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haraway, merleau ponty, the daoists, frey has asked it. need another case study in that somethign
I experienced of have set up. talk about it in PAR in working with lena. somethign I have observed?
or choreography where I am beginnign to do this. or frey faust stuff. he will have wide impact or
one of his calsses, or kira, etc, gives me another case study, or francesca. think abou th the field of
improvisation . are other poeple are practicing improvisation with this intent. kira and antoine.


 Audre Lourd "the masters house"

 Daodejing: side by side comparison of English

translations: https://ttc.tasuki.org/display:Code:gff,sm,jhmd,jc,rh

 DaodejingStephen
Mitchell: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2e0g0v translator of Daodejing
 DaodejingDaodejing S. Mitchell translation, audio, read by S. Mitchell,
youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2UYch2JnO4
 Daodejing, Daodejing, Ursula Le Guin tanslation (I have the pdf)
 Daodejing, https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/10/21/lao-tzu-tao-te-ching-ursula-
k-le-guin/ About Ursula Le Guin, her talking about the Tao Te Ching
 Daodejing Daodejing: side by side comparison of English
translations: https://ttc.tasuki.org/display:Code:gff,sm,jhmd,jc,rh
 DaodejingStephen
Mitchell: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2e0g0v translator of Daodejing
 DaodejingDaodejing S. Mitchell translation, audio, read by S. Mitchell,
youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2UYch2JnO4
 Daodejing, Daodejing, Ursula Le Guin tanslation (I have the pdf)
 Daodejing, https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/10/21/lao-tzu-tao-te-ching-ursula-
k-le-guin/ About Ursula Le Guin, her talking about the Tao Te Ching


 Watts, Alan, wu wei, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzaUGhhnlQ8

 Slingerland, Edward G, Effortless action Wu-wei as conceptual metaphor and spiritual ideal

in early China, Slingerland, Edward G. (Edward
Gilman), 2003, https://search.library.ucdavis.edu/primo-explore/fulldisplay?
docid=01UCD_ALMA51351706100003126&context=L&vid=01UCD_V1&lang=en_US&search_
scope=everything_scope&adaptor=Local%20Search
%20Engine&tab=default_tab&query=any,contains,effortlessness&mode=Basic
◦ Feng, Alex, Dr.,

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PRACTICE & POLITICS OF EFFORTLESSNESS LIST

▪ "in your stillness, everything is revealed to you", "self inquiry, find your own path"
quote by Dr. Alex
Feng, https://www.facebook.com/TheTaoistCenter/videos/566691020503550/
 https://www.facebook.com/TheTaoistCenter/videos/329512694387037/ Dr. Feng video

 https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?v=329512694387037&ref=watch_permalink  spoken
wisdom by Dr Feng
 Escobar, Arturo, video lecture "Designs for the Pluriverse", https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=8Ouy7aN6XPs (quotes: neo-articulation of hope. design, graphic design. design has to do wiht
everything.... everything is designed.... political technology... central to what I'm doing, rethinking
of design... connection to geography... what does design haeve to do with the ...crisis we face
today, ecological devastation, etc... design as a deeper transition/model... map the emergence of
design as an important ...political project... design theory... re-calibrate design away from
capitalist motivations/foundations... "We encounter the deep question of design when we
recognize that in designing tools we are designing ways of being..." (Winorad and Flores 1986),
Quote from rapper Prince Ea, "Can Humanity Auto correct?" ( a video) : "See, technology has
made us more selfish and separate than ever. Cause while it claims to connect us connection has
gotten no better. Reclassify facebook for what it is, an Anti-social network... We sit at home on our
computers measuring self-worth in terms of numbers of followers and likes."... our connection to
place is being erased (@ 38:00), quote from indigenous woman Adriana paredes Pinda (mapuche
machi): in regards to Ontological Design becoming a space to reposition our being in the world
"To learn anew how to exist as a living being in the world."... quote by nasa leader " not only do
they get people out of the territory, they get the territory out of people." (source Julie Mazlewood
and Intl. Mission)... more from the nasa people: "But we say - as long as we continue to be
indigenous, in other words, children of the earth - that our mother is not currently free for life, but
she will be when she returns to being the soil and collective home of the peoples that take care of
her. As long as it is not this way, neither will we be free, her children. All peoples are slaves along
with the animals and all beings of life, as long as we do not achieve that our mother recovers her
freedom." (@44:44)...
 Foster, Susan Leigh, Choreographing Empathy by Susan Leigh Foster
 Hick, Alexander, trailer for "Thinking like a Mountain", film, https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=6vvjzROQBSA


 Kohn, Eduardo, How Forests Think (Ch 2 The Living Thought) by 

 Kohn, Eduardo, video talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSdrdY6vmDo "Thinking witha

forest's thoughts"

 Watts, Vanessa Watts, "Decolonization: Idigeneity, Education, & Society" Vol. 2, No.1, 2013, pp.
20-34 (in email from Anuj for 290 may 15, 2020), outlines and illustrates the foundational (from
creation story) difference between indigenous and euro-western thought, explaining agency,
spirit, respect, inter-relations between human-human, no-human-human, non-human-non-

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human. Relationality between human and 'sky-woman become earth'. "This article attempts to
reaffirm this sacred connection between place, non-human and human in an effort to access the
"pre-colonial mind". Watts speaks of the "Place-Thought", "land becoming an extension of their
bodies (sky-woman and turtle). "Before continuing (to tell the creation story), I would like to
emphasize that these two events took place. They were not imagined or fantasized...." . Note
about my reaction: I was drawn to also conclude that place-thought not only imbues place with
thought but also that thought becomes place. It seems that imagination and connection to spirit
is real, that by a really long connection, theatre/the played/the imagined is real.

◦ Wall Kimmerer, Robin, "Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge,

and the Teachings of Plants", https://books.google.de/books?
hl=en&lr=&id=vmM9BAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=braiding+sweetgrass&ots=nhmfA
La6gR&sig=vF3CY_EmUFx3pjfuxBNbKNuDHjc&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=braiding
%20sweetgrass&f=false (pages 1-79)

◦ Wall Kimmerer, Robin, video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dnS8c7ndRM 

◦ Wall Kimmerer, Robin, "ROBIN KIMMERER: How to Nurture Your Soul through Indigenous
Wisdom" interview with R. Kimmerer: in video

◦ Wall Kimmerer, Robin, "Gathering Moss"

◦ Audre Lorde quote: www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUXj0BVQkpw&feature=youtu.be @36:30

◦ Buckman, Alyson R; The Body as a Site of Colonization: Alice Walker's Possessing the
Secret of Joy" publishes in Journal of American Culture, Volume18, Issue2, Summer
1995, Pages 89-94 ,First published: Summer 1995, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1542-
734X.1995.00089.x
Citations: 1 have not been able to find the entire article, problems accesssing/logging in. 

 Watts, Vanessa, "Indigenous place-thought & agency amongst humans and non-

humans (First Woman and Sky Woman go on a European world tour!)" Queen’s University,
Canada, https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/des/article/view/19145,

 Haraway, donna , Primate Visions: Gender, Race, and Nature in the World of Modern Science

◦ Tallbear, Kim, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkUeHCUrQ6E, video talk, Life (Un)Ltd

Lecture: Kim TallBear - Beyond Life/Not Life

◦ Tallbear. Kim,, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzVKVBgb4S4, video talk, science and

whiteness, 

◦ Tallbear. Kim,, audio interview: https://www.multiamory.com/podcast/181-kim-tallbear,

Settler Sexuality, 

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◦ Tallbear. Kim,, video talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfdo2ujRUv8, "Making Love

and Relations Beyond Settler Sexualities"

◦ Tallbear. Kim, Disrupting life/not-life, video talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iE-

gaDG-kLQ, (DOPE 2015 Keynote Address) note: Mostly used here to point out another
aspect of the same violent attitudes: colonization, and to argue with her about certain
aspects relating to the body.

◦ Davis, Heather "Decolonizing the Anthropocene" video talk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7JxBCi72No&feature=youtu.be
◦ Grof, Stanislav, Beyond the Brain: Birth, Death, and Transcendence in Psychology: Birth,
Death and Transcendence in Psychotherapy (Suny Series in Transpersonal and Humanistic
Psychology) Wir wissen mehr als unser Gehirn: Die Grenzen des Bewusstseins überschreiten
(HERDER spektrum), Wie sind Erzählungen von menschlichen Extremerfahrungen wie
Nahtoderlebnisse, Erinnerungen an frühere Leben oder außerkörperliche Erfahrungen zu
bewerten? Sind die Grenzen unseres Bewusstseins weiter als die unseres Gehirns? Eine
faszinierende Begegnung von Naturwissenschaft und Spiritualität. transpersonal psychology:
introducing spirituality into psychology.  :  
◦ Grof, Stanislav,youtube.com/watch?v=dswm2eCb-WE 


 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice "Phenomenology of perception",  (I have the pdf)

 Hanna, Thomas Louis  (Hannah Somatics) , "Somatics: Reawakening The Mind's Control Of

Movement, Flexibility, And Health" Building on the foundation laid by Moshe Feldenkrais,
Thomas Hanna's groundbreaking work completely redefines the body's potential for
withstanding decline.

 Ahmed, Sarah, article:| Orientations: toward a queer phenomenology, GLQ: A Journal of

Lesbian and Gay Studies, 2006, 2007, Vol.12(4), p.543
 Merleau Ponty, Maurice, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCY-edDd4_g, video talk, by
Komarine Romdenh-Romluc: "Science in Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology"

 Dumit, Joe, Sitting Academic Style. 

 O'Conor, Kevin, "Moving and Thinking with Fascia" https://contactquarterly.com/cq/article-

gallery/view/moving-and-thinking-with-fascia.pdf (I have the pdf on my laptop)  

 Hunter, Lynette "Moving Like Water"

▪ Faust, Frey, Axis Syllabus, Frey Faust, “the Axis Syllabus – Human Movement Analysis
and Training Method”, 3rd edition 2011 (looking for most updated

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▪ Faust,
Frey, interview: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3zCJmHMSpCTS7NiyvVWOcQ?
si=dLDL0LYuSTyrSUd1_xHANw

▪ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0Jy-UcRGh4

▪ Faust, Frey, class observations Doesn't believe in effortlessness, there is pleasant and

unpleasant effort...
 EMPATHY: class with Frey from 2 18 2021. he talks about empathy first 10 minutes, dancing
with pillows, vectors, "hugging the now as near as you can"

 Faust, Frey, classes with Frey faust

 Thompson, Evan, various youtube talks

 Thompson, Evan, "The Embodied Mind", "Thinking Body"

 hannah, how to do this list.

 paxton into how to do this list.

 faust does both.

 Kevin is about specific thigsn to do

 is about how to train differently

 listening conversation,

2) Pedagogy: touch/response-ability/improvisation/conversation/
verbalization/inter-disciplinarity/tensegrity/beyond the skin/
relationalities/empathy/presencing/re-drawing
lanscapes/reclaiming/becoming
repeat in a short way: introducing the problem, the hope.
setting up the ecology for people to experience theyr bodies ina different way
leads to relationalities. sentence or two about how tensegrity creates a relationality, rather than
imposing on it.

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I am primarily interested in thinking about axis syllabus as a way of approahig this and thinking
through the way that they have introduced me to improvisation or ahs influenced,impacted,
improvisation. trying to get one to think about the body ina different way. mention some names and
workshops I have atended. so people know that I understand the field a bit. Steve apxton and Lisa
nelson, not interested in folowing them as cae studies but they are interesting to me...althrough they
are approachign the ,,,in different ways than I am. mention people in the third bit under touch.
Improvisation kira and antoine.

touch wth karen barad is useful in teh second set of questions, tie physicality to the how do you give
dancers the open space to not be afraid. thinkign about touch the way barad suggests is one way of
doing that. opening up the dances mind to what's possible.
kimmeer in the how do you get people to think about this list.

how do yu give the dancer the cnfidence and the environment... robin kimmerer. usan foster
probably fits in there too. eduardo koh things, allan watts, alex feng.

first paragraph: audre lorde, how do you do that. it's impossible to unlearn things. all you can do is try
to gt to another place where you start not knowing, which is more important than unlearning.

is about how to create an environment

processes of not knowing, one way of doing effortlessness might be to think through what not knowing
means in improvisation. Is not knowing a strategy for improvisation? Do I communicate when I am
improvising? yes, absolutely. I am interested in how ways of communicating within improvisation are
modes of not knowing. what is it that you have to not know? how can you not know? without knowing
the same language you can't communicate? both have to communicate through not knowing. to what
extent is not-knowing the key element in improvising, add case studies.? and why is ti important?
through not knowing we defamiliarize, we have to listen... what strategies do you have to teach in order
for the people I am working with to learn modes and ways of not knowing. for many practitioners not-
knowing is scary because if you go into practicing not knowing, you don;t know if you have anything to
show. they might be worried about interpersonal stuff. they might be worried about looking stupid
because they release their control over knowledge. how do you give people the confidence, how do you
create environments of trust where not-knowing can be taught? where does it work and where does it
not work? effortlessness is something... if people achieve effortlessness is after they have failed many
times and they keep on going.

defamiliarization is a good strategy to keep people from saying I am incompetent. someone said
something conventional, start looking at the cliche and lay it out, so they become involved in realizing
that they don;t know. some people only work if they are rewarded, somehow they feel better. write
down how you feel at the beginning of the class and at the end of the class. fell better? worse? strategy

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of defamiliarization is a way to begin opening up the chinks and the armor of solid knowledge. if you can
do that through improvisationa nd dance. ask them to begin to understadn the structure of something,
that it isn't the only structure and there is no structure. If you have true not-knowing you die. if you
finally achieve not knowing you wouldn't know... become trusting in not-knowing: in daoism it's leading-
following. a good leader is someone who is always following. this is the process in working with Lena in
PAR. How does a chireographer generate movement by listening or by following-leading the dancer?

hawaii into 2nd list

improvisation is tehre to interrupt what you already got as a habit.

manning into second list, environment. how dancers feel.

faust does both.

whata re the environmenal conditions you have to set up to allow people to do that. under that to
focus on thigns that the axis syllabus does. could be purely physical, how to give them teh confidence
not to do the ballet body. how do you get them to question the structures that they have already
learned. somethig frey said, encouraging you to know your body ina different way.

when you defamiliarize it can be perceived as an act of violence. scond area: how oc create an
environment, to feel not threatened, is so important. from indigenous studies. queer studies doe that
to gender. Derida was very good at seting up the whole structure of eprformativity, techncially as a
word reers to thigns that yu can't predict, to those places where the energy that is released from you
leting go o lot of thee habits in a way that is aware of its environment and ecology. finding the
resonances and vibrations in the objects and things and animals around you and judith butler took his
work and applied it to gender. under that area you have your case studies. improvisation workshop.
frey's work. my work.

make categories very clearly so you know exactly who you are dealing with. be really clear who are
the people, Noe, hunter in environmental category.

make the answer something actual and real. noe has material to introduce to a workshop so they can
thing about not unknowing or unknowing.

other thign to talk about is: that whole sense of doing something that is effortless. what is teh
implication of doing smething that is effortless. its impossible to get away from that prior training
completely, rather than interrupting it or disc=rupting it how do you establish an environment in
which people can rethink/reexperience their body?

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What do I really want to be writing about. the otehr state is one where you dont have something to hold
on to. defamiliarisiation is a way of not knowing. unpick teh conventions around thing, conventions due
to history, structures that are outdated, no longer important, listening: one reason for listening because
you don;t already know. actually listening opens you to possibilities, its more of a process that you know
you will never get to a full knowledge (Alva Noe About that stuff of not knowing). same happens to the
other list: take three questions in a sense give them each a couple of sentences, with the names of the
people in brackets and then move on to the real questions. processes of not knowing, one way of doing
effortlessnes might be to think through what not knowing means in improvisation. Is not knowing a
strategy for improvisation? Do I communicate when I am improvising? yes, absolutely. I am interested in
how ways of communicating within improvisation are modes of not knowing. what is it that you have to
not know? how can you not know? without knowing the same language you can't communicate? both
have to communicate through not knowing. to what extent is not-knowing the key element in
improvising, add case studies.? and why is ti important? through not knowing we defamiliarize, we have
to listen... what strategies do you have to teach in order for the people I am working with to learn modes
and ways of not knowing. for many practitioners not-knowing is scary because if you go into practicing
not knowing, you don;t know if you have anything to show. they might be worried about interpersonal
stuff. they might be worried about looking stupid because they release their control over knowledge. how
do you give people the confidence, how do you create environments of trust where not-knowing can be
taught? where does it work and where does it not work? effortlessness is something... if people achieve
effortlessness is after they have failed many times and they keep on going. defamiliarization is a good
strategy to keep people from saying I am incompetent. someone said something conventional, start
looking at the cliche and lay it out, so they become involved in realizing that they don;t know. some
people only work if they are rewarded, somehow they feel better. write down how you feel at the
beginning of the class and at the end of the class. fell better? worse? strategy of defamiliarization is a
way to begin opening up the chinks and the armor of solid knowledge. if you can do that through
improvisationa nd dance. ask them to begin to understadn the structure of something, that it isn't the
only structure and there is no structure. If you have true not-knowing you die. if you finally achieve not
knowing you wouldn't know... become trusting in not-knowing: in daoism it's leading-following. a good
leader is someone who is always following. this is the process in working with Lena in PAR. How does a
chireographer generate movement by listening or by following-leading the dancer?

Daodejing not-knowing in terms of leading: if you are a leader you want the people in your country yu
want them to be ignorant, its not a tyrant, but daoist interpretation is that if a leader can persuay people
that they don't know everything, generative country, have to always be in some process of not-knowing.
it's impossible to put what you kow aside. good teacher has to recognize that there is personal histories,
have to speak in multiple voices to reach people. ballet background, how do you begin to throw them
into something they don;t recognize and how do you tke something in ballet and pull it apart, to throw
away. axis syllabus. How does defamiliarization enter into works of improvisational artists? how do
certain form of the recent dance tremds like axis, how do they put into practice defamiliarization? How
have scis and others used a aprticular approach to defamiliarise dance conventions? frey has gone from

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responding to violence to replacing it with something else, which is actually other. write a short essay on
that would be really interesting and explain to them why I am interested in this.

Lynette is interested in touch, you work on touch more than anything else. ways of alignnng medidians
so that your touch becomes more sensitive. improvisation includes biomechanics, touch. touch and
becoming go together very much L thinks. touch is really important. keep biomechanics separate from
touch because you can answer in different ways.

Kevin, said, L's work reminds him of axis.

stanislavski

Moving and thinking are intrinsically linked and part of one another.

Lynette: the otehr state is one where you dont have something to hold on to. defamiliarisiation is a way
of not knowing. unpick teh conventions around thing, conventions due to history, structures that are
outdated, no longer important, listening: one reason for listening because you don;t already know.
actually listening opens you to possibilities, its more of a process that you know you will never get to a
full knowledge (Alva Noe About that stuff of not knowing). same happens to the other list: take three
questions in a sense give them each a couple of sentences, with the names of the people in brackets and
then move on to the real questions.

This section actively seeks to investigate potentials for questioning the familiar body practices and
enter more dynamic territory where there is no solid ground as we know it, where mono-planar
thinking and moving is examined, sensed and used as a starting ground for allowing more three-
dimensional wholistic approaches of movement to emerge; through working with ideas around
'sensory-motor-amnesia' this is exactly what Hanna Somatics does. The physical practice of the axis
syllabus, as I practice it, is thought of as a gateway to psychological realizations about the meanings
and the impacts of our relation to our bodies within intrinsic, interpersonal, and social realms.

Opening up to other ways of knowing includes a state of not knowing, of defamiliarization, a sense of
floating among a million options and there is the organisim's tendency to make a choice one way or
another. This could be unsettling or this could become like free-diving, unlocking movement options
and kinetic chains never before experienced. It is a marvelous feeling to move in a new way, to find
that your body can be trusted to "make decisions for you". Listening is crucial and opens up
possibilities. Listening is attention, is readiness for attenting. Listening, attention, attending and
responding, nudging, weeding through options, old and new, and ultimately becoming in the
moment. The way we move and think about moving can change the way we see, feel and respond to
the world. Improvisation is the foundation for life and interaction

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De-familiarization is a step on the path to finding other ways of move-thinking.

I am working with terminology of  acceptance and responsiveness versus oppression and regulation.

The non-verbal, unknown, the felt, the intuited.

As an movement artist, I work with the non-verbal. I work with the feeling, the sense of something.
Effortlessness is such a thing for me. As the Daodejing says, "The Way that can be spoken, is not the
eternal way". 

Q: "How is effortlessness perceived, negotiated, and executed?"

In the area of philosophy Laotze and the Daoist concept of Wu Wei (often translated to 'effortless
action') and indigenous thinkers such as Robin Wall Kimmerer, Vanessa Watts, Kim Tallbear and
others are consulted. I am also drawing on western thinkers, such as Deleuze, Erin Manning and
others (need to refine these lists, assign thinkers to their specific areas...)
My thinking in this area evolves around the hypothesis that seeking effortlessness in movement is
always also related to finding effortless in life in general. 

◦ James, William, 1969, "The Feeling of Effort" in collected essays and reviews, New York:
rusell and Russell
◦ tools for finetuning
 Laermans, Rudi, 'moving together', (part 1), ('social choreographies of Collaboration') around p.
338

▪ Lepecki, Andre, "of the presence of the body', (Ontology 'events'), (part 3),
“Singularities”, Lepecki is about the environment.

▪ In a way, aligning with oneself would mean aligning with the present moment?
Wittgenstein wrote: "far the most important thing is to settle account s with myself."
"Good and evil are somehow connected with the meaning of the world. The meaning of

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the world we can call God." "I feel that I am at the very gate but can not see it clearly
enough to be able to open it. This is an extremely remarkable state." "My work has
broadened out from the foundation of ligic t the nature of the world." " Only a man who
lives not in time but in the pressent is happy. For life in the present there is no death.
Death is not an event in life. it is not a fact of the world."

 Wall Kimmerer, Robin, "reclaiming the honorable

harvest", https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lz1vgfZ3etE&feature=emb_logo Kimmerer
offers many of the viewpoints I hold around decolonializign the world an our attitude towards a
hierarchical world view. I am hoping that her indigenous views as well as her scientific
background (which provided her an insight into the paradigm of the anthropocentric western
colonizer) will give insight and provide language around what articulation, alignment and kinship
ar.

◦ Wall Kimmerer, Robin, "reclaiming the honorable

harvest", https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lz1vgfZ3etE&feature=emb_logo
 Paxton, Steve, "Gravity", Steve Paxton, 2018. Contredanse Editions, Brussels.
 Paxton, Steve, https://vimeo.com/403600420, swimming in gravity, lecture by steve paxton
 Egert (Herausgeber), Holger Hartung (Herausgeber) https://www.amazon.de/Movements-
Interweaving-Corporeality-Migration-Performance/dp/0815356234/ref=sr_1_76?
dchild=1&qid=1589954328&refinements=p_27%3AGabriele+Brandstetter&s=books&sr=1-
76&text=Gabriele+Brandstetter, link to 'look in book' on amazon, shorter chapters about/by
various artists article "Improvisieren. Paradowien des Unvorhersehbaren. Kunst-Medien-Praxis",
"Dance and Theory",
 Deleuze, "Difference and Repetition", Deleuze: Francis Bacon, The Logic of Sensation, Chapters
1 and 2 of Deleuze “Difference and Repetition”
◦ Yatuv, Itay, contact improv: ted talk, Hakvutza Dance School in Jaffa, Tel Aviv,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gi-OaiQvnTU
 Davidson, Arnold; Lewis, George and Davidson, Arnold 'improvisation as a way of life',
video, Arnold Davidson “Improvisation as Ethical Form”, video
 Freire, Paulo  "Pedagogy of the Oppressed"
From: https://beautifultrouble.org/theory/pedagogy-of-the-oppressed/#:~:text=In%20short%2C
%20Pedagogy%20of%20the,of%20domination%20(see%20below).&text=Goal%20is%20to

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%20adapt%20people,are%20treated%20as%20passive%20objects.: Over a lifetime of work

with revolutionary organizers and educators, radical educator Paulo Freire created an approach
to emancipatory education and a lens through which to understand systems of oppression in
order to transform them. He flipped mainstream pedagogy on its head by insisting that true
knowledge and expertise already exist within people. They need no “deposits” of information
(what Freire calls “banking education”), nor do they need leftist propaganda to convince them of
their problems. What is required to transform the world is dialogue, critical questioning, love for
humanity, and praxis, the synthesis of critical reflection and action.
In short, Pedagogy of the Oppressed is education as a practice of freedom, which Freire contrasts
with education as a practice of domination (see below).
 Kindler, Alan, Spontaneity and Improvisation in Psychoanalysis' Alan  M.B.B.S. Published in
Psychoanalytic Inquiry, May 13, 2010, ISSN: 0735-1690 print/1940-9133
online, DOI:10.1080/0735169090326181
 Louis, Renee Pualani ,  Kanaka Hawai’I Cartography: Hula, Navigation, and Oratory. Oregon State
University Press, 2017.  
◦ Barad, Karen,  youtube video, conference presentation, https://www.youtube.com/watch
◦ Barad, Karen,  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7LvXswjEBY
◦ Barad, Karen,, essay, v=u7LvXswjEBYhttps://read.dukeupress.edu/differences/article-
abstract/23/3/206/97723/On-Touching-the-Inhuman-That-Therefore-I-Am: This essay explores
the act of touching as it takes place in physical matter, in theorizing, and in the productive
spaces where the two are indistinguishable.

 Manning, Erin: Politics of Touch: Sense, Movement,

Sovereignty, https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5749/j.ctttsxrz has the beginnings of each chapter.
 Stiegler,Phylogenese: Phylogenese  (from  https://www.biologie-
seite.de/Biologie/Phylogenese)  (altgr.  φῦλον phýlon  ‚Stamm‘ und γένεσις  génesis ‚Ursprung‘)
bezeichnet sowohl die stammesgeschichtliche Entwicklung der Gesamtheit aller Lebewesen als
auch bestimmter Verwandtschaftsgruppen auf allen Ebenen der biologischen Systematik. Der
Begriff wird auch verwendet, um die  Evolution einzelner  Merkmale  im Verlauf der
Entwicklungsgeschichte zu charakterisieren. Der Gegenpol zur Phylogenese ist die Ontogenese, die
Entwicklung der einzelnen Individuen einer Art. Stiegler falls in a group with Sobachack, Portanova
and Kwastek and others in defining th vrtual real encounter and  the blurring of the lines between the
two. Stiegler goes as far as proclaiming an "exteriorization: a pursuit of  life through non-biological
means"
 I wrote about Stiegler in reference to my work: Technology gives form to our imagination. With
the concept of Epiphylogenesis Stiegler marks a break with biological evolution. He notes a process
of exteriorization; a pursuit of life through non-biological means.  Film, video, animation, music, all
are expressions and extensions of our imagination. Virtual reality seems to be the current most
extreme incarnation of embodied imagination and of course the development of technological
implants, such as microchips and other devices that augment and enhance biological functions.
 Thompson, Evan; Waking, Dreaming, Being: Self and Consciousness in Neuroscience,
Meditation, and

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Philosophy, https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00O0G161C/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vpp
i_i2

 interview with Judith Butler, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Bnj7H7M_Ek , Judith

Butler: on COVID-19, the politics of non-violence, necropolitics, and social
inequality note: @ 42:00 speaks to non-violence 
◦ Barad, Karen,  youtube video, conference presentation, https://www.youtube.com/watch

karen barad and others I am looking at issues of touch and how the  digital an the real touch.

           How much of our fleshy nature is electronic, virtual, not as                real as we think. th
electron as unexpecetd interlocutor 
          for touch.

          Barad, questions around self and other, meeting and                        merging of identities in
the real-virtual encounter.

 Rotmann, Bryan, last two chapters of “Becoming Beside Ourselves”, kindle version preview at :

https://books.google.de/books/about/Becoming_Beside_Ourselves.html?
id=KJOoQuSr6K4C&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button&redir_esc=y#v=one
page&q&f=false

 Rothfield, Philipa,  "Beyond Habit, The Cultivation of Corporeal Difference"

https://www.sdu.dk/-/media/files/om_sdu/institutter/iob/forskningsenheder/bevaegelseidraetsam
fund/bodies-forces-and-thinking-in-dance.pdf?
la=da&hash=34214214FF170053C7C2DC3E3A348263E3678520 Abstract: One of the initial
research questions I posed during the PhD (2008-14) at DOCH/Uniarts (Stockholm, Sweden)
concerned the relation between dance technique and choreography. One of the outcomes of the
research came to involve a consideration of dance technique as a form of subjectivation – a
technique of self. This self then points towards the body image that gets represented on stage. I
came to ask myself if dance would be ready to think (or imagine or represent) a different body. A
body that affirms its material existence instead of emphasizing it symbolic existence. A body that
auto-expresses instead of a body instrumentalized for a self-expression. In this presentation I will
extend on this subject, drawing a line through the 6 different works made during the research.
>>> Bio: After an international career as dancer Rasmus Ölme formed, in 2001, REFUG-collective
under which he produced and toured several works. After finishing his PhD in choreography at
DOCH/Uniarts (SE) he worked as a senior lecturer at DOCH until 2015 when he took the direction
of the education in Dance and Choreography at the Danish National School of Performing Arts.


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TO DO: figure out which essays from Christine Caldwell's book go into effortlessness and which go
into disarticulating

POSSIBLE CASE STUDIES

 Eiko & Koma, seals on the beach, you don't have to do anything or produce anything to live, to
exist, "fulfill your duty" as a being on earth

 Butoh?

 daoist painting/poetry, Daodejing

 DADA
 case studies: kevin

 axis

 my work as a student observing axis teachers, my work as a teacher with young people, my
work as a choreographer?

 Frey Faust

 Kira Kirsch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sksr-1kh-k "Improvising Loss and

Choreographing Potential"

 Contact improvisation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sksr-1kh-k

 contact improvisation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBJsuAYbzyE

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FURTHER READING:

 Escobar, Arturo, "Designs for the Pluriverse", (from Alvaro) Description  In Designs for the
Pluriverse Arturo Escobar presents a new vision of design theory and practice aimed at channeling
design's world-making capacity toward ways of being and doing that are deeply attuned to justice
and the Earth. "title", web link, descriptive text, abstract, etc.

◦ Cole, Peter , Coyote and Raven go Canoeing

◦ Winona LaDuke, Seeds The Creator gave Us, @ Bioneers

 Hinduism

 Jainism

 Daoism

 Ahimsa

 Paulo Freire

 Marshall Rosenberg, non-violent communication

◦ Wu Wei

Karola Lüttringhaus QE 2021