Between control and uncertainty by Marta Wörner Sarabia

"Between control and uncertainty" is a practice-led research that combines the kinetic study of the body as a structure and the implementation of media and expanded choreography tools to de-pattern the conventional relationship between body and space in performative environments. Moreover, on a meta-level, the investigation reflects on the tension between control and uncertainty in the act of research itself. With the firm belief that the body has inherent philosophical and epistemological knowledge which can be activated by experiencing and observing movement, I embraced the challenge to name and contextualize that knowledge. This inquiry started from my fascination for the kinetics of the body and its ability to reorganize itself in comparison with other micro and macro structures that do not move that way, such a, for example, the microstructures of materials like metal, rocks or the macrostructures built by the geography of the city and the Port of Rotterdam. The interdisciplinary research addresses the dichotomy structure-destructure and its application and affections to the body. In this sense, the research proposes a tool for de-patterning the habitual relationship between the body of the performer and the external space and offers to the audience a door for de-patterning their relationship with performative spaces. The research has been framed under the inspirational umbrella of the idea of performing the Deleuzian concept of “becoming”, (deriving from the Latin verb “devenire” which means “coming down, falling in, arriving to”). The physical inquiry is focused on the action of “falling in”, "devenire". The exploration led to an articulated and defined set of physical and interdisciplinary exercises that are the core of the dance practice ‘falling in’. In concordance with the practice, the findings of this research can be seen as ways of controlling and ways of facilitating, allowing, provoking uncertainty within the choreographic practice-led research frame. This research artistically materialized in the performance Falling in. Notes on body space and matter premiered in 2019.

After a first practice in which I studied the independence (and the lack of it) and connection within the parts of the body connected to the dichotomy balance/controlling-falling/dropping (see Tracing my research path), the research became one about how do I take the desition to move in the space, which forces, attractions led me to that desition, or coming back to metaphor of the net of oranges, why the orange moves?

Under an empirical point of view, gravity was an important force to have in consideration. However, to fulfil my curiosity from a philosophical point of view, I went to the philosophy of Deleuze and his description of how parts within the assemblage in becoming move. Deleuze describes the movement within parts of the whole in becoming move through affinities.

Therefore, inspired by this concept, I wondered how it would be to move through affinities, understanding affinities as the natural link of attraction to specific points in the space, within a necessary dialogue with gravity.

This chain of events happened between the studio movement research and the readings of the literature of Deleuze in which both were speaking to each other in order to create a deeper understanding of the theme researched, the articulation of the theme itself and the implications of its articulation in the movement material researched.

In one of the multiple attempts to understand and articulate that thing that was keeping me busy, I decided to check the definition of becoming in the original language of the thinker Deleuze, French, as I felt there was something missing for me in the translation.

Becoming, "devenire" in its original language, comes from the Latin verb “devenire” which means “coming down, falling in, arriving to.

As I was already working with the idea of falling or embracing gravity as a way of allowing the independence between parts of the body in contrast with balancing or re-structuring the body against gravity, I decided to dive in the concept of falling as a tool for study the possibilities of kinetic re-organization of the body, embracing the idea of the body as a structure in constant transformation of becoming.

For that aim, I focused on the dichotomy structure or control and de-structure or falling in, studying the way the body reorganizes itself in-between moments of physical balance or control, trying to let the body decide thought affinities or points of attraction within the space rather than through known patterns or pre-determined choices.

This research started with my own individual practice. In the next video, one can observe the first attempt to create choreographic material from the interests described above.

Starting with the firm belief that the body has inherent knowledge that can be activated by experiencing and observing movement and through the observation of how it reorganizes in comparison to different inorganic structures in order to define it, I came during the research to the conclusion that the body, as a structure, has the specific characteristic of being able to become.

The research started by intuitively using the image of a net of oranges in which the movement of every orange, as an independent unity of a connected whole, affects the movement of rest of the whole. This images served, in the first stage of the inquiry, as a metaphor for my approach to the body, later leading to name it as a decentralized structure and bringing the research closer to the geophilosophy of Deleuze. In his description of becoming, Deleuze uses the example of how atoms move to describe the movement of the parts in becoming (Deleuze, G & Guattari, F, 1988, p272), a metaphor that resonated in my research about kinetic reorganization and that I felt related to this first images of the oranges net.

#Falling in. The philosophy behind.

From this and other individual practices, I understood the complexity of the aim of moving through affinities and the need for breaking open the fundamental blocks of the mind that contain my understanding and definition of what to dance is, apart from working towards a physical practice that de-patterns the habits relate how my body uses to re-organize itself, to open a new door for the uncertainty that moving through affinities would embrace, rather than using the solid paths that I learned.

This realization, together with the necessity to share my research with others in order to enrich it, question my own assumptions and surprise myself, led me to design a set of proposed exercises under the umbrella of the physical practice with an underlying philosophical approach named "falling in". The exercises shared with a design heterogeneous research group, from where I re-define and articulate the practice, getting to Falling in. The physical practice, which allowed and shaped the choreographic material that I am currently using in the final project of this research.

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