Appearing choreography : performing perception

Abstract

In this written part of my thesis work I will trace how perception includes both political and existential aspects for me. I am interested in the wide spectrum of perception, and how this multiplicity is framed by different contexts and through conditioning. I like to think that perception is an action, it is something that we do, and from this stems the name for my artistic final work: Performing Perception. In this text, I try to find connections between my own experiences, theoretical writings and artistic practices. In the first section Thinking outloud, I will open up my own experiences, existing choreographic practices and artistic references which are setting the frame for the artistic final work. I relate my thinking to practices by Deborah Hay, Boris Charmatz and Esther Salomon. I will also share my other perception related artistic works created during my MA studies in the Master's Degree Programme in Choreography. In the next section, I will open up to theory. I will explore how perception can be seen both as a political and existential question. The political aspects I discuss alongside a text by George Lakoff, Mark Johnson and Erin Manning. The existential aspects I try to articulate together with Martin Heidegger and Edmund Husserl. In the last section Performing perception – the performance I go more into the details of the performance itself. As we were working with re-writing the perception, I will outline different practices and compositional tools that emerged from this process.