Invitation : Choreoreading EXOXƎ

Abstract

This semi-fictional chapter stems from the post-doctoral artistic research project called xeno/exo/astro -choreoreadings, conducted from 2021 to 2023 in the Performing Arts Research Centre, Theatre Academy, University of the Arts Helsinki. The project has materialised the relations between outer space, interplanetary culture, queer sci-fi and choreography through several art works and representational experiments. The process has combined astronomical-artistic research questions and a light sense of what I would call metaphysical clownishness (in Finnish: metafyysinen pelleily). This essay materialises the examination of the practice coined as choreoreading. The term was developed during my doctoral artistic research project, Choreography as Reading practice (2013–2019). The exploration is based on the understanding in which writing and reading are simultaneously operative bodily practices, but (and on my explorations that) in the history of western choreography, the potential of (choreo-) reading has been neglected. During winter 2022-2023 I have continued to experiment with choreoreading by filtering the embodied practice in a more specific dialogue with writer James Sosnoski's (1999) description of the characteristics of hyper-reading. This writing exposes from the position of a performer the detailed question of what happens during choreoreading and how specific eye-movements form its relevant dynamic component in the artwork titled EXOXƎ.