The P(art) of the W(hole): investigations, through choreography and mysticism, on the imponderably basic equation: we are; we are not

Abstract

An exploration on choreography as a compositional practice of mysticism; one that, through analysis of dispositions making, performing, and attending, invites the reader to consider live choreographic performance as a means of practicing the end. This research inquires as to how choreographic work can be approached as a durational, devotional, mystical process – one that not only allows for, but is supported by contradiction, fragmentation, emergent wholeness, and most importantly – its ending. Drawing from performance theory, medieval/contemporary philosophy, medieval mystic’s texts, and my personal/professional relationship to art, the writing itself develops as ongoing journey through various fleeting forms; it incorporates many voices. Upon completion, this written component leads me into my studio work, where I’m currently reimagining, reinterpreting, and reformulating its content towards a new and different shape: my final production.

This writing is fundamentally dialogical. It attempts to spark generative friction through polyrhythmic, multivocal composition, by putting different voices, different eras, and different approaches on the page – then rubbing them together. Maybe, some kind of w(hole), emerges. It is contradictory. It is an ode to the medieval fragment with nods to the postmodern one – meaning it does employ the postmodern conception of wholeness as impossibility because of and through fragmentation…but it simultaneously strives for, aims towards, and ultimately, attempts to believe in, the possibility of wholeness – despite fragmentation. Each part, despite its brokenness, despite its hole-ness, is a whole… and through that hole, the whole becomes realized – if only for a fleeting moment. Hole-ness towards holiness.

This thesis functions as a sieve. Watery questions are poured into it…some of them remain, others drip through the holes of the whole. But really, it is about the act of pouring itself: Together, this written component and the artistic work serve as a choreographic engagement with meaning – my desperation for it and my great frustration with it. It contributes to choreographic discourses concerning epistemology, historiography, temporality (via duration and death), and relationality. This is the kind of writing that materialized from someone who has experienced loss. For that reason, it contributes to discourses on grief, mourning, and recovery through the framework of live choreographic performance.