Grrrraaaacce

A few things that happened, happen and will happen

I am currently in the last days of my residency at Agora Cité Internationale de la Danse in Montpellier, within Life Long Burning where I work on “Grace”. I had some good 2.5 weeks here, which for dance artists feels like a long and generous time (everyone here amazed at the length of it), while for visual arts feels like this is a joke (everyone more like “that’s insane”). But so glad I’m here nevertheless, there’s just so much to see and one cannot get enough of Montpellier in spring. I’m not sure how dance artists create a good part of their work in 2 weeks time, as I do feel the rush and the inner fighting between spending all time in studio towards doing a dignified work and enjoying the time here, not exploiting the work and letting grace and creativity dictate the flow of the process. I haven’t arrived at a resolution on this, but hopefully opening towards one.

Past

Within the residency I held a research workshop on 20-21 April, open to those who wished to question with me what could be grace in art, dance, life, and how to open ourselves to it. Thanks to those who joined.

Present

Tuesday, 28 April, me and Florin Flueras will present and experiment with Grace + Love. I invited Florin in this residency to be in dialogue between my work, “Grace” and his work, “Love”, whose core ideas are closely related. Therefore tuesday, in my open studio of “Grace”, “Love” will also appear. Thank you Florin for twisting their minds together.

“Grace” seeks an encounter between its meaning in dance and a broader sense of grace as found, for example, in mysticism. In spiritual contexts, it refers to a mysterious state, received rather than produced; a blessing that comes upon you. “Grace” is explored in its wide spectrum: from wilfully spiritual (forms of attention) to playfully formal (can we dance in graceful ways?), from grace as spirit that guides the dancer, to grace as beauty, charismatic trickery in the body. I’m interested in bringing (back) a possibility for spirit into the body, for dance to happen out of a negotiation between effort and grace, dedication and abandon, passion and unknown. A dance at the edge with the unknown, a groove that’s in the heart.

“‘Love’ explores practices for embodying love – hypersensibility, ecstatic affects, subtle affective connections with things around – love in its expanded sense, as the affective base of reality, which, in a mysterious way, sensible bodies can sometimes sense and affect. In Love, the charged sensible bodies are inserted in “inappropriate” contexts where something else is already happening – from art spaces to supermarkets and anything in between (a dance presentation in this case). Their sensibility brings a contrast that can performatively interfere with the normality of those contexts, temporary zones of possibility might open. Since affects are contagious, the entire atmosphere and situation can be affected. Artworks are usually visual, movement, sound or conceptual based. ‘Love’ is love based.” (FF)

Future

Soon after I’ll go back home in Bucharest where Grace will continue as a workshop at Somn space between 2-4 May, within the School of performance organized by Teatre/Theatres. It is within a very generous program curated by Adriana Gheorghe, where local and international artists will hold workshops, give lectures, perform and unfold the idiosyncrasies of performance during a long and textured program. There is an open call for those who wish to take part in the School of performance ateliers. I’m glad that this program is fulfilling its name’s promise, growing more and more as an “Institution of Performance” (which can be read at first as a good conceptual satire on the lack of local suport for performance works), since it brings and bridges powerful connections with international artists, facilitating wide discussions and making space for practices around performative mediums, in the increasing culturally isolated Bucharest. Thank you Adriana for the invitation.

In the workshop, I will focus on the grace found in works of art and at the heart of creative processes. Grace is approached here as a form of intuition, as a mysterious guide. But we’ll also explore grace through dance, of course :) because that’s how I was drawn into it, by the overlapping of its meanings – the grace in dance and the grace of mystical tradition, the beauty and the magic beyond our control. Grace will be explored in its wide spectrum: from wilfully spiritual (forms of attention) to playfully formal (can we dance in graceful ways?), from grace as spirit that guides the dancer, to grace as beauty, charismatic trickery in the body. I will guide minimal body practices, we will dance, simulate a Grace Contest* (false dance contest based on the elusive appearance of grace), see grace in others, and discuss theoretical or empirical references on this matter. Grace has a soft spot for philosophy, intuition and a longing for expressivity, for a body with a possibility for spirit. It’s open to anyone interested in working with forms like dance, performance, meditation, metaphor, dreams.

Last but not least.. Between 5-30 May, Grace exploration will continue at Teatro Comandini in Cesena, Italy within a dearly formed frame by Claudia Castellucci and Guillermo de Cabanyes. In it, Claudia Castellucci proposes public readings based on what appears in the meeting between the residents’ processes and the team of the theatre which she is part of. Grateful for having been accepted in this residency, thank you to to everyone involved. Can grateful and grace be in the same sentence to end this? Sounds like it’s a bit too much. But you get my stance.

*Grace is a wider project that takes different forms, from body practice, false dance contest and photography (all together with Eve Cousins), to performance, workshop and hopefully a body with spirit.

See you in the (im)possibility of grace,

Eliza