Jan Schacher: Jasch Notes
Jan Schacher schreibt als beteiligter Performer nach der Performance «Gathering extended» am Samstag 24.09.2016 im Rahmen von PANCH im Neubad Luzern.
Notizen, die sich während und nach der Performance angesammelt haben, aus der Innensicht und im Rückblick._
states, emotional statesreactions to the othersimpulses: to react or not
multiple voicesoverlaid in space withspatial, material, dynamic and sounding presences
naked bodies, clothed bodies of different genders, sizes, ages, intensities_
giving space, taking spacesonic space, geographical space, temporal space, interactional personal space (the sphere around a person)_
naked bodies, naked presencethe phenomenal body vs. the social body, the play is almost exclusively social as a showing of exposure, perhaps a change of state a transformation of self-perception through the naked-ness, in order to create a state of extra-ordinary circumstances?I perceive skin, body-parts, persons, reflecting on my own body, my physical presence, clothed…_
different approaches to performance:
conceptual: with a representational idea (a day at the pool, swimming along the pool), a political idea (theatre?),material: sowing, painting, writing, sounding, creating compound objects, images, sculpture,presence: through actions with contingent materials and situations, with the body, with an attitude, with an intensityinteractions: relating to the other(s), not relating/ignoring, parallel interaction, direct interaction, synchronous-additive-parallel-???, collaborativetemporal: creating time-spans, working on speed, duration, in/tension-arcs, single long actions, multiple short actions,_
inside/outside:
fluctuating attendance (number of performers), creating more or less dense moments, by simple physical presence or absence in the pool-space, around the pool-spaceinner: focus on inner processes of my own actions, on my own perception and development of ideasouter: focus on others their actions, my interaction with others, distraction by others, impulses by others, engagement with others’ concepts and ideas (sowing, political conceptual sequence) interfering with other’s activity (microphone-coil sound, etc.)_
self-perception, self-observation:
my own attention spans, reaching my limit with the materials, the others, the situation, the long duration, the space and the place, the memories attached to the placereacting to social cues, to material cues, to action cuesself-conscious when familiar people appear in the audience_
two relevant quotes from improvisation literature:
«A highly competitive atmosphere creates artificial tensions, and when competition replaces participation, compulsive action is the result. … Should competition be mistaken for a teaching pool, the whole meaning of playing and games is distorted. Playing allows a person to respond with his or her `total organism within a total environment.’ Imposed competition makes this harmony impossible, for it destroys the basic nature of playing by occluding the self and by separating player from player. … Contest and extension, on the other hand, is an organic part of every group activity and gives both tension and release in such a way as to keep the player intact while playing» (Spolin 2014, p. 409).
«Certainly anyone familiar with improvisation either as a spectator or participant could not fail to be aware of the fact that free-improvisation is more about power than about freedom. … For all the talk of dialogue, we witness here in the `pushing and pulling’ of improvisation the dialectic of the negative and the positive freedom, of the collective and the singular, the `yes’ and `no’ of the work played out in full view of the audience. … what the majority of improvisatory discourses have in common is the assumption of a dialogical model that is played out intersubjectively within the performance. If competitiveness does creep into this performative interaction then it is understood exclusively in terms of social participation and human relations rather than as being a result of the improvisor’s relation the the _work_: an aesthetic relation. One consequence of this within the discussion of freedom and free-improvisation is that it is inevitably framed in terms of either a negativity that strives to establish and maintain a regime of noninterference where mutual respect for the improvisatory space of the other is a first principle, or, conversely, a more risky proposition that recognizes a certain desire for mastery and accepts that issues of power and the freedom to actualize this power aesthetically are an integral part of improvisation» (Peters 2009 pp. 52-53).
Viola Spolin (2014). Seven Aspects of Spontaneity. In The Improvisation Studies Reader: Spontaneous Acts, Routledge, London, UK.
Gary Peters (2009). The Philosophy of Improvisation. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL._
Zur Autorschaft: jasch, artist-researcher, Luzern9 www.jasch.ch _
Zur Performance: The Gathering Extended, Neubad Luzern, 24.9.2016, mit:Beat Unternährer, Nesa Gschwend, Sascha Dikov, Parvez Imam, Gisela Hochuli, Lukas Hürlimann, Glynis Ackermann, Angela Hausheer, Leo Bachmann, Karyna Herrera, Peter Aerni, Claudia Grimm, Lisa Jenny, Lilian Frei, Mirzlekid, Dominik Lipp, Joëlle Valterio, Irena Kulka, Judith Huber, Francesco Spedicato, Thomas Zollinger, Bruno Schlatter, Rolf Schulz, Jan Schacher
