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PROJECT 3 ( July 2007) was developed as asite-specific durational dance performancesituated in a gallery-esque site – the orangeryand adjoining conservatory spaces withinthe mansion of Bretton Hall1 (see imagesopposite). The aim was to construct a workthat relied upon the choreographer’s andper formers’ embodied site-responses as rev -ealed through pheno men o logical move mentinquiry and to employ this material as thesole form of bodily and kinaesthetic com mu -nication between per former and spectator.
This resulted in a quest to produce a per -formance experience that moved away fromexploring a site’s formal, historical, andcontextual components2 and aimed insteadto encourage the audience member toengage with the site through a corporeal,experi ential encounter with the site pheno -menon. Put simply, this project aimed toproduce a sense of ‘fit’ (see Wrights and Sitesin Wilkie, 2002) in which the final workconstituted a performance of site in themoment as opposed to a performance aboutthe site and its architectural, historical, orfactual components.
Project 3 explored the potential for site-specific ‘encounters’ to increase the audiencemembers’ awareness of site through their
engagement with the live, real-time perfor -mance event, leading to the potential invo -cation of an increased awareness of self in thehere and now. As opposed to feelings of self-consciousness, the term applies here to anindividual’s increased awareness of them -selves in the site leading to an increasedsense of ‘present-ness’.
To this end, a creative approach aimed atproducing a work with a congruous senseof fit was developed to prioritize theindividual’s engagement in a self-aware andpresent manner. Through the application ofan organic3 form of creative and choreo gra -phic process, the project explored how themoving, dancing body could be the mainfacilitator of this process, effectively bringingthe individual ‘closer’ to an embodiedexperi ence of the site, reliant upon theircorporeal and kinaesthetic experience.
The purpose of this particular site-specificwork was to explore an interaction with thesite which would in turn invoke for both per -former and audience member an increasedawareness of self: in this place, at this time,in this moment. During this process of‘exchange’, the dancers’ skills and spatial‘tuning’ was employed to produce a form ofsite-specific encounter facilitated by the
Spatial Translation and ‘Present-ness’in Site-Specific Dance PerformanceIn this article Victoria Hunter considers notions of spatial translation, ‘present-ness’, and‘embodied reflexivity’ within site-specific dance performance. Through a discussion of theauthor’s site-specific dance installation entitled Project 3, she explores choreographicprocesses that aimed to facilitate, transform, and heighten the lived experience of site bythe performer and the audience through phenomenologically informed movement inquiry.Forming part of the author’s practice-led PhD investigation into the relationship betweenthe site and the creative process, the performance was the third in a trilogy of site-specificworks exploring the potential for site-specific dance performance to ‘reveal’ the sitethrough movement, challenging both performers and audience members to engage withnew ways of experiencing the site-world. Victoria Hunter is a practitioner-researcher andlecturer in dance at the University of Leeds. Her research is practice-led and is concernedwith the nature of dance-making processes within site-specific choreography. Shecompleted her PhD in site-specific dance performance in December 2009.
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performers’ spatial ‘translation’, meta phoric -ally transforming the site into movement. Inthis sense, the role of the performer becameone of a spatial ‘guide’ engaging in a form of‘corporeal signposting’ as defined byPersighetti (in Smith, 2009).
Performed by six dancers, the work wassituated in the orangery and adjoining con -ser vatory spaces. The surrounding lavender-edged lawn was also used as a space forperformance, audiences being free to navi -gate themselves in the site as they wished.
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Each space presented the audience mem -ber with a distinct installation experi ence asthe orangery space contained three dancerswhile the outside site and the conservatorysite contained solo dancers.
The creative processes employed withinthe project are discussed here in a chrono -logical format in relation to the conceptsof Present-ness, Exploration, Improvis a tion,Trans lation, and Co-existence.
Present-ness, Exploration, Improvisation
The term ‘present-ness’ describes here anactive process involving the individual’s deli-b erate focusing of attention on themselves,their environment, and their actions andinteractions in the present moment. This isfacilitated through a process of pheno men -ological reduction described by Mickunasand Stewart (1974, in Fraleigh, 1987, p. 6) as‘a narrowing of attention to what is essentialin the problem while disregarding thesuperfluous and accidental’, thereby enab -ling an immediate and direct through-line ofconnectivity to develop between site, per -former, and audience. The term describes apractical form of movement inquiry draw ingupon Merleau-Ponty’s notion (1962) of the‘whole-self’, comprising a synthesized mindand body. Present-ness, therefore, implies anactive process experienced by the individual
in an attentive manner requiring awarenessand receptivity.
To enable the dancers’ present-ness toflourish, Project 3 explored and utilizeddance improvisation as a choreographic tool.This tool facilitated an exploration of the siteduring the early stages of the creativeprocess and functioned as a performancestructuring device in its own right, throughthe application of site-based movement‘scores’, leading to the presentation of a live‘choreographed’ dance improvisation instal -lation. During the early stages of the creativeprocess, the dancers and myself explored thesite on a purely intuitive level, gatheringexperiential data of our initial site responses,as summarized at the head of the pageopposite.
From this process, dance improvisation‘episodes’ were developed utilizing the dan -cers’ phenomenological movement inquiry,enabling their bodies to get to know thesite world ‘well’ and ultimately to ‘speak’ ofthe site and translate these embodied site-based responses to other moving, living bodiesin the site through the final performanceinstallation.
At this stage of the process, Halprin’snotion of movement ‘exploration’ implying amore focused and ‘directed’ approach todance improvisation influenced the develop -ment of tasks aimed at corporeally accessing
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Fig. 2. Floor plan of installation site for Project 3 (not to scale).
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this particular site. In conversation withNancy Stark-Smith, Halprin discusses herapproach:
What I called ‘dance explorations’ was different,because we would take a specific idea – you mighttake space or you might take time, you might takeforce – and we would work with a very specificfocus and then we would explore what are all thepossibilities around working with space forexample. And in the process of exploration, wewould come up with information that then lateron I began to call ‘resources’. But ‘exploring’ wasmuch more focused and controlled than ‘impro -vising’. (Halprin and Kaplan, 1995, p. 191)
Informed by the concept of phenomeno -logical reduction, I began to develop tasksthat equated to a narrowing of the dancer’sattention (through movement explorations)to particular key site essences. Drawingupon the initial observation tasks, a numberof movement explorations were thenundertaken by myself and the dancers. Someof these tasks drew upon generic site-basedmovement improvisation tasks outlined bymovement practitioners and theorists. Forexample, Tufnell and Crickmay’s (2004)exercise entitled ‘Find the Skin’ (p. 125)required the dancers to explore the spacearound them informed by the sensationsexperienced by the body’s skin receptors. Inthis particular exercise the skin is consideredas a ‘place of meeting’ (p. 125) between the
body and the site, resulting in movementexplorations stimulated by the ‘conver -sations’ occurring at the nexus of interactionbetween physical body and site. Additionaltasks were developed specifically to investi -gate particular essences and aspects of thesite through a ‘lived-body’ approach (Fra -leigh, 1987). The following task, for example,emerged in response to the initial obser -vation exercise in which the dancers recalleda desire to bring the space inside the bodyand conversely explore the body’s effectupon the space:
! Explore the notion of ‘capturing’ thespace with the body.
! Capture and bring the space into thebody – allow this space to play, exploreand develop its journey internallywithin the body, then release this forceback into the environment.
! Consider the body and its actionssimultaneously affecting the space andbeing affected by the space.
! Acknowledge the effect of your inter -vention within the space – respond tothe changing, energized space.
! Repeat and develop the process,capturing, exploring, and releasingspace. Respond. Repeat.
(V. Hunter, 2007, Project 3,Choreographic Process diary extract)
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Shape
Structure
Textures !Air
Surfaces
Insides Experienced through the body-selfOutsides "Lines
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Through this task and subsequent tasksaimed at ‘imprinting’ the body’s movementupon the site, the dancers engaged with thespace through a form of cyclical ‘dialogue’ asthey became aware of their responses to thespace while simultaneously acknowledgingthe effect of their actions upon the space. Theresulting movement content generated bythese tasks possessed a sculptural qualityand a sense of dynamic responsiveness to theever-changing site environment influencedby the movement and motion of the otherdancers in the space.
Following discussions and evaluation ses -sions with the dancers, it was identified thatthese ‘bespoke’ tasks (as opposed to moregeneric dance improvisation tasks) provedmost useful in finding a ‘way in’ to exploringthe site in a more meaningful and presentmanner, as they developed from our on-going experiences of the site. For example,when moving through the orangery room,the dancers recorded feeling a sense of‘directed-ness’ or ‘compulsion to travel’dictated by the site’s dimensions and thelength of the room. Through discussion, thedescription of this sense became identified asa sense or essence of ‘linearity’ experiencedthrough the body.
To focus attention towards this particularphenomenon, I designed a task whereby thedancers were asked to stand at one end of thespace and draw the ‘vectors of direction’suggested by the space. This task engagedthe dancers in a free-drawing exercise akin toa literary stream of consciousness. Unlikewriting, however, the dancers captured indiagrammatic form an impression of theircompulsion to move in response to this feltsensation of ‘linearity’. Once this task wascompleted, they entered the space andexplored through the body this sense oflinearity and responded to the associatedsense of push and pull elicited by the senseand played with it further by travellingalong the pathways suggested.
As the task developed, the dancers wereencouraged to expand their explorations, toincorporate movements, running, rolling, andto explore other linear pathways which pre -sented themselves to consciousness, incor -
por ating a range of vertical, horizontal andplanar dimensions. Following this exercise,they returned to their original observationpoints at the ends of the room and recalledtheir embodied sensations of moving throughthe space during the task. This corporeal andsensorial information was recorded in diag -rammatic form effectively representing eachdancer’s phenomenological impression ofhow the original vectors of energy had beendisrupted and rewritten following theirmovement interventions.
When placed side by side, the two ‘maps’of the space provide an illustration of theiroriginal perception of the space alongside anew-found record/impression of some ofthe new patterns of energy and spatial ‘flow’resulting from their actions and interven -tions in the space. An example of onedancer’s recording is presented here:
Fig. 4. Phenomenological movement exercise diagram.Dancer’s impression of the site prior to moving.
Fig. 5. Phenomenological movement exercise diagram.Dancer’s impression of the site following the
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In phenomenological terms, the originalmapping document (Fig. 4) shows a repre -sen tation of the site’s linearity as perceivedby the subject from ‘over there’, while thesecond (Fig. 5) presents an illustration of theindividual’s experience and exploration ofthe phenomenon of the site’s linearity asexperienced ‘from within’ through a processof embodied exploration. Again, thisexample illustrates how this task and othersengaged the dancers in an embodied explor -ation of something in particular informed bythe concept of ‘phenomenological inten -tionality’ (Merleau-Ponty, 1962).
The dancers’ experiences gained whileexploring these tasks began to form the basisof movement ‘scores’ (after Halprin, 1975)that became embodied by the dancers andwere played out and explored during thefinal durational performance event. Thesemovement scores and associated instruc tionsare outlined briefly here:
! ‘Vectors’ of direction (discussedpreviously).
! ‘Capturing’ the space (discussedpreviously).
! ‘Swirling mist’ – Responding to theenergy of the space and the other bodiesin space by equating the shiftingdynamics and movement trace patternsto a ‘swirling mist’ which moves thebody in space while simultaneouslycontributing to the stirring of the ‘mist’.4
! ‘Imprinting’ – feeling the body’stangible sense of imprinting shapes,pathways, and movement patternsupon the space, experiencing the spaceas a dense and malleable entity affectingand being affected by the dancer’smovement interventions.
Each dancer embodied four movement score,each score exploring a particular aspect of thesite including atmospheric and spatial qua li -ties and the site’s ‘essences’ as experi encedby the performer.5 The scores encour aged thedancers to listen and respond holistically tothe site and to the other bodies in the site,and to acknowledge how their interventionsin the space impacted upon and altered the
site phenomenon. Through this process, thedancers began to explore and develop theirknowledge of the site corporeally and kin -aes thetically and, through their enactment ofthis embodied knowledge, began to ‘trans -late’ the site into movement.
Translation and Co-existence
Addressing the phenomenon of site-specificspectatorship and ‘hybrid identities’, FionaWilkie (2005) discusses site-specific spec ta -tor ship ‘as an imaginative experience, whichcannot be wholly contained by either spaceor the performance’ (2005, p. 5) The utiliz -ation of real-world locations inhabited bycreated performance works, combined withperformance techniques which (often)explore the blurring of boundaries betweenperformer and audience, present the indivi -dual’s encounter with the site as an estrangedyet recognizable version of the world inwhich a range of spectator ‘identities’ can beencompassed.
The ultimate aim of Project 3 was to createa work that enabled both the performer andaudience members to immerse themselveswithin a performance experience, and toencounter the site in an embodied andimmediate manner through the medium ofmovement. To this end, it was decided thatthe work should take the form of a dura -tional dance installation to allow the indi vi -dual’s experience of the work to evolve overa period of (self-determined) time and therole of the audience member be defined as a‘witness’. The term ‘witness’ in the context ofperformance studies is defined by Etchells(1999, p. 17):
To witness an event is to be present at it in somefundamentally ethical way, to feel the weight ofthings and one’s own place in them, even if thatplace is simply, for the moment as an onlooker.
Etchells discusses how, in the case of per -formance works that challenge conventionalmodes of theatrical presentation, the witnessis presented with ‘an invitation to be hereand be now, to feel exactly what it is to bein this place and this time’ (1999, p. 18). It isthis element of audience ‘witnessing’ which
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Project 3 explored in particular: the notion ofthe witness being ‘invited’ to participate, re-act, respond, or simply observe as deter -mined by themselves.
The term ‘witness’ describes here a pro -cess of spectatorship in which the audiencemember takes responsibility for their actionsand responses in order to inform anddevelop their experiencing and under stand -ing of the work. In this sense, the partici -patory role offered to the witness in Project 3possessed a degree of autonomy requiringthe individual consciously to engage with thework, choose their role within it, and navi -gate their journey throughout the instal -lation experience.
Audience members were free to choosetheir level and mode of interaction with theperformers, while the dancers were encour -aged to acknowledge openly the audience’spresence and to reflect their body languageand movement within their own movementexplorations. In order to maximize the indi -vi dual’s experience of this transcen dentalworld, the work sought to develop in boththe audience and the performer a heigh t enedsense of awareness, encouraging encountersbetween self and site and self and ‘the other’in an awakened manner leading to a state ofpresent-ness.
Development of the Dancer’s Role
As the rehearsal process developed, itbecame apparent that, in order to facilitatethis process, the dancers’ own awareness ofthemselves in the site and sense of present-ness and engagement with the work re -quired careful development. As opposed toadopting a form of performance personaderived from character portrayal or narra -tion, the dancers were required to exploreand present their movement explorations tothe witness in a naturalistic and presentmanner, with a limited amount of artifice,acting, or overt sense of performance. Theaim of this role was to act as a corporealguide extending Persighetti’s notion of theactor as ‘signpost’ wherein the ‘extendedorganism of the actor operates as a signpostto the immediate site’ (Smith, 2009, p. 170).
This form of sharing the dancers’ explor -ations of the site with ‘the other’ (Merleau-Ponty, 1962) through a process of embodiedspatial translation inevitably meant that thedancers’ role began to develop in its com -plexity. To develop this role, therefore, thedancers were required to address questionsof how to achieve present-ness and how tomaintain a state of present-ness in their ownpractice while acknowledging and respond -ing to the work of others.
To facilitate this, a number of pheno -menological concepts were explored throughdiscussion during the rehearsal process, thenapplied to the dancers’ exploration of themovement scores. Jaana Parviainen dis -cusses Merleau-Ponty’s notion of ‘flesh’ as aphenomenological concept used to ‘conveythe notion that the human body and theworld originate from the same source’ (1998,p. 62). In a practical sense, this concept aidedthe performers’ facilitating an important per -ceptual shift between considerations of thebody as a physically limited and boundedentity to a consideration of the body-self as apermeable being.
Merleau-Ponty in The Visible and the Invis -ible (1964, p. 63) explains the concept further:
My body is made of the same flesh as the world,and moreover this flesh of my body is shared bythe world, the world reflects it, encroaches upon itand it encroaches upon the world.
However, Parviainen (1998) explains thatwithin this concept the body and the worlddo not disappear into ‘sameness’. Theexample of breathing is provided to illustratethis point and exemplify the interdependentnature of the body and the world.
One dancer explained how the applic -ation of this concept within her danceexplorations helped to develop a strongersense of connection between self and site:
My body felt open both physically and mentally,I felt a definite exchange between myself and thesite informed by the idea of the space movingthrough the body as the body moved through thespace. My movement felt natural but explorativeat the same time.
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This description reveals how the concepthelped to develop the dancer’s sense ofengagement with the site in a reciprocalmanner, as she became aware of her inter -ven tions in the site while simultane ouslyresponding to the evolving site phenomenonas it became altered as a result of her move -ments. In this sense, a process of reversibilityis enacted between subject and object andthrough this process both are defined and re-defined by the other.
This does not imply, however, that inani -mate objects become animate through thisprocess. The reciprocal act in this contextemerges through the individual’s engage -ment with the phenomenon of the other (thesite and other bodies in this context). This isdescribed by Crowther (1993, p. 2) as a pro -cess of ‘ontological reciprocity’ experiencedby the lived-body facili tated by ‘our sensori-motor capacities in operation as a unifiedfield’. He expands upon the concept:
The unity of this field, and the consciousnessof self emerging from it, is both stimulated by,and enables us to organize the spatio-temporaldiver sity of otherness. We give it contour,direction, and measuring; thus constituting it aworld. On these terms, the structure of embodiedsub jectivity and of the world are directlycorrelated. Each brings forth and defines theother. Their reciprocity is ontological as well ascausal.
(Crowther, 1993, p. 2)
In this sense, the dancer’s embodied explor -ation of the site phenomenon can be seen tooperate in a spiralling format equating to aform of ‘processing’ the space through thedancer’s body in a process of ‘present-ness’.The process of present-ness is presentedabove in diagrammatic form and providesan illustration of the dancer’s process ofexperiencing, processing, and revisitingpheno mena through the body-self’s up-dated and re-informed knowledge.
In this process, the dancer begins byexploring the site phenomenon and, whileengaged in this exploration, simultaneouslycreates an embodied sense of how the worldof this phenomenon feels though the livedbody experience of moving through andengaging with this world. As the dancer’smovement exploration develops, they beginto respond to their embodied perception ofthe site world while simultaneously creatingthis world through their bodily, kinaestheticengagement, constituting a relationship that,as Crowther (1993) suggests, is both causaland ontological.
Co-existence
Once the dancers had begun to develop theirown sense of present-ness through pheno -meno logical engagement with the site, thephenomenological concept of ‘self and
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otherness’ (after Merleau Ponty, 1962) com -bined with the concept of simultaneity (afterMassey, 2005) to develop the creative pro -cess6 further. These two concepts wereexplored and applied firstly to the dancers’simultaneous explorations of the site duringthe rehearsal process, and secondly to informthe dancers’ preparation for the final processof sharing the work with the witness.
Throughout these explorations, however,the dancers frequently reported a sense offrustration with themselves for ‘failing’ toachieve a consistent state of ‘present-ness’throughout the duration of an improvisationepisode. The dancers became concerned that,while engaged within a movement explor -ation they would often find their attentionwandering or would frequently struggle intheir attempts to be ‘pre-reflective’ andeffectively quieten their minds sufficiently to‘be in-the-moment’.
As the process developed, ‘witnesses’ wereinvited to attend rehearsal sessions to enablethe dancers to develop their experience ofcommunicating and co-existing with othersoutside the rehearsal process. However, thedancers frequently reported a sense ofalienation and distance between themselvesand the visiting witnesses, while the wit -nesses themselves reported a sense of being‘excluded’ from the dancers’ explorations.
During this phase of the process, thepractical explorations revealed a require -ment for a re-evaluation of the notion of pre-reflexivity and ‘being in-the-moment’ aspre viously understood through pheno meno -logical dance discourse. Additionally, theconcept of ‘communing’ with the witnessrequired closer attention.7
The Concept of Personhood
At this stage of the rehearsal process, theconcept of ‘personhood’ proposed by danceanthropologist Brenda Farnell (2007) wasintroduced. In her conference paper ‘Choreo -graphic Process as Live TheoreticalPractice’,8 Farnell presented the notion of‘personhood’ pertaining to an individual’sembodied knowledge, informed by theirown personal history, identity, and cultural
makeup. Farnell’s discussion of a ‘dynamic -ally embodied personhood’ seeks toacknowledge the individuality and personalmake-up of the dancer, recognizing them asan embodied being and (using the exampleof abstract dance) seeks to recover the‘mover from movement for movement’ssake’ (Farnell 2007).
Farnell’s concept of personhood developsFraleigh’s (1987) concept of the lived-bodyexperience by enabling the dancer to bringtheir whole sense of self to the dance experi -ence and consider themselves as a ‘dancingperson’ as opposed to a servant of the danceor a supreme dancing being striving tobecome ‘at one’ with the dance in a pre-reflective manner. Farnell proposes that theconcept of personhood bypasses notions ofdualism as it automatically seeks to addressthe individual as a whole person in anholistic sense consisting of mind, body,cultural, social, and historical context.
To develop the dancers’ sense of present-ness, the concept of personhood was ex -plored practically within the various danceexploration tasks. In particular, the conceptenabled the dancers to acknowledge andobserve themselves and the various states ofconsciousness experienced throughout theexplorations. As opposed to experiencing aconstant sense of engagement and immer -sion within the various tasks suggested bynotions of pre-reflexivity, the dancers wereable to identify and observe their ownindividual process of ebb and flow as theyexperienced moments of immersion, lapses inconcentration, and moments of re-engage -ment with the various tasks.
This was identified as a significant devel -opment in the dancer’s exploration of theirrole within this type of improvisatoryprocess, as they became aware not only ofwhat they were doing but how they weredoing it. Through this process, the dancersbecame more aware of their own sense ofconnection to the site and were able toidentify and acknowledge in an honest man -ner when their movement explorations feltauthentic and inauthentic. Furthermore, itbecame apparent that this sense of ebb andflow between the dancers’ sense of connec -
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tion and disconnection with the site was animportant and significant element of theirsite exploration, as it exemplified their real-time exploration of the site in the momentand was therefore worth sharing with theother dancers and ultimately the perfor -mance witnesses.
To facilitate this process, the ‘pedestrianrule’ was introduced, enabling the dancers toacknowledge openly their sense of discon -nection and simply to walk, pause, observe,and take time to reconnect with the site andthe other bodies before re-com menc ing theexplorations. One dancer explains how thisrule enabled her to relax more when engagedin movement explor ations:
Knowing that I didn’t have to force movementwhen my concentration lapsed enabled me tomove more freely, and probably sustained myconcentration for longer periods of time as I feltless pressured to achieve a specific aim.
(Performer diary extract, July 2007)
The concept of personhood made a signifi -cant impact upon the dancers’ explorationsof present-ness in Project 3 as they becameempowered to explore the various move -ment scores as real ‘people’, individuals whowere aware of each other in space, and alsomoved through stages of consciousnesswhich incorporated moments of total immer -sion within the movement explorationscombined with less ‘immersed’ explorationswhich were allowed to evolve albeit in a lessconnected manner.
In this sense, the concept of personhoodencompassed the essence of a range of com -plex phenomenological theories presentedby Heidegger (1927), Merleau-Ponty (1962),Crowther (1993), and Fraleigh (1987) in aformat directly related to the dancer’screative processes of experiencing the siteencountered within Project 3. The dancerswere therefore able effectively to employ theconcept within their own movement explor -ations and engage in dance improvisationepisodes in an authentic manner. From thispoint onwards, the dancers’ movementexplorations appeared freer and less con -strained as they engaged more with the tasksin a present manner, evidencing an increased
sense of embodied awareness of themselvesand of the other dancers in the site.
Through this development, the dancersappeared to begin dancing simultaneouslyin response to and with the evolving sitephenomenon, as opposed to attempting toimpart a narrative or theme about the site.The story of their experience appeared tocommunicate through their new-foundsense of engagement with the site and theirawareness of themselves being in the site.Crucially therefore, the concept of person -hood appeared to enable the dancers to beaware of themselves while moving, asopposed to seeking constantly to ‘switch off’and not notice themselves as previouslyexperienced.
Performer–Witness Interaction
The concept of personhood, then, became acrucial element in the development andfacilitation of the final installation perform -ance exchange between the dancers and thewitnesses. It enabled the dancers to relate toeach other and to the witnesses through aform of address which acknowledged thepresence of each other in the site in the ‘hereand now’. This was achieved by the dancers’noticing the witnesses’ presence throughdirect eye contact and bodily acknowle dge -ment as the performers were encouraged tomove in close proximity to the witnesses,make eye contact, smile (or not!), andrespond to their movements, patterns, andpostures, and ultimately engage in move -ment dialogue and exchange throughdancing with them.
One audience response reveals how thisapproach led to ‘a sense of bonding betweenthe audience and performers’.9 Anotherresponse reveals a sense of becomingimmersed within the performance world asthe boundaries between performer and audi -ence became blurred:
I enjoyed being gently folded into the perform -ance, being allowed to look closely at the parti -cular spaces, their structure and detail, and feelhow they work, what they do to bodies. I enjoyedthe interaction of the dancers and the space andhow this gradually came to mean all the bodies in
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the space had a very particular relation ship to thespace. We were all placed there, part of thepicture, not simply dancer and audience.10
The following performer observation revealshow this process of inter-subjective exchangeand co-existence between performer and wit-ness resulted in the co-creation of perfor m -ance experiences and movement ‘episodes’:
When witnesses entered the space I felt adiscernible shift of atmosphere, a ‘charging’ ofintensity as the other person entered the spaceand moved with me, often requiring from me anew set of rules, points of orientation respondingto their interventions while offering up some ofmy own. (Performer diary extract, July 2007)
This example provides an insight into thenature of the dancers’ experience within theinter-subjective exchange and illustrateshow the exchange provided fresh movementstimuli to explore, both in a collaborativeand solo manner, dependent upon the natureof the performer–witness interaction.
Project 3 broke down conventional modesof performer–audience relationship in orderto bring the witness ‘closer’ to the dancer’sexperience of site, effectively operating as atranslator/guide through their corporealexplorations of the site. In this sense, thedancer’s exploration of the site was ‘offeredup’ to the witness who may or may notchoose to engage the dancer in a newjourney or exploration through the siteinstigated by themselves.
In phenomenological terms, this finalstage in the creative process constituted aform of inter-subjective exchange betweenself and other. Merleau-Ponty discusses theconcept:
Between my consciousness and my body as Iexperience it, between this phenomenal body ofmine and that of another as I see it from theoutside, there exists an internal relation whichcauses the other to appear as the completion ofthe system. (Merleau-Ponty, 1962, p. 410)
The ‘completion of the system’ of perceptionposited by Merleau-Ponty here is exem p -lified in the performer and witness obser -vations discussed above and is equatable tothe sense of completion of the final
performance work achieved via the processof corporeal inter-subjective exchange occur -ring between performer and witness.Through this final process, the work achievesa sense of wholeness and destination, andsecures a degree of completion and purposethrough the dancer’s communion with ‘ theother’.
Conclusion
This discussion of Project 3 reveals howtechniques employed within the creativeprocess contributed towards the productionof a work that engaged the audience andperformers in a process of spatial translationand exchange situated within an ephemeralplace of performance. In order to achievethis, an appropriate form of performanceproduct was required which contained adegree of naturalism yet was still able toutilize the abstract medium of dance toachieve this, thereby enabling a simul -taneous unfolding of process and product.
The durational performance ‘installation’format provided an optimum environmentin which to house the evolving improvis -ation, comprising a form of ‘choreography inthe moment’. According to Quick (inHeathfield, 2004), the live event possesses ‘amateriality that is also resistant to certaindrives to commodify it and make it known’(p. 93). It is argued here that the lack ofcommodification that resulted from the‘unknown’ improvised content containedwithin Project 3 facilitated the witnesses’ability to be ‘present’, immersed within andengaged with the live event.
While this notion of ‘live-ness’ andunpredictability is not exclusive to site-specific dance performance, it is suggestedthat, as opposed to pre-set, pre-rehearsedforms of choreographic presentation, theimprovised nature of the choreography ‘inthe moment’ featured within the Project 3performance installation contained an addi -tional element of ‘live-ness’ making the wit -nesses’ and performers’ ‘prediction’ of theexperiential outcome particularly illusive.This degree of unpredictability presented a‘freeing-up’ of potentiality for the experi -
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encing of place, space, and self by thoseengaging with the event, encountered withinan experiential place, and defined by theindividual’s encounter with the lived site-world as it unfolded before them.
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Notes1. The mansion building dates back to the eight -
eenth century and is situated in West Yorkshire in thegrounds of the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. It housed theSchool of Performance and Cultural Industries of theUniversity of Leeds from 2003 to 2007.
2. These aspects were explored within the author’sprevious site-specific works – Beneath (2004) and TheLibrary Dances (2006).
3. The term ‘organic’ in this context refers to a formof creative and choreographic process that relied on thespontaneous production of movement material arisingfrom improvisation tasks. The form of choreographicprocess also relied more on an intuitive form of decisionmaking occurring in the moment, as opposed to im -posing any pre-determined, pre-designated form ofstructuring or compositional design upon the emergingmaterial.
4. This task was developed from a similar taskexperienced during a series of Skinner Releasingworkshops led by Rebecca Skelton – SCODHE, BrettonHall, 2003; Laban, 2005.
5. Some of the qualities and ‘essences’ exploredincluded notions of ‘linearity’, explorations of the spaceas a ‘malleable’ entity, and responses to perceptions ofthe site’s ‘vectors of direction’ experienced corporeallyby the dancers.
6. In For Space (2005) Massey argues for a re-consideration of space as multiplicitous and ‘a simul -taneity of stories-so-far’ (2005, p. 9), prioritizing anacknowledgement of the simultaneity of experiencesencountered by individuals in space and places.
7. Both Sheets-Johnstone (1979) and Fraleigh (1987)discuss notions of pre-reflexivity in dance as prerequ -isites for phenomenological exploration; the practicalexplorations contained within Project 3 problematizedhow ‘pre-reflexivity’ was actually achieved in practice.
8. Presented on 24 June 2007 at ‘Re-Thinking Prac -tice and Theory: International Symposium on DanceResearch’, Centre National de la Danse, Paris.
9. Audience questionnaire response, 4 July 2007.10. Ibid.
