No-How Generator: an artistic investigation of the event of choreographic performance as a site of embodied knowledge-generation

This written thesis is an exegesis of developments arising within my choreographic practice and thinking through the creation and performance of the choreographic work No-How Generator, an artistic investigation of the event of choreographic performance as a site of embodied knowledge-generation. Drawing on the cognitive science perspective of Guy Claxton and others, this thesis emphasises the embodied basis of knowing and argues that this grounds an understanding of knowledge-generation as intrinsic within the embodied context of choreography. This understanding foregrounds the integral presence and contributions of ways of knowing that are felt, more-than-rational and intuitive within the generation of knowing and intelligence. Insights are articulated into how these ways of knowing unfold in my choreographic practice, supported by specific conceptual and practical tools and orientations that I have developed in a choreographic context during this research. This includes no-how (drawn from Samuel Beckett via Sarat Maharaj’s writings on art-as-knowledge), which I use to name the particular kind of knowing that I consider this artistic research to be generative of, and Magic & Science (drawn from art-historian Aby Warburg) which I use to name the broader epistemological orientation that I situate choreographic no-how generation within. Drawing connections between Warburg’s work and my engagement with the work of choreographer Deborah Hay, this thesis emphasises that the catalytic dynamics of paradox are a generative and inherent part of the artistic and embodied landscape of what I term choreographic no-how generation. Drawing on humanities writers including Boaventura de Sousa Santos, the thesis emphasises that a continual, underlying attention to the social and political contexts within which choreographic no-how generation unfolds is an integral dimension of a choreographic engagement with it. Through its integrated embodiment of this particular multidisciplinary constellation of knowledges, this artistic research develops novel approaches to practicing and conceptualising the generation of knowing in choreographic contexts. This research works to broaden understandings, both within and beyond the field of dance, of the forms that knowledge-generation can and does take, and of the social and political relevance that such a broadening has.Supported by Midlands4Cities in partnership with Dance4 and Siobhan Davies Danc

Sottosopra: Indagine su processi di sovversione

[Italiano]: L’idea di sovversione è un principio di movimento, segnato dall’etimo: volgere dal basso verso l’alto, ovvero cambiare di posto, invertire la rotta. Il rovesciamento dell’ordine precostituito attraversa ciclicamente la storia, manifestandosi in tutti gli ambiti della vita umana attraverso un atto rivoluzionario contingente che innesca a sua volta ulteriori processi di rigenerazione. Obiettivo di questo volume è, pertanto, quello di riconoscere e ricostruire il dialogo tra i segmenti che compongono le sovversioni della nostra storia socio-culturale, identificandone i contorni in una modalità dell’agire che fonda e sabota se stessa nello stesso momento in cui insorge. Il discorso critico interdisciplinare qui condotto si sviluppa seguendo la tripartizione proposta da Thomas Ernst nei suoi numerosi studi riguardanti il concetto di sovversione nella cornice artistico-letteraria del Novecento, giovando della sua collaborazione che è confluita nel contributo con cui si apre il volume, intitolato Subversion Studies. The Political – The Media – The Public. Tale tripartizione è stata adottata e riletta dalle curatrici alla luce dei contributi proposti dagli autori, al fine di investigare ambiti differenti in cui il sovversivo manifesta la propria natura. In tal senso è stato posto l’accento prima sul politico, ovvero sulle condizioni di negoziazione tra un soggetto e il mondo esterno, successivamente sui media, nell’accezione di supporti dall’utilizzo potenzialmente rivoluzionario e, infine, sul pubblico, vale a dire sul dialogo tra l’eredità culturale e i suoi interpreti, colti nell’atto di riscrivere e tradire l’autorità della tradizione. Il presente volume è dunque frutto di un’indagine collettiva e trova la propria collocazione all’interno dei Subversion Studies, branca del sapere di recente sviluppo. Alla base della sua composizione vi è uno sguardo duplice che tiene insieme presente e passato e che ricerca, anzitutto, la dimensione processuale insita in ogni espressione di rinnovamento ./[English]: According to its etymology, the concept of subversion traces a precise movement: the turning upside-down, that is, switching, reversing course. The overthrow of established paradigms periodically leaves its mark upon history, taking the form of a revolutionary act that, in turn, triggers further regenerations processes. In this framework, the subversive condition reveals its elusive nature, since it disappears in the moment of its fulfilment, hiding itself behind the curtains of every historical event. Based on these considerations, this volume aims to outline subversion as a dynamic process of our socio-cultural history, whose different forms are shaped by the dialogue between opposing subjects. In doing so, this book positions itself firmly within the new-born field of Subversion Studies, offering an interdisciplinary double gaze, that, similarly to the same concept of subversion, holds together past and present. The volume is divided into three sections: The Political – The Media – The Public, tripartition borrowed from the research carried out by Thomas Ernst - a leading exponent of Subversion Studies – whose article opens this volume. By applying this subdivision, we intend to draw attention to three different areas in which the Subversive manifests its own nature: firstly, the political negotiation between subjects and the outside world; secondly, media and their revolutionary use; and, finally, the cultural heritage and its interpreters, caught in the act of rewriting and subverting tradition