Sensitive knowledge through an autoethnography of Contact Improvisation

Employing fieldwork in contact improvisation in Montreal, I will emphasise the sensitive knowledge we can gain from ethnographic methodologies. Based on an excerpt of my ethnographic account, I will highlight the benefits of auto-ethnography. As a social phenomenon, auto-ethnography allows the creation of a space to explore the conventions/taboos regulating touch and the redefinition of intimate boundaries that are shaped under circumstances of narrow proximity. In this research, auto-ethnography discloses aspects of the mindful body, such as the interrelatedness between touch, weight, intention and emotions. Fieldwork experience, by leaving a sensitive memory in the anthropologist’s body, shapes academic writing. Regarding this latter premise, I will show how it gains affect and sensoriality

Sexual fantasies on the dance floor: Sensoriality between strangers in Contact Improvisation

Currently undertaking a multi-sited ethnography on the production of intimacies in Contemporary Dance in Montreal, Paris and Dakar, I’ve been investigating the articulation between intimacy, sexuality and erotism. The dance floor is a libidinal catharsis, functioning as a metaphor in which people can “play” out their sexual fantasies. Particularly within the Contact Improvisation scene, practitioners develop physical intimacies with people from different generations, genders and cultures, flirting with the boundaries of sexuality. The proximity between bodies generates sensoriality between strangers. In big cities like Montreal and Paris, contact improvisation works as an exchange platform for singles to claim freedom, and reject sexual exclusivity. Temporary bodily pleasures become more important than commitment into a routinized relationship, reinforcing the fantasy of romantic love inherited from 18th century literature (Alain de Botton 2009). The dance floor provides a sensorial space (touch, in contact with the whole body, caress) in which singles can fulfill their longing for touch and intimacy. The dance floor’s romances can extend to daily life and turn into love affairs. In Montreal, the Contact Improvisation scene is closely linked to Cozy practice: romantic collective evenings of sensorial bath and massage. This shows a diversification of ways of relating with others, generating more physical connections (with strangers). Intimacy is redefined beyond the classical private/public dichotomy. Contact Improvisation and Cozy events underline the oscillation of the contemporary subjectivity between autonomy and connectivity: a fear of alienation, simultaneously a neediness for intimacy (Marar 2012, 6)

Creativity in contemporary dance. Generating movement through improvisation

Drawing on an experimental mode of generating movement invented by the choreographer Nicole Seiler, the paper reflects on characteristics of creativity, and highlight the notion of improvisation

The dancing body as living archive

This paper considers the notion of living archive applied to the body. What do we understand when we talk about the body as archive? An archive of what exactly? And how can we understand the process of archiving related to the body? This paper shows how the dancing body tells stories of encounters: when a soloist dances on stage, (s)he is dancing with the shadows of all the other bodies (s)he met, danced with and touched. All these bodies left traces on his/her dancing skills. The dancing body embodies all past stories shared with others. Therefore, I argue that the body is a living archive, still in movement, continually in transformation into new forms of being. Rather than archive as static repository, the body is an archive in motion that provides knowledge (Gehm, Husemann and Von Wilcke 2007)

Aesthetic intensity and presence

My aim in this paper is to show how aesthetic intensity is related to the idea of presence, using the expertise of dance, which I learned during my fieldwork alongside contemporary dancers. I argue that the power and efficiency of gesture is mainly reached by an intense and full performative presence, in other words, when the gesture is inhabited

Flujo de un fluido viscoso a la entrada/salida de una cavidad anular de longitud finita

En este trabajo se presenta un procedimiento sencillo para imponer condiciones de borde en contornos artificiales a fin de resolver las ecuaciones de Navier-Stokes en presencia de efectos centrífugos. El análisis se concentra en el flujo de un fluido viscoso atrapado en una cavidad anular de longitud finita. El algoritmo se basa en desacoplar una componente estática del campo de presiones, la cual puede ser tratada con la aproximación penalizada. Los resultados numéricos exhiben un excelente acuerdo con resultados asintóticos obtenidos mediante una expansión basada en el método de las perturbaciones.Peer Reviewe

Flujo de un fluido viscoso a la entrada/salida de una cavidad anular de longitud finita

En este trabajo se presenta un procedimiento sencillo para imponer condiciones de borde en contornos artificiales a fin de resolver las ecuaciones de Navier-Stokes en presencia de efectos centrífugos. El análisis se concentra en el flujo de un fluido viscoso atrapado en una cavidad anular de longitud finita. El algoritmo se basa en desacoplar una componente estática del campo de presiones, la cual puede ser tratada con la aproximación penalizada. Los resultados numéricos exhiben un excelente acuerdo con resultados asintóticos obtenidos mediante una expansión basada en el método de las perturbaciones.Peer Reviewe

Natural gas and pricing mechanisms in Europe: what are the expectations for the coming years ?

In Europe, Natural gas pricing is a very interesting and complex subject. Today the European gas market is about to see a “BIG” change. In order to analyze the natural gas pricing in Europe and its evolution, we first need to understand that the European gas market pricing is divided in two main mechanisms. On one side we find the Oil-Indexed gas price, which is a long-term contract with some exporting countries like Russia, while on the other side the competitive Hub price based on supply and demand (spot ex: UK NBP and Dutch TTF) located in Europe. So, this drew to a battle between these two ways of pricing because the importers were buying gas on oil-linked deals that was higher than those paying at spot gas market levels (Hub). Through this decades pricing in Europe is the subject of many conversations, predictions and political debates. During my last year of Bachelor program, attending classes of “Commodity Trading” helped me to analyze and understand some of the actual debates concerning the commodities. I sow that the natural gas market in Europe was very complex and maybe close to a turning point. That is why, as a student, I have tried to understand this market. Finally, the purpose of this project is to analyze this market and try to understand what could happen with these two ways of pricing and follow the evolution of natural gas pricing in Europe. As well as predict what could happen in the next years taking into account the maximum of factors

From Experience to Language: Towards an Affected and Affective Writing: A Conversation with Tim Ingold

A conversation with Tim Ingold on affects, vision, perception, intersubjectivity, and the affective turn