Response to A Letter to Dance

When ‘intention’ and ‘agency’ enter into the picture, choreography as an art form makes its appearance.

Instead, we can insist that the act of turning ‘movement’ into ‘dance ‘already offers enough food for thought.

Giving a subject (which could also be oneself) an agency to perform this curated, intentional behavior.

→ writing vs calligraphy

→ talking vs giving a speech

→ living vs acting

This is a verb level of difference, but I also feel like a lot of things in our daily lives are given various levels of attention and curation. A material example would be like, instant coffee vs pour-over coffee. The objects symbolize one’s state and intention.

Dancing is very subjective in the most literal way. Everyone’s body is different, hence different movements even with an identical dancing score. The power of being different is inherent, how much force in a movement a body can afford, how much of an expression can one’s face express.

People in a crowd waiting for a bus certainly share a sense of collectivity. But they do not necessarily share a sense of agency.

Politic vs. choreography

Looking up the roots of the word ‘politic’, the idea is a free body of citizens. The power goes from the bottom to the top. Choreography is an opposite concept, where someone is trying to curate movements of a collective. Politics in choreography, or choreography in politics, both seem to me that they are finding the perfect balance between control and freedom. Sometimes real, sometimes maybe illusional, the important part is the conscious feeling of agency. I’ve always found the word ‘manipulative’ both heavy and interesting. It is maneuvering someone or something to go in a specific direction with their own will. It is to control the subconscious level, a level higher than choreographing or politicizing. When the person realizes and gets mad, who is to blame for his/her/their own conscious?