The Experience: Digital Body and Telepresence

Along with the rest of the world, swimming in uncertainty was uncomfortable, new, and a time to be like water.  Working with Amity grew from 3 weeks to 7 months. Everything unfolded naturally and on its own.  After the 3rd month, I asked if they’d be interested in continuing the research and to work on the spring show. We moved into embodied seeing--eyes closed--where the dancers relied on sound and felt sensation to connect with one another in the same space. They would listen to my prompts through their airpods and would respond in the moment--they developed their skills to sense, listen, and consciously respond rather than react.  

The dancers had full agency in their practice to ignore or move with their own impulses. it was a way for them to develop their sense-ability but also to listen to their own intuitive guidance.  They shared space for one month but 2 weeks before the show, the third wave hit in HK and we returned to individual dwellings.  At first, the dancers had a mental block, feeling like they moved back to square one, literally back to the zoom rectangle life. Once we revisited the exercises in the studio in their virtual spaces, they connected their past experience (wisdom and embodied experience), future (knowledge and imagination), and creation (merging of past, present and future); they were able to transform their perceived experiences and as a result felt a much deeper physical connection in the virtual space together. 

Results were fascinating as the dancers reported a tangibly felt sensation of the other dancers’ presence in their own room even though their physical body was not in the same room. This research opened up my perception to the duality and conversation of physical body (material) and sensorial body (non-material). Leading me to a question for my future self:  how we can enhance embodied human connection both physically and remotely via embodied seeing?

During a session, an exercise was for one dancer to increase the felt sensation of another dancer about 15’-20’ away.  The dancer giving (Bella) could open their eyes, while the dancer receiving (Nat) kept their eyes closed. The receiver would amplify the intensity of their movement as the felt sensation of connection increased and would fade into stillness as the connection decreased. It was intriguing to witness: as soon as the giver was losing the connection with the receiver their actions reflected the emotions desire and desperation. They would try to salvage the connection by moving more vigorously and aggressively, and the more effort and trying would cause a greater disconnection.  However, the moment the giver released the desire to make the receiver move and return to their natural flow state, the receiver would reconnect.  The more the giver relaxed into themselves, the deeper the receiver would connect.  

This project and experience reminded me of the practice of allowing in surrender—a practice that I am sure will come up again and again.  Often the moment our mind increases the desire towards any one thing we become more disconnected from Self. We fight and try to hold onto that which is ready to change its state.  Embracing impermanence is like embracing water in its nature of effortless ease. When it encounters an obstruction, it moves around the object and, through it..  And eventually, it flows or evaporates, and transcends in its natural cycle of existence.  I learned that it takes a lot of effort to be a personality, to hold onto expectation and to try to keep a state of emotion when all that can be perceived, anything that can change such as a thought, idea, emotion, story, follow the law of impermanence.  Yet, it takes no energy or effort to be awareness, to be the Self.  It’s not a mental game, but simply to allow what is felt in the waking state of that moment to flow.  To allow in surrender is not to forfeit the Self, but to forfeit the illusions that stand in the way of Self. 

Side Note Story:

Originally, we intended to perform and experiment as a way of choreographing a live performance.  Thanks to the Hong Kong Youth Arts Foundation and Studiodanz in HK for sponsoring studio space, we had our location, equipment and we were set to go.  We wanted to explore the immersion of both the audience and dancers, how the performance could explore uncertainties and in the moment.  The audience could scan a QR code of their choice which would send them to an introduction video of one dancer they could follow throughout the performance.  The dancers would receive prompts from me via zoom that would change the course of the choreography, because they had airpods in the audience wouldn’t know when or at what point the work was choreographed and improvised. 

Returning online, we were still able to work with the QR codes and opened the floor for the audience to give prompts which I would pass onto the dancers.  The audience could hear and see the prompts in action.  The dancers could choose if they wanted to go with the prompt or let it pass so their agency wasn’t manipulated or compromised.  This change actually increased the immersion and connection of both dancers and audience.  It was a perfect way to conclude and to test the hypothesis of felt sensation and connection in non-local environments.  

This is one of the great things about process approach to making—sometimes it’s only upon reflection of the creation that you discover better questions. 

**Coming Up Next: The transition from the virtual world to the natural lands.