To reject, break away from, separate, isolate, half oneself from the other(s) is considered a regrettable symptom of the (post)modern crisis. According to general opinion, individualism went too far. Consequently, new formats of community need to be devised in opposition to escalating social fragmentation. In contrast to this common wisdom, the starting point of “THE H ALF” is the conviction that politically incorrect gestures of ‘halving’ – breaking away from the socially privileged rhetoric of being whole (as an individual) and together (as a group) – is the only way to care about the identities and communities that are to come. In “THE H ALF,” we test this conviction within our artistic practice. By multiplying strategies of separation between the traditionally fused mediums of a dance performance (music / movement, stage / light, etc.), we seek to reach and demonstrate emergent forms of interaction that constellate beyond anybody’s singular intention.

Instead of working on a pre-designed delivery of any given artistic result, we publicly frame the work as an indeterminate movement toward such a result. In a series of separate attempts, we stage our own process / method of production. Our work is fully accomplished at the precise moment that it is captured by the spectator, and yet this accomplishment stays transitory due to the persistence of the open creative process that it attempts to stage.

So, we learn how to half. It all starts with a cut (of listening) that releases the dance from the music and the music from the dance.Then we go further and half the light from the performer and the stage from the light. We escalate and elaborate our procedures, go into detail, discover new places where the cut needs to be made: the body halves from itself and from the mind, we separate ourselves from our memory, from what we already created, from what we just did – a year, a day, a second earlier. We half from the expectation that the audience is putting upon us, from our own desire to please them. Every day we discover new registers of halving and we develop the strategies to do it. We practice and we proliferate, and when we get caught we find a way to escape. With time, we become good in what we are doing. We start understanding each other and when the words betray us, we learn how to half from the words. We keep working, despite the silence that separates us. We half from one another and stay together. At a certain moment, we become experts in halving. We become “virtuosic” in our own practice. But then, the moment comes when we need to half from our own virtuosity. So, we half from the half.
Igor Dobričić, September 2010

What holds us through the unstoppable ‘cuts’ is a revitalized affective ecology. This is an ecology made palpable across the qualities of sounds, colors and rhythms. One that is intensified by the constant recalibration of our practice. What holds us is an ecology made of potential perceptions: those that are able to register what is in excess of the concrete, offering alternative modes to perceive.
Diego GIl, August 2018

Diego Gil is a choreographer, performer and philosopher who studied in Amsterdam at the School for New Dance Development (BA), Das Choreography (MA) and became a PhD candidate at the Interdisciplinary Humanities program of Concordia University in Montreal. At the moment he works at the Sense Lab (a research creation laboratory directed by Erin Manning) organizing the “Schizo-somatic” workshop series’ and the “Minor Gesture exhibition” as part of the Immediations Project: Art-Media- Event, across Canada, Europe and Australia.

Igor Dobričić studied dramaturgy at the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade and attended a Master of Theatre at DasArts in Amsterdam. He works as a dramaturg and artistic advisor, collaborating with a number of choreographers (Nicole Beutler, Keren Levi, Guillaume Marie, Christina Ciupke, Meg Stuart, among others). As a teacher and a mentor, he has a standing engagement with SNDO, Master of Choreography (DasDance) and the Master of Theatre (DasTheatre) in Amsterdam as well as with the Choreographic Centre Hamburg (K3).

tanznachtberlin.de

[Source: Tanznacht Magazine & play bill]

Tanzschreiber review on www.tanzraumberlin.de

TFB Nr. 1225