INTRODUCTION
The method of Real Time Composition has been developed and systematized by João Fiadeiro since 1995. At a first stage, its main framework was the need to create a system of composition that could be shared by his collaborators along the creative process. In a second stage, it asserted as a tool to explore modalities of dramaturgic writing within the dance field, and was studied, developed and used by several artists and researchers. Since 2005 it has been asserting in the territory of research at large thus widening its range of interest and use beyond the boundaries of dance and even art.
The goal of the “Real Time Composition” method is to put the maker in the position of “mediator” and “facilitator” of the events, blocking his temptation to impose himself by means of the will or the ability to manipulate them. His only “creative act”, should there be any, amounts to the mastery with which he handles the tension, the balance and potential of the material he is dealing with, letting things happen – if they really have to – by themselves.
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PRESENTATION
Bartleby’s “I’d rather not to”[1] keeps the “possibility hanging between event and non-event, between the capacity to be and the capacity to not be”[2]. It is in this middle state that the future of our “presence” is decided. It’s in this in-between that we may, if we are lucky enough, recognise and capture that fragment of “event” that puzzles and attracts us, that calls our attention and will unfold both towards the future and the past; both towards the inside and the outside. That “fragment” is the evidence of an absence. Or, better said, the “presence” of an absence. And it is from that “presence” that we can find the clues we need to start the hard task of imagining the world.
But how can we recognise and capture that fragment, if ‘it” appears only when we least expect it, and if it can hardly “stand on its feet”, so fleeting and transitory?
We know that looking at the world again as if it was the first time is an impossibility. But if we resort to the capacity we have to fictionalise the real (so as to be able to think about it, as Rancière proposes[3]), it is possible to look at ourselves looking at the world for the first time. And that is where we can, by means of that artifice – of that “as if” –, put ourselves at the “other’s place”, a necessary condition for us to be surprised anew.
Fictionalising amounts to finding new questions for the same usual answers. But for that we need to have a diverging and open gaze. A gaze that is not afraid of appearances and does not “panic” whenever it does not immediately understand what it sees. A potential gaze then, capable of reading “between the lines” and of opening doors (and windows) for new interpretations and relations with the world. In a word: a “creative” gaze.
“Creativity”, as it is understood within this method, is not a property of some enlightened few. “Creativity” requires training. And the way we approach that training, that practice, is turning our focus away from the very decision, to direct it to the “noise” settled in our bodies, namely under the form of “habits”, “convictions”, and “expectations”. When that “noise” is excessive, it works as friction and makes us waste time. It deactivates the capacity to read a new situation, becoming the main obstacle to implementing creativity as the operative system of our decisions.
To deal with that friction, we propose to develop and stimulate the capacity we all have to reflect on thought as such. That is to say, that we activate a meta-cognitive reasoning. Paradoxically enough, we will see that it is through that capacity to look at ourselves from the outside as we act (just as we are able to think as we speak), that we will find free spaces for “creativity” to assert itself. The reason for this is quite simple: instead of worrying with what is “about to come” or about what we have left behind, we “waste time” with the conditions for the event to happen. We “waste time” listening to the signs: the signs of time and the signs of the body. The rest will come by itself.
[1] See Herman Melville (1819–1891), Bartleby, the Scrivener. A Story of Wall Street.
[2] See Giorgio Agamben, “Bartleby, or On Contingency”, Potentialities: collected essays in philosophy (ed. and trans. Daniel Heller-Roazen), California, Stanford University Press,1999.
[3] See Jacques Rancière, Le Partage du Sensible, esthétique et politique, Paris, La fabrique, 2000, p. 61.
Bartleby’s “I’d rather not to”[1] keeps the “possibility hanging between event and non-event, between the capacity to be and the capacity to not be”[2]. It is in this middle state that the future of our “presence” is decided. It’s in this in-between that we may, if we are lucky enough, recognise and capture that fragment of “event” that puzzles and attracts us, that calls our attention and will unfold both towards the future and the past; both towards the inside and the outside. That “fragment” is the evidence of an absence. Or, better said, the “presence” of an absence. And it is from that “presence” that we can find the clues we need to start the hard task of imagining the world.
But how can we recognise and capture that fragment, if ‘it” appears only when we least expect it, and if it can hardly “stand on its feet”, so fleeting and transitory?
We know that looking at the world again as if it was the first time is an impossibility. But if we resort to the capacity we have to fictionalise the real (so as to be able to think about it, as Rancière proposes[3]), it is possible to look at ourselves looking at the world for the first time. And that is where we can, by means of that artifice – of that “as if” –, put ourselves at the “other’s place”, a necessary condition for us to be surprised anew.
Fictionalising amounts to finding new questions for the same usual answers. But for that we need to have a diverging and open gaze. A gaze that is not afraid of appearances and does not “panic” whenever it does not immediately understand what it sees. A potential gaze then, capable of reading “between the lines” and of opening doors (and windows) for new interpretations and relations with the world. In a word: a “creative” gaze.
“Creativity”, as it is understood within this method, is not a property of some enlightened few. “Creativity” requires training. And the way we approach that training, that practice, is turning our focus away from the very decision, to direct it to the “noise” settled in our bodies, namely under the form of “habits”, “convictions”, and “expectations”. When that “noise” is excessive, it works as friction and makes us waste time. It deactivates the capacity to read a new situation, becoming the main obstacle to implementing creativity as the operative system of our decisions.
To deal with that friction, we propose to develop and stimulate the capacity we all have to reflect on thought as such. That is to say, that we activate a meta-cognitive reasoning. Paradoxically enough, we will see that it is through that capacity to look at ourselves from the outside as we act (just as we are able to think as we speak), that we will find free spaces for “creativity” to assert itself. The reason for this is quite simple: instead of worrying with what is “about to come” or about what we have left behind, we “waste time” with the conditions for the event to happen. We “waste time” listening to the signs: the signs of time and the signs of the body. The rest will come by itself.
[1] See Herman Melville (1819–1891), Bartleby, the Scrivener. A Story of Wall Street.
[2] See Giorgio Agamben, “Bartleby, or On Contingency”, Potentialities: collected essays in philosophy (ed. and trans. Daniel Heller-Roazen), California, Stanford University Press,1999.
[3] See Jacques Rancière, Le Partage du Sensible, esthétique et politique, Paris, La fabrique, 2000, p. 61.
OPERATIVE SYSTEM
The operative system at the basis of this method – to which we always return – is extremely simple: we make a square with a scotch paper tape. We set the convention that their is a “outside” and a “inside”. The participants all start on the “outside” side, looking at the “inside” one. “The inside” space works as a potential space that will, as time goes by, absorb the “outside” space (and the other way around), ultimately abolishing any distinction between the two. When that happens – when the ones that are outside “feel” inside, and the ones that are inside “feel” outside – it means that the practice of the method is at its “optimal” state.
In this first phase, the space remains “open” until somebody takes the decision to act upon it, starting the game. The decision to act has to be absolutely voluntary. Only so can you assume responsibility for the acts you carry out. To be responsible for what you do is a sine qua non condition for the success of this work. Not only to reduce the possibilities of misunderstanding or to avoid data manipulation, but also to allow feedback, a paramount tool for the embodiment of concepts, to be effective.
The first action reduces the possibilities, frames the possible and obliges all the other participants to “let go” of any other hypotheses of relation that they may in the meanwhile have developed in the form of small “holograms” in their minds. This “being able to let go” is another central activity within this process, and a required condition to succeed in the practice of the method. A second person then acts, according to the principles and rules of the method, interfering with the first image and once again obliging all the others to “resituate” themselves, taking the new proposed framing into account. This second action has in the meanwhile “re-written” the previous action, following a logic that will be continuous in this practice, thus promoting a circular and nonlinear perception of time. When the third person, confronted with the new situation, moves forward and interferes with the space, a pattern is established that makes a given topology of the place appear. Still subtle, that topology can nevertheless already be shared by the group. The sooner this common place is shared, the faster an idea of community can be established, one of the goals of this work.
In short: the first action worked as an “event”, the second proposed a direction, and the third confirmed that direction. These are the first steps for the “initial conditions” of this system to be established. To earn a collective sensibility to those initial conditions within an auto-organising process in which there is no leader or script, is the challenge of this practice, and the only way to set up a “line of thought” which is at once open and steady. That is why it is important not to confound “direction” with “meaning”. Despite de fact that both terms refer to the word “sense”, in this work the only thing that matters is to define the “direction” that an action takes. The only thing that matters is the coherence of the structure and not the coherence of its content. Precisely to allow the “meaning” to remain there in potentiality, leaving the “other” – the one “on the other side” – the onus of projecting herself on what she sees.
The operative system at the basis of this method – to which we always return – is extremely simple: we make a square with a scotch paper tape. We set the convention that their is a “outside” and a “inside”. The participants all start on the “outside” side, looking at the “inside” one. “The inside” space works as a potential space that will, as time goes by, absorb the “outside” space (and the other way around), ultimately abolishing any distinction between the two. When that happens – when the ones that are outside “feel” inside, and the ones that are inside “feel” outside – it means that the practice of the method is at its “optimal” state.
In this first phase, the space remains “open” until somebody takes the decision to act upon it, starting the game. The decision to act has to be absolutely voluntary. Only so can you assume responsibility for the acts you carry out. To be responsible for what you do is a sine qua non condition for the success of this work. Not only to reduce the possibilities of misunderstanding or to avoid data manipulation, but also to allow feedback, a paramount tool for the embodiment of concepts, to be effective.
The first action reduces the possibilities, frames the possible and obliges all the other participants to “let go” of any other hypotheses of relation that they may in the meanwhile have developed in the form of small “holograms” in their minds. This “being able to let go” is another central activity within this process, and a required condition to succeed in the practice of the method. A second person then acts, according to the principles and rules of the method, interfering with the first image and once again obliging all the others to “resituate” themselves, taking the new proposed framing into account. This second action has in the meanwhile “re-written” the previous action, following a logic that will be continuous in this practice, thus promoting a circular and nonlinear perception of time. When the third person, confronted with the new situation, moves forward and interferes with the space, a pattern is established that makes a given topology of the place appear. Still subtle, that topology can nevertheless already be shared by the group. The sooner this common place is shared, the faster an idea of community can be established, one of the goals of this work.
In short: the first action worked as an “event”, the second proposed a direction, and the third confirmed that direction. These are the first steps for the “initial conditions” of this system to be established. To earn a collective sensibility to those initial conditions within an auto-organising process in which there is no leader or script, is the challenge of this practice, and the only way to set up a “line of thought” which is at once open and steady. That is why it is important not to confound “direction” with “meaning”. Despite de fact that both terms refer to the word “sense”, in this work the only thing that matters is to define the “direction” that an action takes. The only thing that matters is the coherence of the structure and not the coherence of its content. Precisely to allow the “meaning” to remain there in potentiality, leaving the “other” – the one “on the other side” – the onus of projecting herself on what she sees.