Developing a practice
Bettina Neuhaus & Eva Karczag, Vapour Sketches, 2015
Photo detail: Luca S
We come from a shared tradition of Release/Releasing and Improvisation. Embedded within both practices, lie the paradigms of inner listening, multidirectional availability, and compositional awareness. These can be used as both creative tools and performance mode. ​
Although we have listed them in 3 different categories, the process of developing the physical, artistic and teaching aspects of our practice are simply strands of a whole, each part inspiring and nourishing every other part. They are three of many different conceivable layers. Some others could be writing, drawing, walking, sounding... in fact, any task we take on, that we return to over and over again, that enhances our well-being and stimulates us as creative artists can be considered to be part of our practice.
Practice, according to Stephen Nachmanovitch in the Introduction to his book, The Art of Is can be thought of as “… skilled disciplines of doing and being what you are rather than some preparatory work to get to a goal”.
Developing
a Physical Practice
My body my teacher
All of us, who work with a mindful-body approach to training, consider this statement to be one of the key concepts that shapes our physical practice.
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The nature of the body - conversation
with M. Tufnell and E. Karczag (2011)
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Developing
an Artistic Practice
Arriving and being present
…. what makes performing rewarding is when all of the person’s person has arrived at the same moment.”
Trisha Brown: All of the Person’s Person Arriving An interview by Marianne Goldberg
Developing
a Teaching Practice
Passing on what we know
“This dance training encourages each student to be constantly making their own creative choices through improvisation and awareness. Responsibility for change lies within each individual.“
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As Yet Untitled - Eva Karczag (1992)
Developing one’s own artistic/movement language
“Discovery begins with exploring one’s own movement choices through sensory awareness and memory, noting recurring patterns and spontaneous impulses. You allow your history of all of your training and dancing experiences to be continuously rediscovered, reshuffled, and recombined. This endless creative process of discovery infuses the practice of EI [Emergent Improvisation].”
Emergent Improvisation Susan Sgorbati, Contact Quarterly Chapbook 4 summer/fall 2013 volume 38 no 2
“What is essential here is the presence of the spirit of dialogue, which is, in short, the ability to hold many points of view in suspension, along with a primary interest in the creation of a common meaning.”
Dialogue as a New Creative Order’ (1987), in The Essential David Bohm
Drawing by Bettina Neuhaus
"Stretching the practice means that if you do this, this is happening. And not only is this happening, but happening in itself is invention."
Stretching the Practice a dance talk by Deborah Hay