A Pause for thought....

A Pause for thought ...about aesthetics

I was reading today about the work of the founder of Urban Bush Women – Jawole Willa Jo Zolla and her processes  for  how she creates  work and the many influences that led her to evolve her aesthetic and how it informs her work.  It was a self study which charted her background, training, cultural influences that eventually evolved a process of self reflection collaborations with the aim of making dance theatre that is impactful and be a catalyst for social change.  It was interesting reading because in the back of my mind I was asking where on the spectrum or continuum was there a positivist or non-positivist stance – there was a fluidity that moved from one to the other.  There were so many influences which involved, live music and the jazz improvisational aesthetic in modern dance, personal histories and narrative, theatre.   She studied with Kei Takei and begun to understand the necessity for training people to move naturally.  She said that some people were natural dancers but that many good dancers had to be trained to find natural movement impulses  – a kind of embodiment of experiences of natural the impulses and knowledge of the body to express and perform.  I was intrigued by her interest of Folk Art as a visual medium that informed her process and how life experiences were expressed through that medium mostly by African American folk from an older generation who begin to use this visual medium the majority of cases for the first time when they are 60 years and over even though experiences in this visual medium meant that they were not formally trained. For Jawole, the training was in the histories and stories of their lives which were rich, dense and impactful and came through powerfully in their work.   Their experiences embodied the work and she drew on those experiences.  When working with dancers, Jawole  worked with older dancers over 30 years old which in her opinion was  a prime time for performing and with the theory of embodied experiences brought interesting nuances to their performances.

Two thoughts come to mind as I reflect on Jawole Willa and the evolution of her processes: the recognition of the body as a site for knowledge in other words the corporal body which acts as site of embodied knowledge.  I came across a paper about information modalities which acknowledges the use of corporeality as a form of information literacy with equal weight to a cognitive perspective whereby the mind was the key recipient of information and found an interesting parallel to dance and movement and the process of learning through the body by the use of corporeality as outlined by Dr Annemaree Lloyd (2010)

In respect to information literacy practice, corporeality is the source of embodied and situated knowledges, which cannot be expressly articulated through the written word, but is grounded in the physical actions and nuances of members who participate in the practices of a particular social site.

Bodies make information and the meaning that we make of information visible, and therefore make a 'shared understanding of the world possible' (Rambusch and Ziemke 2005: 1807). The materiality of practice is inscribed on our bodies, revealing our association with place, our identity, and our practical understandings. In turn bodies are accessed and read as information sources by co-participants who actively interrogate the bodies of others in practice in order gain access to embodied knowledge. Through our bodies we are able to demonstrate our practical knowledge and nuanced understanding which enable the communities to which we connect, to recognize our alignment and commitment.

Lloyd, A. (2010). "Corporeality and practice theory: exploring emerging research agendas for information literacy" Information Research, 15(3) colis794. [Available at http://InformationR.net/ir/15-3/colis7/colis704.html]

I had an aha moment when I thought about  her process of folk art and how it was used to draw out movement material through the canvas of life as expressed by elderly African American folk and how they allowed their bodies through training and experiences in life to offer  access to memory and knowledge.  It also points me into the direction of Merleau-Ponty who talked about sensing and perception and the emphasis of the body as a primary site of knowing the world.  I was also interested in Jawole’s use of older dancers to perform her work who I assume would have  had a bank of life experiences that would contribute to her work.  It got me thinking about young people and their experiences when learning and performing – even though young some young people I have come into contact with may have had an intense bank of experiences in their embodied lives to draw on albeit in a shorter time frame which would be just as valid as that of an older dancer.  I don’t doubt the journey that they are on but I would look at the quality of experience and how it enriches their lives which can be just as powerful and if I am a good teacher/ mentor could offer to bring that out if they would allow me to.  Would the work of Urban Bush Women therefore be alien to the experiences and understanding of young people? Would they not understand because being young they would not have a connection to her work?  - just a thought.  Mind you as I reflect this article about Jawole Willa was written some time ago and it would be good to see how much has changed and evolved. This also goes into the ethical aesthetic and contacts Jawole makes with her dancers with embodied experiences and also that of the audience who would view her work. A lot of the work is a collective embodied experience and therefore from a contractual stance.  I wonder whether Jawola Willa  like in Adesola’s PhD extract about Twyla Tharp entered a contract of code of aesthetic ethics with her audience as spectator and her role  as artist and practical researcher when presenting her work.   As a collaborative process a lot of the decision making process in Urban Bush Women is determined by the people it will affect.