„Gearbeitete Sinnlosigkeit ist Arbeit. Entschlossene Nichtstun ist Entscheidung. Choreografie ist nichts anderes als eine ultimative generative Kunst.“
"#nothingtodoness" responses to John Cage's radical artistic investigation that "nothingtoseeness" in visual art corresponds to silence in music. The point here is not to see nothing, but rather to bring the pure process of observation to the foreground. My approach to this is to express my fascination, observation and experience of the body's skillful mastery in the world through conscious and unconscious artistic decisions and to bring the viewer closer to the layer between the material and immaterial of the body without any violence.
#nothingtodoness is an on going research project. Since October 1st, 2021, we collected a lot of texts, ideas, visuals and mini-happenings that took us out of our normal zone of thinking, creating, sharing movements and dancing. The result is shared here in the form of a digital museum/online experience space. This allowed the audience to get a glimpse into the body and mind of the dancer and choreographer without having to physically participate. We are still updating and creating new shapes.
Concept: Chun Zhang
Creation: Chun Zhang, Mariane Verbecq, Kai Strathmann
With the three chronically arranged themes of 'Stillness', 'Transition' and 'Self sufficiency', I experienced as follow:
--I experience the impossible 'stillness' in the body through targeted improvisation and meditation and find out: What is relatively quiet? What is passive and active? What do I have to do to be still? Does movement lead to stillness? Does stillness lead to movement?
--I look at the transitions on my body, anatomically and physically: The skin is a transition. Breath is transition. The quality of the design is transition. Then consider mental transitions: An enlightened moment is a transition. A dream is a transition. A break is a transition. Being aware of relationships is a transition. In the end, I look at the transitions compositionally and grammatically: “Phrasing” is a transition, establishing coherence is a transition, a sentence break is a transition; Repetition is a transition; a pronoun is a transition; the present tense, the form “ing”, which is not found in German, is a transition.
When I look closely at these elements, how does it change the way I move and be in stillness? What new aesthetic forms are emerging, compositionally and metaphorically?
--When does the artistic and aesthetic decision begin? Does the awareness of all this bring me to a unity that I fulfill function and expression at the same time and thus have an infinite creativity resource in one body? Is it possible to empty and create at the same time?
FAQ
Do I have a body because I have an idea?
Do I have the idea because I have this body?
Do I die when I stop the idea?
When I die, does this idea stay?
When I go away, does this idea stay?
When I come back, is this idea coming back?
Do you just see the idea of me?
When I change the idea, do you change the idea of me?
When I think about another day, another place, is my body also there?
Is my body a container? Of memory?
Is memory idea?
When I am not here, whom do you see?
I have many ideas about myself. They go anywhere, anytime. Does it mean I can be there as well?