Composing while Dancing: An Improviser’s Companion

8. Partnering Science

In contemporary culture, science is often used to validate experience, as in, “It is scientifically proven that . . .” The following dancemakers have found other ways to relate to science, using it to inform rather than confirm . Science instead becomes a partner that suggests new ways of thinking about, working with, and articulating an avenue of inquiry. Comparative Anatomy of a Moving Body: Jennifer Monson Jennifer Monson’s multiyear BIRD BRAIN project studies navigation and migration patterns of animals such as birds and whales. She and her dance improvisers camped out along migration routes and observed the animals interacting with their particular habitats. Through teaching dance workshops based on navigation and sensory explorations, performing for the local community , and engaging in conversations with ecologists, park rangers, and hikers , Monson and her group use dance as a vehicle for observing and engaging in local ecosystems and for uncovering their importance to migrating species. Monson devises dances based on the strategies of the migrating animals she follows. She shares some of these dance ideas in her community classes: basic navigation exercises like finding north, facing toward home, remembering pathways, and flocking practices. She peppers these exercises with 132 8 Partnering Science The critical difference [between artist and scientist] is that the artist measures from his intuition, his feeling. In other words, he uses himself as the measure. Whereas the scientist measures out of an external logic process and makes his decision finally on whether it fits that process in terms of various external abstract measures. —Robert Irwin, in Lawrence Weschler, Seeing Is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees examples of how scientists think birds and other animals are adapted to accomplish these tasks (magnetically sensitive metal deposits in their brains, North Star celestial navigation, polarized light, weather pattern recognition, or low frequency sounds).1 Perhaps we humans take our navigation skills for granted, have forgotten them through disuse, or think that only other animals have them. Monson challenges us to navigate and become aware of how we do it. These simple exercises reveal a wealth of research possibilities for anyone interested in movement. For example, how do we refind a location? Visually, or kinetically through muscle memory? How do the senses combine to accomplish the task? What other senses play roles? What does home feel like? How do we know when we’ve hit our mark? Landmarks reveal themselves as a nexus of sensory information. In the end, no matter how the birds or whales do it, we reflect on our own latent capacities. Monson points out that the concerns of migrating animals are similar to those of the dancer. Both share the same baseline, movement. For example, PARTNE RING S CIE NC E 133 Jennifer Monson’s Flight of Mind (2005), a component of BIRD BRAIN, her multiyear navigational dance project, East River, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York. From left: Katy Pyle, Jennifer Monson, and Alex Escalante. Photo © Bob Braines a dancer’s landmarks are created against a backdrop of moving bodies. Dancers may be unaware of how they build and remember these marks. Comparing experiences with another order of intelligence suggests nuances and potentials for skills dancers might never have considered or challenged themselves to develop if left studio-bound. Questions regarding group dynamics arise: How are transitional states between movement and stillness negotiated in a group? What’s the difference between departing from and arriving into stillness and a moving state? How is a moving state established and agreed upon? Switching the discussion from a sedentary to a moving frame of reference opens up a world of comparisons. For workshop participants, empathy arises for animals in a changing environment. For the performing dancer, the investigation of animal navigation offers a comparative study from which to consider and create movement. In her Urban Migrations, a scored improvisation, Monson asks dancers to include everything they find in the environment in the evolving dance, the natural as well as the man made—like migrating birds do when they use an abandoned concrete pier as a landing pad. Dancers likewise create an ecosystem of the available in their dance, considering manmade objects from a perspective of adaptability. That buildings, streets, and lampposts might have functions other than the obvious piques a curiosity and responsibility toward those other functions. Monson’s dances help us—dancers and viewers alike—experience the interconnectivity of the natural and the manmade and question the distinction between the...