Participant- Xica Lisboa (Germany/Brazil)

Born in São Paulo, Brazil, based in Berlin, Germany. Dancer and performer graduated in Communication of Performing Arts at PUC/SP, Brazil in 2003. Has further studied and practiced contact improvisation, stage improvisation techniques from theater and dance, pre-expressivity training, somatic-movement methods and clowning. Co-founder of the dance-theater group Silenciosas, where she worked as creator and dancer between 2004 and 2008 and got sponsored by the City Hall of São Paulo in 2007. In the last 12 years Xica has taught dance, body work and improvisation for both stage performers, beginners and children in social projects and private classes. She has also worked as a trainer of scenic body for theater groups in São Paulo. Since 2010, Xica lives and works between Berlin and São Paulo and has mostly focused on her own research work by studio labs, process sharing and workshops. At present her interests are primarily turned to creation.


My choreographic interests...

I have been always particularly interested on issues related to capturing the spectator’s attention. Why can we, for example, have our eyes arrested on a quiet actor in the corner of the stage while a main scene happens on the center? I am concerned with the objective aspect of the effectiveness of this relationship performer/spectator, theme which I consider connected with some matters of life that interest me as well: image, self-­image, identity, and valuation. Trainings and methods from theater, dance improvisation and clown were brought to me toward this absorption, throughout my artistic path. Concerned with that, I have also unfolded my own practical researches in movement improvisation always focused on stage presence and “expressive fill”. Apart this, while studying, paying attention and discussing subjects related to the pre­-expressivity and the effectiveness of the work on stage for the last thirteen years, I got one thought: the contemporary spectator wants to see human beings on stage; not what they make to hide themselves. This idea makes all sense to me as a person and audience who I am and directs my choices as an artist and performer who I am. 
After I have dedicated myself with the “being” on stage as a technical training, I am at the moment interested on a personal and choreographic treatment of this idea of (human) being on scene. My lately movement labs brought up a research in "slow flow" loaded with very personal meaning and from that came the wish to explore it particularly as a proposal of bringing intimacy to a public environment. There come my choreographic interests: being and being seen. Moving only what moves me. No showing, just being aware of being here and of being seen and being moved. It is slow and has the right to be it. It brings an inmost ambient to the public and it wonders how the public is able and available to come into and relate to it.
The possibility to taking part on Kinitiras Choreography LAB means the opportunity of having space, time and practical and theoretical assistance to carry out my personal research in an engaged and supportive environment.

03.July (introduction Ana Sanchez-Colberg)

What makes moving meaningful for me?

Sensation, for sure... recognizing images...? This simple question made me think. First, because of the idea of recognizing this as a personal feature, not as a rule. Then, it made me think I got actually quite stuck several times on making choices by this question... time to sleep on it.

04.July (workshop Ana Sanchez-Colberg)


Intensive exploration from the task given by Ana of bringing something from the body memory from yesterday. Exploring a certain quality/ sensation of relationship with the floor... there was some pressure and slide, distribution of weight, hands and feet, horizontality, pleasure, relation with the floor. 

How to make from my experience of moving, a task?

Besides experiencing others proposal and seeing mine exploration on others body... the most important from the exercise of sharing the tasks for me, was this: I need to know how to make from my experience of moving a task, in order to choreograph, in order to make my experiments "revisitable". Recognizing what is the essential of this embodied experience which makes it meaningful for me, and which makes me able to revisit it.

05.July (workshop Ana Sanchez-Colberg)

Natural return of the choreographic interests...

Ana brought us the "simple task" :) of getting a start on the nature of our process through bringing together what we got till now of information on our
bodies. I was tired and lazy... no reach to will, motivation or pleasure. 
I started awakening my body through pressure of every bone on the floor... normally this works for me. From then I knew I could bring the exploration from yesterday (the one I had to clarify the task to share with Maria)... as it happened yesterday as well, the relation with the ground of careful and
continuous distribution of weight through mild pressure, brought me after a while to a moving-stillness filled of a concrete sensation in the body. There it is. From here I can move with my body, instead of bringing movement to my body. I knew I was stepping the territory of my choreographic proposal. 
There it comes the increase from today's investigation...

Moving only "what" moves me and when "it" moves me.

Defining rules: I must keep on the exact present moment on moving - body and mind (mind here meaning the feeling, imagination, attention)*. 
Things that can happen: 
- my body keeps moving automatically, no feeling and attention there (my body is on the future). Realize, must stop.
- my mind imagines or wish a moment forward from when my body is (my mind is on the future). Realize, must stop, ground image of the body-mind where it is.

Dealing, investigating, noticing, getting free, accepting, giving myself... with/from/to the maelstrom of information that comes from outside - by vision, by awareness of exposition, of being seen. 

What happens with the body-mind experience of moving, when I open my previously closed eyes, or when I notice there is someone looking to me or taping me?
Things that happened:
- i emotionally crashed when opening eyes after having a moment of filled experience** with the eyes closed. Used the release of emotion as motion to move.
- when opening eyes, speed needed to be slowed down.
- when realized being taped, my mind (attention) got more turned to the outside. Grounding, get it back. Want to still keep working minimum 60% inside. 

*I'm separating body and mind here with the purpose to understand in detail the process of a conscious experience of moving, the way as I propose. We already know body and mind don't exist separated. It's important to understand what I mean with mind.
** I use the term "filled" experience when I can reach the body-mind present at the exact moment and I have the feeling of meaningful moving.

 "The human is born prematurely with a very fragile skin, requiring artificial protection of physical and, even more, symbolic nature, as it is symbolically that he proceeds his passage to the individual and social identity. The human is constantly exposed in the two meanings of the term: to the dangers and to the looks." (insert of the book "In Name Of The Body" - my translation)

08.July

Is it cognitively possible what I am proposing to do?
I am still trying to clarify what exactly I am proposing as experience of moving and if it's actually possible. Everything I write here is still a process of understanding what I am practically doing. Cognitively or neurologically possible or not, the words we use to propose us or others a embodied experience provoke always some or other result.
At the moment I have the impression that what I am proposing to my attention stick on, by the rules I am constructing, is maybe impossible to purely reach. The investigation is about the act of trying and discovering each time more and more layers which were at first unnoticed. The rules keep transforming as new layers are unfolded.

Stage of investigation today and rules and questions to bring to the next day

Keeping mind attached on the same time/space of the body experience.
Considering to this investigation: body=the physical touchable body, mind=images, attention, feeling
 
When I realize I know the continuation of my movement, I will consider here as if my mind is displacing on time in relation to my body experience.
Rule: continuing or stopping, I must detach from that future. - change direction

When I perceive any positive or negative judgment about what I am doing, I will consider here as if my mind is displacing on space in relation to my body experience.
Rule: stop, bringing attention to the image/feeling I create with the body now/here (if eyes closed open, if eyes open close)

When with open eyes: is it possible to include the perception of the surrounding on this body-mind-attached experience? Experience what changes and if I can keep at least 60% of my mind on the exact same quality of attention on the body experience.

What is the role and importance of my vulnerability with the external looks on this research?


10.July

The awareness of external look can coexist with the awareness of the action, but must not occupy more than 40% of the whole awareness (mind).

The awareness of a continuity of the movement (its close future) can coexist with the awareness of the present image, but it must be maximum 30% of the awareness of the movement. In a way that it feels more as being contained in the awareness of the actual movement, than as coexisting as something other than that.

11.July (workshop Androniki)

As if all the cells of your body are where they need to be - related to the space, related to the other?
Interesting approach of not monitored movement - body leaded - open to the outside, already in response to the surrounding.

Tasks to my process: 
Add some rules of space.
Make the rules more physical