Participant- Ismini Makaratzi (GR)

I was born in Athens, Greece. In 2010 I graduated from Higher Professional Dance School of  D. Grigoriadou. My training consisted of  ballet (Vaganova), modern techniques (Limon, Cunningham) and contemporary (improvisation, release technique, contact improvisation) but also theoretical subjects and mainly history of dance. In 2013 I Graduated from the department of Archaeology & History of Art in the University of Crete. While researching I found myself intrigued by the concept of corpo-archaeology and the new theories concerning the sociology of the body. Last year, I came back to Athens and started teaching dance.

My main interest lies in finding connections between theory (concepts) and practise in dance. I am interested in the prospect of experimentation within the multicultural context of the Lab, that is, the problems involving the practise of choreography and issues of research , the stages of a process of investigation, the artist as a subject of this investigation, reflection on all of this.The workshop with the title "failure" caught my eye, particularly as this subject is  "taboo" hardly  discussed and analysed among practitioners.  My question being -  how and whether the body that experiences failure can find new ways to get ‘satisfaction,  I think is an interesting and innovative approach.

3/7/2013  Day 1 (Introduction Ana Sanchez- Colberg)

 Brain storm on the idea, concept, word intension.

The intention transforms..

The intention is a parameter to achieve a concious change.
Through intention we can fulfill our dreams and desires. The real power behind intention is desire.
An intention means that we 've put a target and we intend to achieve it.
Opposite meaning of intention is “spontaneously” or “incidentally”.
Our intentions determine our experiences. 
My thoughs and my senses reflect my true intentions?
What are my intentions for today, tomorrow, or the future?

p.s. : really interesting the first meaning of the greek word intention < προ-θεσις

<<δημόσια έκθεση- δήλωση>> which is translated as public statement..

But what is intentionality of my process/work?  

To disclose different potentialities of embodiment.

A process that will let myself go towards discovering something new.

In relation to what my body bears culturally, aesthetically, technologically.

To observe these and to make the connection.

4/7/2013 Day 2 ( Workshop Ana Sanchez- Colberg)

How do we remember? “Bring something from your body memory from yesterday..”

There it was! I investigated on isolation of body parts and this had almost get on a structure of body movements that I could easily remember..

But what happen when our body refuses to remember?

Could this be because of a mechanism of defence created in our body/mind? 

5/7/2013  Day 3 ( Workshop Ana Sanchez- Colberg)

On sharing tasks..

Make it ,first, clear to yourself so it's clear after to the other/others. 

8/7/2013  Day 4 ( Workshop Andreas Dyrdal )

 '' frame of work"

Define the way of existence between time and work … 

What is the time of our work and which are the rules of time ?

And my observations are that I can not organise, always, time..

By the years, I figure out that when I am improving the management of my time

I become more confident and less anxious. 

Ass Andreas suggests be realistic with time.. 

Andreas asked to think the way we operate with issues such us " place", 
how do you decide to work in a place?
Do I have to have a space to work? 
Responsibility- yourself at work- work in general..

Also he suggests make time to not work...

11/7/2013  Day 7 ( Workshop with Androniki Marathaki)

Our body knows. While moving my body bears its memories and its experiences. Has its own history.
So, I ' m trying to think while moving, to find out this association. I observe my movements and I try to understand something... What could be behind? Which idea or emotion..? While trying towards this task, I find difficulties to figure out and to make this clear to myself..  By time, I feel like coming closer..  maybe it's an idea about an attitude.. to lose and to found.. Is this? I don' t know.. Lab time..  Time for exloration..

12/7/2013  Day 8 ( Workshop with Androniki Marathaki)

Today we continued working along specific tasks into the widest idea of

 "Thinking while moving". The tasks were challenging...

-Rolling to the floor and observing the “cells”, the body parts that touching the floor.

-Notice the body part that came in touch with the floor and let this body part to make the next movement but now in the air- space.

-Make movements behind your visual field.

Then we were asked to continue "the game" we started yesterday.. Playing with a sticker, that was the material of my choice... Each of us had to make 1 minute solo in three different curcles, each solo should consisted by a birth (part), a grown up (part) and a death (part). While observing the others, we asked to write a personal suggestion for their “game” piece.. Also, we had to observe: How we deal with finding something new ? Do we stay or do we leave it and move to another?

Two musicians joined us today and played the guitar, the flaouto and the bouzouki. We had a jamming but within specific tasks.. First, they were following us, and then we did... Then we continued exploring this accosiation between movement and music within different tasks.

15/7/2013 Day 9 (Workshop with Kiriakos Spirou)

"Scores". 
Scoring as a skill..
Todays score: exploring listening.
What is happening with my body when I am listening music-sound?
Listening as a stimulus, as a touch in our back..
-6 minutes track.. free improvisation..
Read with your ears the environment you are in..
Music seems to be a favourite tool,
music inspires me,
offers me a strong impulse to move.

Pick one of the different scores that you are given and perform it..

Then, Marilena and I choosed the "verbal" score to perform..This was:
"Meeting point"
every one plays the same tone, 
lead the same tone wherever your thoughts
lead you, 
do not leave it, stay with it,
always return to the same place.

It was a limited score as it was stricly guided
in comparison to the graphic score as it could offer a wider frame of definitions.

16/7/2013  Day 10 (Workshop with Kiriakos Spirou)

Learning to use the creation of a score..

Also,
 relationship to the score when perform it.
 relationship to the score when choreograph it.
When choreographing I have to make the decisions, the definitions and the rules.
When performing I have to follow these decisions, definition and rules..

"Creation of a score"
I create a score which was graphic and verbal the same time.
It was a map of movement and I designed it inspired from a map of the metro..
Every "station" was a shift to another motif of movement and its distance defined the duration of each motif.. The "stations" were named by letters and every letter defined a rule of movement in words.

Project:

Into a Phase Shifter..

Our sense of our identity limits us and control us. Does not allow us to fulfill many of our desires, but also settles our anxiety by giving us feelings of safety and some consistency and continuity in our lives. The safety of the familiar, often leads us to insist stereotypes in a limited range of choice and refusal behaviors and desires that it deems incompatible with ourselves. In other words, we have some standards that take root more and more until they become fully automated and fully reflect the lifestyle we have choose.

What if we chooce to change that limited range of choice ?

So, there is a desire to make a radical change.. and that's when the intention comes.. and the activation of the individual through intention..

Kierkegaard (Either/Or: A Fragment of Life )said that there are three ways of being that follow a - somehow - evolution in the sense that they come with a certain number

• The aesthetic is the personal, subjective realm of existence, where an individual lives and extracts pleasure from life only for his or her own sake. In this realm, one has the possibility of the highest as well as the lowest.

• The ethical, on the other hand, is the civic realm of existence, where one's value and identity are judged and at times superseded by the objective world.
  
  
• The religious - occurs because of doubt as to the infallibility of science and codes of ethics, that the choices and attitudes. Requires overcoming a leap in limbo, leaving the false sense of security that provide us moral absolutes and habits, and to chart a course towards the Divine, whatever is in it for us - having faith, without having proof.

Something is sulfur for each of us (Tillich, 1967), the concept of doctrine (God, relationships, body awareness). Even the symptoms of the body, since they allow us to feel strong, to refuse that are perishable, they have this role. More specifically, the ethic realm starts with a conscious effort to choose one's life, with a choice to choose. Either way, however, an individual can go too far in these realms and lose sight of his or her true self.

Is obviously about choice, but it is also about the possibility of change, a change that aims at achieving the equilibrium necessary for moving on to another “sphere”.

During the phase of a change, the person may insists on refusal behaviors, desires and automated standards. So, as much as strong the intention is, the person might experiences “failure”, till it get finally into the road of change..

Then, our body is expressing what we hide from ourselves, what we hate, who renounce that frighten us or make us feel uncomfortable or guilty and we prefer to ignore. Our body knows. While moving my body bears its memories and its experiences. Has its own history. So, I ' m trying to think while moving, to find out this association ..

So in my research there is an on going feedback of the informations between though(here: thoughs inspired from my theme) and acting (moving) and with the feeling that this accosiation should proove that every action is an aftereffect of a concious intention.. It's about a meditation process, which starts from the stillness to lead to the movement and has the intention to highlight the wholeness of body-mind.