EMERGENCE IN OPEN CHOREOGRAPHIC SYSTEMS

Written in occasion of a lecture held at the Laban Centre as part of the conference: RE/CONFIGURATIONS: The body / Movement / Space Matrix in Contemporary Performance.

ABSTRACT

The matrix is by definition a rigid structure, once certain information is imprinted into the matrix this will always generate the same outcome. The point of view here proposed is a different approach to the body-space-performance matrix itself, it is a way to generate a fluid matrix which allows for variations of its original structure.
The body-space-time matrix in performing arts is greatly dependent on issues related to the ways they are perceived by creators and viewers alike. In choreography the human body acquires a particular emphasis. The ways the body is perceived will inevitably influence the nature and aesthetic of a choreographed piece.
This view presents the body as a beautifully complex system, as a fluid entity whose potential is expressed (among the others) by the freedom it possesses to recreate space and its relations with it. Recreation is the key word. It implies an endless number of permutations.

A traditional choreography is an artificially constructed manifestation of such permutations, which are materialised and disposed in a fixed order. Balancing this rigidity we have the more anarchic world of improvisation, where some rules or parameters might be set as guidelines, but the final outcome will be unpredictable; that is to say generated at a subconscious level. This "freshness" is often considered to be the "raison d'°tre" of improvisation.
Non-linear choreography is the synthesis of both systems. The content of a performance is created with meticulous precision, its informational content fixed, or I should rather say choreographed by, the conscious will of its choreographer. Nevertheless the dancer's bodies are immersed in a fluid time-space matrix that allows the choreography to be manipulated. This manipulation happens on stage, in real time but its parameters are fixed. It is choreography of the body and of the possible permutations in time and space.
This allows for a fluid recreation of the choreography in the very moment that it is taking shape, without the loose unpredictability of classic improvisation. Simple rules applied to the matrix can bring about extremely beautiful emerging patterns.

THE BODY

Referring to information as a description of the content and state of a system, we could say that choreography is the arrangement of information in time and space. Commonly this sentence is considered to be true if it is expressed exclusively in relation to the arrangement of the informational content carried by a specific medium: the human body. More specifically, this is considered to be true if it relates to the formal arrangements/patterns generated in time-space by a variable number of bodies.
It could be rightfully argued that this special relationship body/choreography is not necessarily fundamental. Especially after the emergence of new technologies in the last few decades, the concept of body has become less defined. After all, that which we see on a recorded tape it is not 'The Body', as to say the "flesh and bones temple" of human kind. Recorded images are either analogue electrical impulses imprinted on a magnetic tape or digitally coded information translated by an apposite program.
It seems like we couldn't possibly go any further from the body and yet, when we watch a tape, it is possible to recognise its familiar physiognomy. The informational content carried by a "live body" is somehow translated, stored and reproduced in a different time/space through a different medium. A taped choreography is still perceived as choreography even though The Body is not there, a scaled-down two-dimentional representation is all we have. We can coherently perceive this translation for two main reasons: the selectivity of our perception, and the fact that to be recorded it is not the complete informational content of The Body, but the features that matter to us - physiognomy, expressions, proportions, positions in space, etc. Features are a crucial concept in this script. As we will see, often they are simplifications of an underlying complexity, while their nature might change greatly in relation to the elements whose features we refer to. They are also intimately connected to the way that they are perceived by an external viewer, or a processor such as the brain.
Our perception works mostly by extrapolating general patterns from the geometry of complex systems or from the events of complex dynamic processes. For instance looking at a tree we perceive it as a whole, as a unique concept, a 'mental tag' called 'TREE' (1). Imagine what would happen if every time we went in a wood we would be hit on the same sensorial level by every single tree, every single leaf, shape, colour, etc. We would need a huge computational power just to visually map where we are and decide where to go next. The same can be said when describing any other complex system: flocking birds, crowds of people or even your own living room. To create mental tags is an extremely useful tool: why to call (or worse perceive) your living room as an endless list of details when you can simply call it 'LIVING ROOM'?
My bag is in the living room.
Rather than: my bag is in the space enclosed by four vertical surfaces, two horizontal (describe colours, dimensions and else); inside are present: (description of all objects and their characteristic); opposite the opening that allows you to enter there are two other openings of smaller dimensions partially closed by a transparent material (explain what windows are and what they look like)... stop! What a tiring example! And I didn't even get remotely close to the real amount of information needed to describe a room in these terms.
'BODY' is also one of these tags created by our perception. When we perceive a body we perceive its general features, we don't think of it as a collection of organs; certainly not as the result of a few billion cells - in fact our senses don't even bother to perceive them. This is why we recognise a recorded body, a painted body, an artificially reproduced body as a BODY: because general features are important to us in reproduction, these are all we need in order to identify an entity as a body.

CONVENTIONS IN CHOREOGRAPHY

Information, as energy, is an extremely vague term. It is used in so many different contexts and interpreted in such different ways that often, when using this word, it is easy to create misunderstandings. So what do we really arrange in time and space when creating choreography?
Up to now choreography has been considered to be the arrangement of a single entity's general features: its shapes, its paths of travel, its dynamic flow, etc. In addition there is a meta-compositional level: the patterns, the paths of travel, the dynamic flow of several entities relating to each other (2). If these general features, as we have seen, are not The Body in itself but simply a mental projection relative to our perception, than can we be so sure where to draw the line, are we certain to have recognised all the possible features relative to The Body? And even so, wouldn't be possible to create new ones, arrange them, and call the process choreography? Or, in the extreme, couldn't we also call choreography the arrangement of tags of a different nature, totally extraneous to The Body?
To the first few questions we could hardly give a certain answer. Obviously, it is here my intent to propose that, yes, it is possible to go in the search of new choreographic features. As these are contextual phenomena, I believe that what is needed is to create new contexts in which to immerse The Body, breeding the emergence of new relations that, in turn, will enrich the traditional understanding of choreography. Later in this script I, for example, propose the view of a range of dynamic features, representing processes rather than patterns or configurations. This is done practically by creating open, adaptive choreographic systems, rather than linear strings of movements. The range of this feature it is virtually endless, nevertheless don't think of them as something mysterious; most of them are well common in the real world and could be identify form social phenomena (competition, collaboration, regulations, hierarchies, etc) to natural phenomena (natural selection, evolution, mutations, infection, osmosis, etc).
Against the latter proposition, questioning the legitimacy of defining any kind of arrangement in time and space as choreography, it could be argued that the relation body/choreography has been established throughout centuries of a shared common understanding. Shared common understanding means tradition and tradition is like an established language, which makes social interactions easier amongst vast numbers of people. To change this reference means readjusting to new forms of social interaction, readjustment always requires a consumption of energy - in the way that work is needed to create new ones. All social systems have an inborn tendency to preserve energy; this is a clear evolutionary advantage considering that their resources are necessarily limited. Cultural conventions are one of the results of these tendencies and are themselves resistant to abrupt changes, but they do change with time (3). We could ask ourselves: "Is there really an advantage in moving from one convention to another?" Yes, there is once a convention becomes obsolete and to sustain it implies disadvantages greater than the advantages of maintaining established structures. As long as we remain attached to them we miss the chance of discovering other possible options, and probably get better advantages from this new knowledge.
Could the same be said about choreography? It is a fact that terminology within the Arts is a process of continual reinvention. This has been possible because artistic discussions are mostly held in restricted circles of intellectuals and artists, it is more like a slang than a language, a slang fully understood only by those people belonging to its culture.
To choreograph means to arrange information related to the body, this is a shared convention, but nowadays we have an understanding of informational processes far more sophisticated than those possessed one hundred years ago, let alone centuries ago. Doesn't this knowledge invite us to redefine an old word with a new meaning? The parameters of painting, sculpture and music have been reinvented during the 20th Century; choreography has mostly been subjected only to changes of content and style. Take the majority of contemporary choreographers and it will soon become clear that there isn't much difference between the nature of their work and the milestones of classical ballet. Certainly, they will be about something different; their forms might even be completely different from each other. Yet, in their deepest, most important aspects they will both be the same: a succession of arranged general features of The Body.
Aesthetically, is there so much difference between a pointed foot and a flexed one? As for the content: has it really changed so much? Aren't we mostly reinterpreting the same basic preoccupations, bringing back to life the same myths? More than an evolution, it seems like the history of choreography has been a long series of reinterpretations; proof is that classical ballet is still the unsurpassed dominant dance form in most operahouses.
Certainly, there will be people who do not agree with my arguments. Their point of view might be: "If choreographic styles look different and talk about something different then they couldn't be any further apart". Yes, if we stick to the same conventionally chosen general features, they couldn't be any further apart; however what we really choreograph are nothing more than mental tags, all trees are TREES for us even though there are no two alike. What we need is to reach forward for deeper dimensions of understanding information. Radical views are needed to achieve radical changes. New contemporary views of choreography could, in a way, free The Body from the rigidity that has been laid onto its general features by traditional choreography... better, free choreography from The Body altogether.
In this way, choreography would acquire a true meaning of information arrangement in time and space. In turn this would bring about something completely new: the emergence of new choreographic features.

FLUIDITY

Fluidity is such a beautiful world.
Imagine yourself entering a bathtub filled with hot water. Feel the sensation of the water easily adjusting to the shape of your body. Once inside you can move effortlessly, be completely immersed in the fluid; you perceive it flowing on your skin, without meeting any real resistance. Moreover when moving you create visible motion on the surface: ripples, waves, splashes... A lot more goes unnoticed: thermal convention will be forcing warm water toward the surface, a tiny part will evaporate while the rest will sink down after having lost heat. Meanwhile your body will trigger re-adjustments under the surface with every tiny movement.
So many possible variations, and yet the liquid remains unchanged in its essence: behind all this complex motion there are myriads of tiny water molecules regulated by a few laws of physics. We can swim, splash, wave as much as we want but the water will not loose it's intrinsic qualities, each molecule will retain its chemical and physical properties. The possible permutations are only expressed by exchanges of information (momentum, heat, etc.) between single molecules.
The simple fact that these generated patterns are not necessarily chaotic is rather striking: "individuals" seem to be able to come to an agreement and to start behaving as one, generating regular and simple features as waves. How can such simple, randomly moving molecules generate such a variety of recognisable features? That's a big deal if we think about the sheer amount of molecules involved in the process (4).
Of course there must be laws regulating the process, but these laws are always valid and yet water doesn't automatically imply waves, something more is needed to generate them. Normally this is an 'interactor' but the precise nature of interactors will also be unpredictable. For instance, in the sea, wave-generating winds might be of different strengths, different temperatures, blowing from different directions, and yet the result will always be self-similar. Moreover waves are not an intrinsic quality of single water molecules; an isolated molecule cannot generate waves, the process implies the interaction of several molecules. We could therefore say that waves are intrinsic qualities of interacting fluid elements, they are 'emerging features'. Simple causes can generate complex effects, which in turn can generate simple emerging patterns. Emergence often possesses its own internal rules, which might be qualitatively different from those regulating the interactive elements that generated it.
Self-organisation and emerging patterns are ubiquitous in nature. Such arrangements are not implicit in the individual constituents of a system; they comprise a level of informational arrangement arising as natural tendencies within networks of interacting elements.

EMERGENCE

We are finally getting to the point, the choreographic view: we are seeing that arrangement of information need not to be a rigid process. Complex dynamic systems are able to give rise to some sort of meta-organisation with its own rules and qualities, independent from those of the constituting elements. It is equally important to stress that what we perceive are levels of organisation, milestones, resting places for our senses. These also include The Body's general features I mentioned earlier; general features that until now have been the main choreographic mediums. They are expression of informational content carried by The Body, they are not the entirety of The Body.
This allows the consideration that a dance work need not necessarily be structured as a string of events, where each constituting element is rigidly placed in space, linearly placed in time and with univocal relationships to others. Those same elements could also be placed in a fluid environment which allows them to interact dynamically, shaping the choreographic outcomes through the ensemble of interactions. Similar differences exist between a crystal and a fluid; their internal structures are radically different. For us they possess different kinds of beauty. For instance, we give great value to the aesthetic properties of diamonds but we can't deny that we would probably spend more time staring at the simple and "repetitive" flow of waves on a seashore.
As our perception is not equipped to cope with complexity, to generate complex dynamics and emerging patterns we need to approach the choreography with lateral thinking: devising personal methods, choosing elements, investing them with qualities and regulating their interactions. Having done that, we let the system run and see what happens. With experience we can also learn about complexity, some emerging features can be predictable.
If we ask a group of 10 dancers to remain within reaching distance from an additional leader without touching the others, than we will have a tight group of 11. That's pretty obvious.
If the leader is moving in space then the group will move too, according to the same lines. This already starts to be interesting: the space patterns were not implicit to the group of the 10 dancers, they emerge as a consequence of the -stick to leader- rule.
If the leader starts moving in space using sudden accelerations than most certainly the group will start manifesting a "flocking-like" behavioural pattern. This emergence is not implicit to the basic rule either, but it is even more interesting because it arises in relation to reaction times of each dancer plus his/her space relation to the other dancers. The reaction will necessarily have a small delay, especially if the dancers are also concentrating on their own dance material. The reaction time will depend on individuals as well; some will be on average faster, others slower. Moreover if the dancer with faster reaction times has to move in a direction that is blocked by one or more of the slower, the first will have to wait for the second's motion before following. These and similar considerations are reasonably predictable, that's why we can expect flocking-like behaviour or similar simple patterns.
The example is extremely crude and banal only for the sake of being concise, nevertheless I could carry on with many other similar considerations. For instance the fact that the dancers cannot touch each other, while following the leader and executing their dance material, will force them to readjust their reciprocal space relations continuously. Moreover, more exactingly, we could imagine the complexity increasing exponentially by choosing settings more similar to a social network where, for instance, there are several overall regulations but each entity is granted freedom to choose within them.
I hope I won't be misunderstood, the stress it is not on the rules, rule based works are omnipresent in performing arts. Rules on their own are indifferent, the aim is to create art works not games. The aspiration is to create something that is alive and able to evolve during its life span represented by a performance. It has to carry not only beauty but also deeper meanings on a human scale. Rules are only about inventiveness, but inventiveness doesn't tell us anything new, only that one can invent. The stress is rather on the possibility to create new features - better, give them a chance to emerge - by letting the elements interact on a different level. To do so it is needed to create dynamic interactions and not to fix the details, details are unimportant. Can't we overlook the details and go in search of the waves?

NOTES

(1) It is true, giving it a little more thought, we could then realise that a tree is made of a trunk, several branches and many leaves. This is to say that we are able to understand its complexity intellectually. What we cannot do is to perceive it. No matter how many hours of intense meditation we would spend on it, our perception is simply not programmed to cope with the complexity of even a single tree.

(2) I am intentionally ignoring all issues regarding symbolism, meanings and narrative, as this would unnecessarily complicate the nature of my considerations.

(3) 'Inertia' is an extremely strong social and psychological dynamic, as the perseverance of existing structures allows for the saving of vast amounts of energy. Inertia is extremely useful too: for instance it is convenient to know that we are expected to shake hands in formal greetings. Once learned, we don't have to spend resources thinking how to behave in similar situations.

(4) There is nothing very complicated about a water molecule: it's just one big oxygen atom with two little hydrogen atoms stuck to it. Its behaviour is governed by well-understood equations of atomic physics. But now put a few zillions of those molecules together in the same pot. Suddenly you've got a substance that shimmers and gurgles and sloshes. Those zillions of molecules have acquired a property, liquidity, that none of them possesses alone. [...] The liquidity is emergent. (Waldrop, 1994, p. 82)

REFERENCES

1) M. Mitchell Waldrop, "Complexity", Simon & Schuster - 1992

2) Ian Steward and Jack Choen, "The Collapse Of Chaos: Discovering Simplicity In A Complex World", Penguin Books - 1995

3) J.H.Holland, "Emergence: From Chaos To Order", Oxford University Press -
2000

4) M.Rush, "New Media In Late 20th Centuary Art", Thames & Hudson - 1999

5) T.Druckery (editor), "Ars Electronica: Facing The Future: A Survey Of Two Decades (Electronic Culture: Hystory, Theory And Practice)", MIT Press - 1999

6) M.Buchanan, "Ubiquity: The Science Of Hystory", Weidenfeld & Nicolson - 2000

7) N.Stangos (editor), "Concepts of Modern Arts", Thames & Hudson - 1994

8) M. Heidegger, "Corpo e Spazio", il melangolo - 2000 (trad. Francesca Bolino)

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Special thanks to Michael Klien, Nicholas Mortimore and Jeffrey Longstaff for inspiration and feedback.