Cognitive wholes, embodied cognition

In the studio today listening to this affirming talk about the cognitive whole that mind and body forms and how this affects learning. The educations system's lack of awareness of this is why my mother chose to teach me at home, and thank god she did!

Although this explains why I have never quite felt on the same page as other people until I met contemporary dancers.

The late Gill Clarke, dance artist and Guy Claxton, learning scientist in conversation as part of The Independent Dance Crossing Borders and PAL talks:

http://www.independentdance.co.uk/rsc/MP3s/CB2011/GuyClaxton_11Oct2011.mp3

The bit at 54.35 secs about how we understand perception is enthralling: Guy tells us how the old model of the mind held perception at the fore and action at the back, action as a response to perception with intelligence in the middle. The new model is not linear however, it places doing at the forefront.

He goes onto talk about vision as the prototype for perception, when in fact it is touch.

Visual perception is a visual process of tapping the world. What is more perception is not building up a big composite picture. In fact you only have the detail, which enables you to build up expectations of the world, built by touching it.

Artist statement

It is four years since I started this blog and the new lines of enquiry that are now starting to take shape. To pin things down and move them forwards i have written an artist statement:

I make room filling installations, objects and drawings (drawing spanning traditional media/dance/assemblage). Between 2004- 2008, I extended my painting practice driven by my increasing realisation of the role of the body in perception. Because my experience of the world is highly sensory, visual and crucially mobile, I felt my work couldn't continue to serve the eyes alone. It remains important that the form of my work encourages spatial participation from the viewer.

In deconstructing painting I increased the scale of the work to encompass the viewer entirely and extended the work into their territory, requiring them to interact with the it on spatial terms. The architectural boundaries of the space replaced the 2D frame as a compositional device, and the work was constructed of painting materials. This work was often site-specific, always responsive to the exhibition space and sometimes related visually to the space outside the gallery/site. It was largely informed by the experience of moving through urban landscapes.

Having made this departure, since 2008 I have increasingly explored ideas relating to movement and by extension, natural forces: balance, tension/oppositional forces, exertion of force on a material of space, rhythm and energy. The work is informed by physical practices including contemporary dance/movement and direct observation of humans in movement and natural forms and forces.

Influences include Phylida Barlow, modernist painter Peter Lanyon (master of articulating sensory, mobile, landscape experiences) and contemporary choreographer Siobhan Davies, a pioneer of the body as a source of information for making visual art.

Siobhan Davies pays tribute to Gill Clarke

Siobhan Davies today made this statement about Gill on the facebook page of Siobhan Davies Dance:

‎'Gill Clarke, co-director of Independent Dance and founding member of Siobhan Davies Dance, died in the evening of November 15th.

She was simply a really fine person and I have lost a great friend who knew me well. I shall miss her terribly but her understanding was that we would all have a little of her within us and she hoped that we would evolve and in different ways carry that part of her along. She was typically modest imagining it was only a small part, I know how much of her is embedded in me and that will continuously give me energy and questions.

Gill loved dance with an intelligent passion. She intuitively appreciated that there is a knowing in our bodies that too often we are not in touch with. Her lifelong work as a performer, teacher and researcher was to reveal the mindful intelligence of the moving body and what that means to all of us as people, our relationship with others and our place in the world.

She is irreplaceable, but she prepared us all. Fiona Millward at Independent Dance will continue with its extraordinary program and there are many others in place who will carry on and grow through Gill's spirit and enquiries.'

- Siobhan Davies

RIP Gill Clarke

I am deeply saddened to hear that the dance world has lost one of its greatest souls, a great artist and one of its most interesting thinkers about what it is to move in a body.

Independent Dance, of which Gill was Director has issued the following message today:

Gill Clarke died on November 15 2011 as she lived, calmly and with great poise.

ID has lost a wonderful director and inspiring artist. However, we have been working together to ensure our vision of ID continues to grow.

We have already been receiving some beautiful messages and this has given us the idea to create a place where we can hold them, and to consider appropriate ways to share them.

So, if you would like to send thoughts, memories, or images of Gill, please email them to: gillclarke@independentdance.co.uk

Here she is, doing what she does best, may those who knew her and her work grow the seeds that she planted:

Mind in Motion by Gill Clarke from HZT Berlin on Vimeo.

Alexis investigates, article five: A conversation with Siobhan Davies about dance thinking

Recently choreographer Siobhan Davies has seemingly turned curator, commissioning four new collaborations between dancers and visual artists, the results of which are being shown in an exhibition titled Siobhan Davies Commissions, running from the 4 –13 November at Bargehouse, London (www.siobhandavies.com/dance/dance-works/sdc.html).

This will be the third major show in visual arts territory from Siobhan Davies Dance following The Collection at Victoria Miro Gallery and IKON Gallery Birmingham in 2009, and ROTOR at Siobhan Davies Studios and South London Gallery in 2010 (touring in 2011 to Whitworth Gallery in Manchester and Dovecot Studios in Edinburgh). Of the four commissioned dance artists, Henry Montes, Gill Clarke, and Sarah Warsop are partnered respectively with video and performance artist Marcus Coates, Turner Prize-nominated Lucy Skaer, and craft artist Tracey Rowledge. The fourth, Deborah Saxon, is working with Henry Montes and Bruce Sharp, who works in video, sound and drawing.

As both visual artist and dance maker, I was interested to know why cross art form dialogue has become such a key part of Siobhan’s artistic output. We met for an hour one crisp October morning in Siobhan’s glass fronted office in South London. I talked with Siobhan about how curating had become an extension of her own choreographic trajectory, why collaboration is important to her and how all of this relates to her personal campaign to promote dance thinking as a generator for ideas in other art forms. Talking with at times her eyes shut, hands floating back and forth, Siobhan gently uncovered the words to give me an insight that I share with you here.

So what does happen when a choreographer is situated in the role of curator? Read the full article here: www.danceuk.org/news/article/alexis-investigates-article-five-conversation-siobhan-davies-about-dance-thinking

This is the fifth in a series of articles that I have written about art and dance having a dialogue. Read the rest here: www.danceuk.org/news/article/artist-alexis-zelda-stevens-writes-series-articles-dance-uk-about-art-and-dance/

Invited to write about Siobhan Davies' new commissions

On Tuesday I went down to see Siobhan to talk to her about her recent commissions where she becomes more curator than choreographer. Her team have invited me to write abou the work and I am looking forward to talking to some of the dance artists involved next week.

Of the four commissioned dance artists, Henry Montes, Gill Clarke, and Sarah Warsop are partnered respectively with video and performance artist Marcus Coates, Turner Prize-nominated Lucy Skaer, and craft artist Tracey Rowledge. The fourth, Deborah Saxon, is working with Henry Montes and Bruce Sharp, who works in video, sound and drawing.

Siobhan Davies Commissions continues Davies’ approach of creating work to be seen at close range, and based on a dialogue between art forms. All of the pieces, including performance works, are on show for five hours daily, and visitors are free to arrive and leave as they please.

Siobhan Davies Commissions will be open from 4–13 November 2001 at Bargehouse, London

www.siobhandavies.com/dance/dance-works/sdc.html

They say your brain shows you a memory rather that what your eyes really see

As soon as my pencil touches the paper things come spilling out, my voice wants to speak.

But to say something new, feels like I have to stop my eyes from seeing what they always see and look further.

It feels like I am pulling it out of the dark, trying to see round what I know which is obscuring everything.