Work — Lili M

Off-stage Others

for detailed material visit - http://madewitholga.be/pages/OffstageOthers

My primary intention of the residency was to look into how we speak about dance and how we practice it; how the discursive and physical practices relate in co-constructing one another. I was interested in how somatic discourse is not only descriptive but also performative part of the bodily practices. I aimed for exploration of orality in dance, carrying much of the characteristics or imprints of physical practices that get lost in the process of articulating it in the written word. The first residency was focused on developing a series of studio interviews with somatic/dance practitioners that would later be transformed into a written work of fiction.

1st phase - 1.12.2020-31.1.2021

Off-stage Others explores the role of orality in dance, as part of the practice and as a way to narrativize (inscribe, rewrite, and capture in language) our dance practice. Through a series of interviews with dancers and other artists, I explored how discursive and physical practices relate to and co-construct each other. The map of concerns collected during the process addresses how the practitioners' pre-public discourse is shaped in relation to the specificity of their artistic practice.

I continue my work in a subsequent TakeCare residency with two important questions that are crucial for me as further guidelines; how does digital discourse affect the somatic, how can we reconceptualize the notion of "experience" based on the analytical conditions of the digital, what the body can still do, and the resurgence of the body as a resistance to the digitization of experience and the mystification to remain opaque in the face of the AI-driven extractionist agenda. And the second is about the research itself - how can I make the results of my research transparent and share it with the community I've engaged with, or how can I fundamentally imagine what will happen to the results.
I highly recommend keeping a research diary as part of the methodology to keep ourselves aware of what we encounter in the course of the research than to jump to conclusions and interpret the series of events, obstacles, and unexpected questions that arise in the research. Firstly, to note for ourselves where we are with our own questions, as this opens up a scope of tools and possibilities for experimentation as well as for possible implementations that we can easily overlook when deciding in advance what the (desired) outcomes of our research are.

2nd phase - 1.2.-31.3.2021

The main focus of this research was to capture the gap between formally held and lived beliefs, and our concerns about what we make social versus what we individualise and how this colours the narratives by which we live, work, collaborate, suffer, create, love, and have families. I believe in collectivising these half-digested thoughts, in order to transform them into better stories that will, in turn, breed better realities. This way, we move our communities away from unified hive-minds, and find solidarity through sharing our personal situations.
Through numerous interviews I tried to trace a sort of a pre-public discourse, that would capture opinions, desires, worries, complaints, sarcastic remarks, bits and pieces of culture we share. Although in simple, popular phrases my research was an attempt to dive deep into the engaged perspectives of the artists interviewed and a general overview of the artistic concerns.
Half-digested thou

ghts, catch phrases, and statements; some of these we’ve heard over and over, others we might have contemplated but don’t really want (or dare) to put out there. Some might even be internalised clichés that we don’t want to assume or know only too well. A semi-private collection that once shared and circulated can shift a wider agenda on what matters to artists the most. Although starting with my closest colleagues and ourselves might be quite a small bubble (if not an echo-chamber) I ultimately aimed for shaping this research into a tool to connect distinct disciplines and different generations.
Research trajectory led me from a map of concerns - ranging from the precarity of artistic work and the traumas of art education to the social mechanisms of cooperation governing our intimate attachments and creative endeavours, to an idea of a board-game.
By not limiting myself to the medium and testing my ideas with multiple conversationalist*, I found most productive work in continuous shaping of the gap between my set-goals and the conditions set by the material I was working with. The future plans include diving into the complexity and intertwinement of the various aspects that
make up freelance artistic life by creating a format that can make this research shareable and of interest to the same community that participated in it and wider.
The proto-board game is aiming to collectively push towards clear self-evaluation and setting new standards for ourselves and the community within the artistic practices.

Supported by Fonds Darstellende Künste with funds from the Federal Government Commissioner for

Culture and the Media.

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