ELLA TIGHE

 THE HOSPITALITY OF SURRENDER - FORMLESS

The Hospitality of Surrender is an artistic research project undertaken as part of the Masters degree program at The Home of Performance Practices, ArtEZ. It is a practice as research project which includes a live performance- FORMLESS, a written thesis - The Hospitality of Surrender; Re-situating Agency in Dance Practice and a book (self-help meets artistic practice) entitled The Hospitality of Surrender; Invitations for Practice & Life. 

Images by Irina Baldini

ABOUT THE RESEARCH
The research advocates for an expansive understanding of surrender, opposing the colloquial perspective which is based around letting go or giving up one’s power to another. Drawing from an eclectic range of sources specifically that of psychology and yoga, surrender is outlined as state. In taking a yogic perspective the state of surrender is experienced as a state of being, presence and quality of which the dancer encounters through practice. Identifying surrender as a state, shifts surrender away from its conflation with submission, not determining surrender through binaries of doer/done to but instead as intra-active and emergent depending on the conditions of which it emerges through and with. Surrender in this research redistributes the concept of agency and is purposefully not bound to hierarchies of power and control. This situates the dancer in a position of ownership and choice, with the ability to navigate conditions arising in the practice which extend into collaboration and an encounter with an audience. 

In the research process I created a methodology entitled Illuminating Surrender, which outlined the subtle experience of being inside of the movement landmarks within Form and Streaming. I used the philosophy of hospitality to outline how the composition of FORMLESS utilised a dramaturgy which heightened the affective quality of movement through returning to movement. My aim was to share and invite the audience into an experience with the state of surrender through performance.

Dealing with surrender through the discourse of yoga invited a discussion of form and formlessness into the research. The research has therefore addressed how the inclusion of yoga and the compositional choices in Form and Streaming challenge the ways in which form is understood within Expanded Dance Practice. 

THE DANCE PRACTICES - Form and Streaming

The research began in two solo dance practices Form and Streaming, before I started working with musician-collaborator Nikkie Kemp.

Form is the practice of returning to a fixed form daily to find the state of surrender within form. It began with one movement landmark, which through a daily engagement with returning, developed into a total of seven movement landmarks. Each practice of Form engaged with the camera as a witness to the practice and the videos produced from this became part of an emerging video archive.

The movement landmarks are a cycle of movements that were found through a single fixed form as a vessel to surrender into. They are present within Form and Streaming but used slightly differently. In Form, the movement landmarks are executed in a durational looping pattern of returns which navigates the incremental transitions between the different landmarks. In Streaming, the movement landmarks arise out of addressing surrender as an unfolding process in movement.

THE VIDEO ARCHIVE - Form

There are 87 practices within the video archive practiced from November 2020 - May 2021.

REHEARSAL IMAGES

Photography by Irina Baldini from 4bid Gallery, OT301 Residency

HANDWRITTEN NOTES FROM THE PRACTICE

After each practice session I would write a poetic condensation from the experience of the practice. The poetic condensation writings are a mix of description and identification of significant moments which give insight into when surrender appeared for me and what was happening in those moments. These writings were part of making the experience of surrender more tangible. They allowed me to identify whether the same conditions would also invite an audience into sharing the state of surrender with me. This allowed me to construct the performance of FORMLESS in such a way that I could guide the audience’s experience into the state of surrender that I was experiencing. 

A CONVERSATION BETWEEN NIKKIE KEMP AND ELLA TIGHE on the creation of FORMLESS

In this conversation Nikkie and I reflect on the process of making FORMLESS and some of the common themes that arose during the process.

ILLUSTRATIONS BY LAWIN RAMELINCK

“The whole purpose of the drawings were to observe the energy flow happening around us in the moment, and how to translate that into a drawing. Everything, around movement, space, energy, care, love, support, fear, acceptance and curiosity was important to me. So, the goal was to bring all of these elements into a drawing” Lawin

FORMLESS

Photography by Fenia Kotsopoulou, Property of Home of Performance Practices

ABOUT FORMLESS

FORMLESS is a cyclical, looping movement and sound pattern crafted anew daily. It addresses surrender as a staying with, a choice and a commitment. Based upon a daily practice worked with from Nov 2020 – May 21, the process takes returning to movement and the movement landmarks which have appeared over time as a condition to surrender into. It seeks a soft yet assertive bodily presence that advocates for an ownership within the process. The movement works with an emergent soundscape created live and held within a fixed form. Performers share a mutual reciprocity, investigating a nuanced approach to agency as the movement and sound meet. FORMLESS contains two dance practices Form and Streaming alongside a spoken word section.

Photography by Irina Baldini