Choreographic Principles in 'Affective Choreographies'

Abstract

This article is based on my PhD project in artistic research, Affective Choreographies (2019), and the aim is to share this with focus on central research themes, research questions and choreographic principles developed within the practise. I will lay out two directions within affect theory; Brian Massumi’s theory of affect and Silvan Tomkins’ psychobiology of differential affects. The central research questions is “How can particular choreographic principles employed in the performances create potentiality for affect to occur amongst the audience?” Two perspectives are important to how these questions were approached; the audience as receivers of the performances where the questions were put into practise, and the idea of potentiality as something which can and cannot be actualized. The six performances created during the research period all took shape as what I have called choreography as assemblage. The choreographic assemblages contain both human and non-human movement which carry the potential for kinaesthetic transference. Situated in choreographic assemblages and using kinaesthetic transference as a tool, three main choreographic principles were developed and employed through my research: minimal composition: slowness and repetition, multi-referencing and performer as matter. A particular focus is the affective potentiality within each choreographic principle and how these principles operate both within the realm of Massumian affect as well as within Tomkins School affect. This implies a blurring of the division between the two or working them simultaneously, something which might be a theoretical impossibility but still, I claim, possible in practise. Cover image from Ingri Fiksdal's work Shadows of Tomorrow. Photo: Anders Lindén ©.