Scoring the Generating Principles of Performance Systems

Abstract

How can we archive, pass on and further develop dance works that are not set, but rather generated systematically on stage? In performance-generating systems dancers respond to a specific set of tasks within restrictive rules and while recycling predetermined memories as source materials. To notate these systems we need to grasp and share the principles through which they generate movement interactions and not the composition that they produce. The question of how these systems work is intrinsically linked to the ways in which they facilitate or inhibit cognitive processes of memory and perception. The systems challenge performers to remain self-aware and pay attention differently while responding to their memories within restraints. Through this process, performers arrive at a differently earned presence that represents a shift in performance epistemology. This shift is, in turn, met by an equally important shift in dramaturgical orientation from what a performance is to how it works and generates. In Scoring the Generating Principles of Performance Systems Pil Hansen turns towards Dynamical Systems Theory (DST) from the cognitive sciences to develop an accessible and adaptable notation tool that implements these two shifts. Her proposal is advanced through a detailed discussion of how one can notate the choreographer Christopher House's 2015 adaptation of I'll Crane for You, a solo performance commissioning score by Deborah Hay. Hansen's discussion is informed, infused and complemented by House's responses and reflections upon his practice. Between their two voices, insights into the strategies that dancers devise in response to the cognitive challenges of performance-generating systems are discovered as key components of a DST-based notation tool.