Let's Dance

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Last night we saw Matthew Bourne’s Cinderella, a great retelling of the classic story along with the delightful twists that Matthew Bourne is renown for. Again I was transfixed by the ease in which dance can be some completely narrative – to be sure, staging, set design, and music all played a role in this endeavor but all of them without the use of words.

This got me thinking me thinking again about a few of my recent musings, one being the role of language in Philosophy, the other that of narrative. So often philosophy is steeped in language, and specifically the language of words and definitions, indeed there is even a philosophy of language that strives to eliminate many of the problems of philosophy by creating a precise and unambiguous language. The question this sparks in me is whether philosophy can exist without language – or more precisely, can philosophy exist without words?

So with Matthew Bourne and the ballet fresh in my mind I wonder if one could create a dance version of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, or Sartre’s Being and Nothingness. Furthermore what would that dance look like? I know you can tell a story in dance, is philosophy just another story?

A quick trip to the internet reveals this Ted Talk by John Bohannon, who has encouraged scientists to use dance to express their ideas in a program called Dance your PhD. All I need now I a willing choreographer. Plato’s Allegory of the Cave might be an easy start, or even the Trolley Problem. Perhaps this idea is not so outlandish after all?

Which brings me back to narrative, or more precisely the primacy of narrative. Perhaps language exists in order to tell our stories. That’s probably too broad a stroke; there are things we need to communicate outside a story – presumably. But even if I want to tell someone that it is raining, there is still seems to be a narrative context implied: you should prepare yourself by taking an umbrella, that your picnic is now ruined, that you’ll have to stay indoors.

Perhaps it's just a neurological quirk of our brains, that while we can focus on a fact, it rarely does so without placing it in a context of how we might use it, fight it, hide it, or otherwise use it to our advantage in advancing our own personal narratives. Those are thoughts for another day.

Let’s Dance

We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once.

   - Friedrich Nietzsche

Telling a Good Story

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Lately I’ve been thinking about narrative, particularly the stories we tell ourselves to make sense of our own lives. I’ve started thinking about narrative as a sort of third level of reality – and in fact, the level of reality in which we truly engage the world as "real."

Very quickly the first 2 levels of reality being 1) that metaphysical reality that exists beyond our perceptions or knowledge – we know (presume) such a reality must exist but only can talk about it in the most generalized (and unsubstantiated) ways. Perhaps the world of Mathematics occupy this space. 2) The phenomenological reality, that reality we experience and know directly through our senses. We understand the phenomenological space has some inherent flaws (e.g. optical illusions, bad science) but it is a world that we can begin to discover and know more about -  or at least make some accurate predictions.

Narrative though, seems to be to be a necessary next layer. Narrative provides reason to act, it sorts through our perceptions, identifies objects, concepts, and intentions, and places them into categories: good, bad, table, chair, friend, foe, etc. Without narrative there would be no reason to move beyond our perceptions. There are no threats or problems to solve, without narrative even the passage of time may be absent. Perhaps this is the realm meditation delivers, pure perception without our internal dialogue deconstructing it into its parts, rather leaving it a whole “one” of the now. The future and past only come into meaningful existence by virtue of narrative.

Since I’ve started thought experiment a few things have fallen in place for me. I’ve always been sympathetic to the existentialist view that our lives are aesthetic projects – viewing them now as narrative, and exploring their narrative structure provides a new lens to examine one's life. We are the heroes of our own journeys; we engage in our quests, as we look for problems that we can solve. We hope for happy endings, that our story arc shows how we've grown and become better - or that we've vanquished our enemies.

The thing about narratives though, is that they are almost always fiction. That’s where things get both troublesome and interesting. As much as we’d like to believe our stories as true, they seldom are. Our memories are often demonstrably false, and our futures seldom turn out as expected. We survive through the shorthand of stories, the generalizations of what is good and bad, the filters of our prejudice, our retroactive justifications for our acts, and the nonexistent problems we try to solve.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs provide a menu of problems to be solved, the bottom tiers, physiology and safety clearly articulate our need for food and shelter, the basic problem of survival. But as we climb the pyramid – to self-actualization – is that really a problem that can be solved? Is inauthenticity real? Or is it a problem of our restlessness, a need to resolve the inconsistent stories about ourselves? Philosophers condemn the unexamined life, but isn't that too is a fiction?

Of course there is science; if the scientific method does not reveal truth, it at least takes us to some place of verisimilitude. At the very least science offers an ability to make reliable predictions based on presumed cause and effect. Science however, is also told in stories. Occam’s razor is evoked giving preference to the "simpler" explanation as "true." A theory prevails until it meets a case it cannot properly describe. There are always outliers, and we have to decide if it’s the science or the experiment that is bad. Our stories carry a bias that make us cling to our preexisting beliefs – In our recollections they have lead to previous successes, so clearly they are true(er).

This leads me to thinking of narrative in our political differences. The more complex things become, the more we have to place our trust in others, for doing the proper science, investigation, or fact checking. Who we trust is then also colored by who the heroes and villains are in our stories. We are forced to make a leap of faith in deciding what story we tell, to justify our past actions, and plan our future actions. As sides become polarized the stories clash. Even when we agree on the facts, their meanings are subject to the interpretations of our stories.

In a way this is just a restatement of existentialism. Life has no objective meaning so we are forced to create one. Viewing this from the lens of narrative though reveals  the dilemma of competing narratives, but also provides a different way of thinking about living an authentic life as telling a good story.

Adventures in Hedonism - The Nelken Line

1996  - twenty-one years ago was the first time I saw Pina Bausch and it forever changed the way I saw Dance. I’m not even sure how I got there in the first place. Probably read something in the calendar section of the LA Times (I was still reading newspapers in 1996) and came across triggering key words like “German “ “contemporary” and “experimental” but I picked up a cheap ticket to the Dorthy Chandler Pavillion and ended up seeing Nur Du, a commission 3 1/2 hour extravaganza that at one point had a chorus line of dancers washing and ironing their clothes, turning the mundane repetition of chores into mesmerizing beauty. 

I was instantly hooked. And when Pina returned in 1999 to reprise Nelken at UCLA, I bought tickets as soon as they were available. Watching the dancers construct and deconstruct the stage again mesmerized me, and seeing the famed Nelken March, completely charmed me. 

I was there again in 2005, when Pina retuned to UCLA to perform Ten Chi. I had already vowed to see every performance I could whenever the Wuppertal Dance Company came to town. Little did I know, this one was going to be the last.

I grieved hard when Pina passed in 2009 - no choreographer had ever inspired me so much. The ray of hope was the knowledge that Wim Wenders was working on a film about Pina Bausch - I was there for its opening and again charmed that the Nelken Dance was featured, a piece of such simplicity and elegance that reminds me about what I love about her work, seeing the beautiful in the ordinary. The dance plays out in four simple movements, each capturing the progress of the seasons:

• Spring, the grass is small
• Summer, the grass grows tall and the sun shines
• Autumn, the leaves fall from the trees
• Winter, a shiver of cold

It repeats as the seasons do, one following the other as the years advance. A perfect line, a time line, leaving the marks of nature. 

Thankfully the Wuppertal Tanz Theater Continues, and with it, the call of the Nelken Line. Last year, tributes to Pina Bausch were being performed sponsored by the Pina Bausch Foundation as groups around the world picked up and started to perform their own variations of the Nelken Line and sharing  them on website 

I discovered that the Intrepid Dance Project was formulating its own tribute to add to the collection, and more importantly, invited to join along. 

So, here it is the Intrepid Dance Company’s tribute to Pina Bausch and her Nelken Line - traditional and circus. It’s unfortunate that Pina will not be creating any new works, but I hope

You enjoy this one, and fall a bit into her rabbit hole with me. 

Intrepid Dance Project Pina Bausch's Nelkin Line Circus Style! from Pina Bausch Foundation on Vimeo.

Resolutions

It's New Year's Day - so of course it's a time to reflect on the year to come. Typically, one trots out a number of resolution but I have a new methodology I'd like to try out.

Last year I've explored a number of ways to "self improvement." I follow Gretchen Rubin,  her Happiness Project and all the things that have come out of it. As a self-professed hedonist, I'm all about identifying the things that truly make us happy. The truth is, there is no "one size fits all" when it comes to the pursuit of happiness.

I've tried out numerous goal tracking apps. I wear a Fitbit which is awesome for monitoring my activity, my sleep cycles, my weight. It's nice to see numbers move in the direction you want them to, but on their own they do little to motivate me.

I've also noticed that the long term goals I set for myself have a tendency to remain long-term goals. If I don't have some way of breaking them down into tasks I can do every day, I fail to make progress on them. This bogged me down in tracking daily tasks, whose graphs and numbers didn't mean much to me.

This year, I have picked four words that will serve as my mantra. Words I can repeat to myself, be mindful of them, and use them as the lens through which I make my daily decisions. My hope is that they will drive me to the goals I want to accomplish, or more importantly shape me into the person I wish to become. The words, at least as of January 1, 2018, are: Connect, Explore, Challenge, and Play.

I started with a much longer list that included such commands as Create, Share, Cultivate, Grow - all good words to be sure - but I needed a list short enough to be contained simultaneously in thought. Science says the limit is 4, so that's my maximum - maybe I can consolidate further in the future. Actually, my exercise of distilling down to these 4 words have made them all the more robust in their meaning to me.

Connect - Because our happiness seems to be greatly impacted by the company we keep and our relationships with others. This is my reminder to maintain my relationships and keep them strong. For me it's also a reminder to put down the phone and engage with the people around me. Furthermore, to find ways to interact with my friends outside of social media which often just creates an illusion of connection.

Explore - This is a reminder to indulge my curiosity, to try new things, and allow adventures. This word contains my resolutions to read more, experience more art, visit new places - but more importantly keep that curious mindset that wants to check out new things.

Challenge - It's easy for me to fall into routine, and while "Explore" may help keep me from eating at the same places, I needed this word to check in on myself at a more "meta" level - including are these 4 words working for me, or am I just exploring new dining options? This word is intended to make me get out of my comfort zones.

Play - I abandoned "Create" for this word as I discovered it had too much gravitas for me -  to full of expectations that actually prevented me from being more creative. "The things I create need to be important" - whatever that means. Instead I realize I need to take myself less seriously, let myself try things and be able to laugh if they fail. This is my weapon against my internal censor. Hopefully it will lead to more creativity on my part, but beyond that "Play"is a reminder to have fun with what I'm doing, whatever the outcome.

These words may change as the year progresses, but I think keeping these words on mind will have a much greater impact than the usual resolutions. Check back with me in 2019 and perhaps I'll let you know how it went.

The Future is Female

Having recently finished Carrie Jenkin’s What Love is and What it Could Be, I found myself face to face with the downside of privilege. As a white male, I live in a society optimized for me, which makes it easy for me to pronounce in absolutes on how to live the best life and have it backed up with my personal experiences.

Sure the world of philosophy was (is?) a male dominated discipline, as were many academic disciplins of the past – women weren’t given the opportunity to be “philosophers,” so naturally you wouldn’t expect to see many contributions from female contributors. And still``, the discipline itself shied away from such “feminine” topics as love or even gender. Sure we got the Platonic tale of the two headed, four armed, and four legged proto-humans that were split apart by the gods and forced to seek their “other halves” across eternity – but that was it. Or so it was for a philosophy major in the early 80’s.

Before reading Jenkin’s book, I had no idea that Bertrand Russell wrote Marriage and Morals, a book challenging Victorian morals around sex and family. Apparently this is often left out of his philosophical cannon – and yet why wouldn’t a philosopher take on such questions? Of course, this work ultimately made him declared “morally unfit” to teach at CCNY – so more reason to ignore their existence.

Looking into my own education as a philosophy major that had an interest in existentialism, I have never read Simone de Beauvior, or Hannah Arendt. I just missed Belle Hooks professorship at Oberlin, but even there, I believe she was ghettoed in Women’s Studies. I look back on this and think I was cheated out of a whole host of insights, that weren’t considered significant enough for study as they didn’t fit in with accepted values – patriarchal values. I’m working to fill those gaps now, but what the hell? Its 30 years later.

I read Jenkin’s book wishing that I could have wrote it, but of course it had to be written by her as it was her own experiences of the world that lead her to challenge the traditional line of thinking that guys like me never thought to question. For that I am grateful. I am even more grateful to have so many avenues of thought suddenly open to make me want to engage in philosophy again.

Now I look at all these “controversies” in pop culture, Wonder Woman, the casting of a female Dr. Who, Disney’s replacement of the Red Head as “bride” to the the Red Headed Pirate, and think this is finally an opportunity for some new stories to be told; stories that may push us into thinking bit different and challenging our own expectations. In a Hollywood often criticized for lacking unique thought, this is clearly an opportunity. I can’t help but think this is a good thing even if it does make a world that’s designed a bit less to make my life most convenient or comfortable.

For so long we have been deprived of women’s voices, it’s time to hear them, along with their own experiences and values as it can only enrich us. Honestly though, my feminism is selfish - my hope is these new stories inspire me further to create something new myself. Here’s to the future.