DANCE REFLECTION 009 with Peter and Yari

Dance Reflections is a weekly Friday podcast with Peter Mills and Yari Stilo, centred on conversation, shared practice, and taking time to look back in order to think forward. The series reflects on recent episodes, past experiences, and ongoing questions around dance, life, and practice. Through talking, occasionally dancing, and revisiting shared histories, Dance Reflections creates a regular space for continuity, response, and staying in contact across distance.

Dance Reflections sits alongside two other podcast series:
PETER, dance with…, released every third Monday, where Peter invites a guest to dance one of their practices and reflect on it together; and DANCE WORKSHOP, released on the Mondays in between, a series of short audio workshops exploring dance through imagination, movement, and curiosity.

Watch videos of all Dance Reflections Episodes here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5iebzO4vouz_45v7u7SeYn6fpgp7uN2m

You can find more about all of Peter’s work at:
https://stillpeter.com/

Listen to the other podcast series here:
PETER, dance with…
https://stillpeter.com/peter-dance-with-podcast/

DANCE WORKSHOP
https://stillpeter.com/peter-audio-dance-workshop/

Music empty five by mobygratis

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:29

What are you dancing today?

SPEAKER_00 0:42

I am dancing cow.

SPEAKER_02 1:01

Did you say now, cow, or calves?

SPEAKER_00 1:08

Yes. I am dancing a cow.

SPEAKER_02 1:19

Yesterday I saw turtles.

SPEAKER_00 1:24

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_02 1:25

I'm in um New Mexico, Albuquerque, and I was walking down the Rio Grande, and there were some turtles bathing on or sunbathing on these branches. And uh the best thing was there was three on one branch and and then all of a sudden one just sort of rolls off the off the branch into the water.

SPEAKER_00 1:58

Wow. Was it a big turtle?

SPEAKER_02 2:02

A turtle? No, they're maybe like two two like two hands. The size of two hands.

SPEAKER_00 2:16

Do you think we're the young?

SPEAKER_02 2:18

I don't know. But um I was um seeing these um uh these rock carvings by the Native Americans, the Pablo people that lived here, and uh uh the turtles they feature in these carvings, you know, but I mean a lot of animals feature, but the turtles are there.

SPEAKER_00 2:59

So are you dancing a turtle?

SPEAKER_02 3:02

I didn't think that it was because you mentioned cow.

SPEAKER_00 3:07

Have you seen have you how come cows came into your I have no idea, I just found myself like to be in a sort of a cow body grazing I I didn't feel like be a cow, I just felt like a part of a cow or a little sensation, I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 3:44

Of course, um there's a lot of cowboys here, so like there's an association I have of course with cows but in a very different way.

SPEAKER_00 3:58

The uh sort of colonial animal I I just I maybe I have a r rumination, you have something like to come up and down, you know, it would make me feel like a cow can be useful for with a sh uh sheep or any kind of other animal that's ruminate.

SPEAKER_02 4:32

Yeah, that is what it is, maybe I think the cow is very interesting because it sort of digests and I I feel like I'm digesting this morning like somehow sort of um chewing chewing through where I've been, what I'm arriving with. Because when did we see each other last? Was it was last week? Yeah, that's crazy. How much you can do in a in a week. This morning I watched the sunrise, and um I had that sort of night well, I think I have it a lot, but this sort of naive thought of like, gosh, this happens every day. This happened every day there is a sunrise in some way. I guess and there's always a some sunrise somewhere as well, right?

SPEAKER_00 5:49

Yeah, of course. Uh what what time was your sunrise there?

SPEAKER_02 5:57

Uh seven seven twenty mountain standard time, and what is that like six hours, seven hours? Um before you or no after you, after yeah. But like um yeah, d just this like the the process of um digesting, ruminating uh sorting through the specificity of a day. Like one thing that I've always been very interested in, and this leads us a little bit to like this uh thing of instruction and authority, but is how in dance the you can't you can't ignore what came before, right? Like the what you do prior to what you're doing is in effect a part of what you are doing, and even though we have this sense of like days restarting, and like okay, now I go again or I start to dance again, um it's it's formed by the like what has come before. And I think maybe I'm also more talking about like how like when you warm up, how when you you do something to prepare for a dance, that preparation is is um very much a part of what's what's then what you're then able to do and what it's is done sort of thing. Like even just the the authoritative nature of a warm-up, like now we are allowed to go to these spaces. Like even by permitting ourselves, I mean a hotel room, I don't think I've moved like this in this hotel room since I've been here. And because we have uh uh framed and created this space to allow for it, it's it's m changing my relationship to what is possible and what is doable in this space.

SPEAKER_00 8:54

Yeah. Is is the warm-up uh it's interesting to warm up to something that you you don't know to what you need for, right? The warm up is usually a bit specific of okay, I'll warm up because later I would oh yeah, absolutely. But but but if you don't know what you will do later, how you warm up. I mean like you might have some general feelings of you being ready for many different things.

SPEAKER_03 9:26

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 9:28

Just waking up the body.

SPEAKER_02 9:30

And is it fair to call it warm-up? You know how we were talking about dancing for oneself, dancing alone. Um if we privilege that or like give that um importance and specificity, is it fair to to to sort of not just say this is another dance with different um just at a different time almost? I was gonna say like with a different role, because of course that's obvious like too warm up for something to prepare, even if it's known or non-known. But equally, it could just be considered a dance uh on a stage that is more personal, maybe more private, than a stage that is uh sort of outward facing social.

SPEAKER_00 10:38

Yeah, but it's also a dance for for a reason.

SPEAKER_03 10:43

Yeah, to warm yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:46

It's also like uh the main goal of the dance is to warm up. But uh are we warming up? I mean warming up for for for the talk. Is that what where are we doing?

SPEAKER_02 11:02

I mean how uh well for three things. I I often like to think about like warming up for an audience, like the the audience themselves have to warm up, like the first things you do is a type of warm-up, like uh an introduction, you're setting the codes, the contract through which to relate to this um this moment, and maybe you do two. Maybe the whole maybe the whole performance is a warm-up or something. Um so yeah. Uh I hope not, because it because I don't want to make the dance a sort of secondary thing to the talking, as if the talking is more important, right? But can we talk like this? This is this is something Katie Co. was saying, actually, she was talking about how um she she has this talking practice, this writing practice, and she doesn't want to um lose the dance, that the dance becomes subservient to the text. And she spoke about like when she reads it, it's important that she has danced before, um talking about it so that there is that the dance has a um uh a role, maybe. So maybe here that that's like we always we're trying to always start with dancing, but there are different types of dancing, you know. We we do what 15 minutes less, probably five, five, five seconds, and then we start talking.

SPEAKER_00 12:56

Right.

SPEAKER_02 12:57

Um and and uh of course the that's very different to a dance that's an hour and has no talking, and even if then we started speaking after, or like the dance that Katie Koe at the um uh Waynesgate dances, they they they never reflect on the dancing uh practice, which is so interesting.

SPEAKER_00 13:31

Yeah, today sorry, I am I'm a bit sick, and I can't actually it can't be together with the with a dance and talk.

SPEAKER_02 13:44

Yeah. 'Cause uh it's a virus you have, like sort of cold or flu.

SPEAKER_00 13:51

I have a cold, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:55

It's so it's so amazing sickness, I find actually, because it's um it feels so alien, and at the same time we must be contending with uh types of sickness and illness all the time, but there's a point at which where it we notice its effect on our ability to perform as we would like to. Here it's really high altitude, so there's less oxygen that I'm than than I'm used to. Um Jenny Jennifer Lacey yesterday we were talking, was saying how she really struggled to dance in this uh in this town in Albuquerque because of the but do you feel like you can still be with the dancer even though you're sick?

SPEAKER_00 14:56

Yeah, I can't be with a dancer with a talk somehow, but maybe I can even I don't feel even comfortable. So interesting. I feel like oh my heaps are actually better. You're also thinking Yeah, I'm thinking about the two at the at the task. The two tasks together speaking and uh your last episode about authority having the two authorities, uh the conflict of having two authorities in such a moment I am the conflict there like very easily. Both of them are not fully there. Yes, handle that, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 16:07

Yeah. No, they say they say multitasking isn't a thing. We actually tend to just switch between one thing and another. So then, but we know that we can at some point get really good at talking and dancing if we practice long enough. But then is it talking dancing rather than two separate things at the same time?

unknown 16:31

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_02 16:32

And are authorities always things that we have to concentrate on? Um like it's an instruction that one hears and then has to concentrate to follow? Is it still an instruction? Is it still an authority if it's the um then becomes sort of automatic? It becomes something we don't have to think about anymore, something habitual. Is that not just just us then?

SPEAKER_00 17:11

Sometimes I mean uh I of course I do put energy in the following. Um for example, when I dance tango, I mostly dance with a follower. And I am there, and I you know I really like okay, now I put all my focus everywhere in the body, and I don't feel where where the body would have through the leading of the other body. Focusing on the leading and uh it's also letting letting go the out of the control. So maybe the the following that that's maybe there is this authority, it's m it's about maybe it's also about controlling. But following is really not about controlling. Uh you know what I mean? Yeah, it depends if there is a conflict maybe or not.

SPEAKER_02 18:24

I think it's really interesting because I um I don't know if I made it clear, but like authority and instruction I found really interesting and I've spent a lot of time sort of thinking about it. Um and I think we generally we I I definitely have found that I believe that when when we work with authority, then we're working with quite negative things, right? Like ah being controlled, being manipulated. However, the more I work with it, I think those things are a big danger and uh close at hand, but it's very generative to question and play with and challenge and move with and adjust and be creative with, break, quirk, make weird, make wobbly, make ambiguous, all those the authorities and what what it is, and if it's it's it's fallen as you know, like how how authoritative really is a thing, and I find it a very creative place to think, um, and it doesn't have to be this sort of negative, or not negative, maybe like hyper-political, and politics often feels like it has to be serious, but I feel it doesn't have to fall into seriousness, it doesn't have to be um life or death, even though it's it is this it is that material of ethics, isn't it? It's the material of power structures and things, um but then um I think a good um another term maybe is the idea of domination, which is different, I think, to instruction and authority. Because you can follow an authority, you can um give instructions, um, but when it becomes problematic is when it's dominating, and domination somehow impedes upon someone's selfhood, like who they are, who they're able to be, and their autonomy, their sense of freedom, um, and of course, within a collective, right? Like these things are always informed and reinformed by the individual's intersection with everything around them, and so then the challenge of dealing with domination, the ethics of that is an ongoing process, perhaps. But it is that is that a fair reading? Do you have that sense of like, oh okay, now we're talking about authority, it has to be serious and political.

SPEAKER_00 21:35

Like it probably, yes.

SPEAKER_03 21:43

You're right.

SPEAKER_00 21:45

Probably is uh probably in the moment uh uh I speak about authority or I I listen authority it's uh it's it's very charged. But I mean I'm Constantly uh you also pointed out that I something intact me that I is a most moment authority is a lot intact. I react to the one inside me most of the time.

SPEAKER_03 22:24

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 22:26

The authority I I give I give authority to is not the choice of them. It's me that I I put that authority on them. And then so that's also very interesting. That's why it's so charge because it's um it's uh it's a personal choice I have if I give it to someone.

SPEAKER_02 22:50

Yeah I think it's extremely bound up with oneself, like who who who I am, like how how I how I understand myself um and and and what and the self-policing that involve is involved in that and how I understand myself through the eyes of others and things. This is getting very psychoanalytical, but I think I think it kind of is when we when we try to unwrap the the dynamics that are sort of operating inside us when we are following or listening to instructions. Because ultimately they're all interpreted through ourselves of like who do I want to be in this situation? Do I want to be a good person following the instructions of how I've interpreted they are? And is where does the punishment come from? How is it policed? Is it policed by myself, sort of feeling bad, feeling like I don't belong, that I'm not worthy, um I don't exist, or um and and are the things that I'm reading as external policing, external forms of domination, are they are they real or are they a part of my own um projection and history with uh authority, so to speak? Like a sense of belonging, being allowed to exist. I would recently really dealing with this as a as a traumatic site in my own experience where I really struggle with following instructions. And I think it comes from like where I as a as a young person, I was sort of I felt illegitimate and unworthy, unintellectual, um that I didn't belong, I didn't have a place where I could feel legitimate and that I could exist as myself and for myself. And so I think that still echoes. So even in the slightest, in the slightest moment where I don't feel like I can ask a question to feel to understand in what way am I to participate in this authority in this instruction. Um I I I fall into a place of feeling like, oh, I don't belong because I don't understand. Uh I don't belong because I don't get it, um, because my aunt uh my questions can't be answered, or my my questions are stupid, they don't belong. But this is a very recent thing, so I'm still dealing with it.

SPEAKER_00 26:02

I think unfortunately in dance, uh because we use language also uh a bit uh um not very very we you level we use language with um with a more information images then unfortunately uh very often doesn't make everything very common can be a good strategy also miscommunication like you make that but it's super good, but then it depends how we react to that miscommunication is allowed if not answering it's okay and it's not knowing it's okay. But then if oh we all have to be on the same page. Yeah, it's I for authority as a week. If I don't understand, I'm not part of the week. I'm not part of the group that oh I'm out. I didn't understand, or I'm not doing this like the other.

SPEAKER_02 27:40

I'm not allowed to do this like the other, you know, like also if I if I question and I don't get an answer, then uh and also um sometimes I feel like those bigger the bigger authorities of the choreographer, which get exemplified uh uh sort of exemplifier exemplify and but also exaggerated, this sort of exaggerated forms of authority where um you know you hear about horror stories of choreographers sort of being extremely uh rude and dismissive and damaging, harmful towards stances. And I wonder if it part comes from the choreographers' struggle with trying to legitimize themselves to such an extent that then the freedom, the the being, the existence of other narratives must be dominated, they must be controlled, manipulated, cancelled, um, corrected, shunned. In order to legitimize their own sense of existence. And you were right, like there's something about the language of it all, like we do these dances, but we all struggle with articulating exactly what they are. Like our instructions, our authorities are always sort of slippy and blurry and problematic. Um so then it's almost an impossible task. So then when choreographers are given such high status and positions of power where they're invited and asked almost to be the authority, then they must turn to tactics which um enforce their vision, their authority, even in the face of the ambiguity of the meaning and the authority that of their dancing, of their thing. Like cause often the choreographer doesn't even know themselves exactly what it is.

SPEAKER_00 30:11

Yeah. Yeah, and and uh maybe not maybe for a choreographer sometimes it's quite hard to say I don't know. Yeah. But it's not a bad thing. I don't I mean, if a choreographer tells me I don't know, I don't see anything better.

SPEAKER_02 30:27

But yeah, hopefully it's getting better as well.

SPEAKER_00 30:31

From a dancer perspective, maybe this is where choreographers don't feel that they can't be vulnerable in that sense. They feel that they are obliged to form authority.

SPEAKER_02 30:45

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because that's what asked of them institutionally, maybe also.

SPEAKER_00 30:51

Or even by me. I mean that's the bias at the end. You know, I'm like, oh, I'm asking you this. And somehow that's you know it's maybe the only power I have into a caller to cla to ask for clarification. If you think.

SPEAKER_02 31:22

And then, you know, and going through these different categories, I just I don't see any end to it. Like I I'm almost like, there's more to say on authority than than we can. And I wonder what other exercises there are within within the exercises that or the exercises, the prompts that I sort of suggested trying of contradictory authority instruction, um wobbly instruction, all those things thing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:54

Yeah, I I have this question around the um authority. But I lost the question. I think it's again about group because we're also used to clean to be sort of a to find uh maybe I'm going back into this we authority going into sort of a signature or into sort of like oh amalgamation. Yeah, right. We all get like And it's very deep, I think it's very difficult to understand, okay, is this in in the sort of a group or the way part of it or just I cut it out as an answer? This is one of the first questions. What do I bring the other way in the piece to make sure that the piece goes somewhere?

SPEAKER_03 32:56

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 32:57

That it's a mouth probably led by the choreographer and it's a mouth accepted as part of the piece. And uh yeah, I'm sorry, I bring this in, I don't know if makes sense, but it's about No.

SPEAKER_02 33:14

Yeah, I mean it's definitely collective authority, no, like um how how we read a room, even, you know, just the how do we um participate in the the social? How do we how do we um follow and and reject? How do we push against create openings or stand rebellious from different things? Um yeah. I think it's a very important condition that we're always negotiating. And I guess I guess one of the things I I I I have sort of established is this idea that this is a large part the choreography is exactly all these intersections of authority and we must leave.

SPEAKER_00 34:14

Oh, okay, okay, okay.

SPEAKER_02 34:17

And um I hope you start feeling better.

SPEAKER_00 34:23

Yeah, I suppose. Today's a messy day, but it's a promising future, I should say.

SPEAKER_03 34:32

Okay. Okay. Ciao.

SPEAKER_00 34:36

Ciao, thank you.