Bodies inscribed with meaning through culture

THE URBAN BODY AND ITS AFFECTATIONS AS A SITE FOR CULTURAL DISCOURSE:

 

Bodies inscribed with meaning through culture

– A work in progress

 

Bodies inscribed with meaning through culture

 

I propose that in its multiple uses as a means of communication, the embodied mediatised body, impacts on the spectator vicariously through the kinaesthetic sense, thus creating a communal ground enabling the lived [performing] body as a site for cultural discourse.

 

The disenfranchised urban body and its inherent affectation is a unifying site for cultural discourse, emerging out of the spiritual deficit - the collective external locus of control.

Embedded within many indigenous languages and the semantics embraced by subcultures, is an innate understanding of our interconnectedness and the reciprocal nature of the bodies being.

Urban dance and theatre performance springs forth from this lived cultural knowledge embodied by a performer, and subsequently reflects the culture with which the dancer identifies.

 

Many of the emotions that go towards the construction of an audiences’ subjectivity have a biological origin; and the particular semantics and language used to describe subjective experiences are social and cultural in character. Emotion, however originates from the physiological and an understanding of the role of subjectivity in social interaction must be underpinned by the awareness of this process of bodily socialisation and acculturation.

 

‘Sansho Shima’ is a film-based capsule performance of ‘Things Fall Apart’ by African Author Chinua Achebe. The performance piece sits at the intersection between a sociological study and theatre. Storytelling as an art form, underpins a contextually intelligent exploration of the subtle processes by which colonialism overtakes the indigenous form of governance, leaving behind an external locus of control embedded within the collective psyche (characterised by ineffective and divisive religion and other cultural dysfunctions), a major factor in the disenfranchisement of the global indigenous people. Within the initial capsule performance, my dancer’s body extracts from the theme a momentum and ferocity embodying stored corporeal and historical memories of the character that he portrays. His haunted psyche is tangible through kinaesthetic empathy with the audience.

Okonkwo’s defence mechanism is aptly illustrated within Rampton’s paper ‘Sociolinguistics and Cultural Studies: New Ethnicities, Liminality and Interaction’ (1997) in which he proposes that

. . . ritual as a central dimension in [. . .] interaction [. . .] in moments of heightened uncertainty, the call to show respect for social order is intensified and people generally respond by intensifying the ritual dimensions of their conduct [. . .] through a range of inherited symbolic formulae [. . .] invoking well-established material authored by tradition, they display an orientation to wider social collectivities capable of overriding the temporary disturbance [. . .] these ritual actions are convergent, providing the participants with some common ground on which to (re)establish synchronised affiliative action, drawing on a shared cultural inheritance, affirming dominant social orders.

(Rampton, 1997)

 

Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s text, The World of Perception’ (1994), describes how we can interpret our surroundings through our bodies by assigning the body the role of the subject of perception. Many of the emotions that go towards the construction of a viewer’s subjectivity have a biological origin; and the particular semantics and language used to describe subjective experiences are social and cultural in character. Emotion, however originates from the physiological and an understanding of the role of

subjectivity in social interaction must be underpinned by the awareness of this process of bodily socialisation and acculturation.

In indigenous African societies the lived body is used as an instrument through which emotion and event are projected; expressed through rhythmic movement, proverbs, story-telling and formal oratory. This connection is derived from the fact that emotive and physical elements of performance expression resonate with this African tradition, thus making a mediatised moving body a significant cultural medium of communication. This I feel is why rap music, a descendant of the poetry genre of lyrical expression, is so successful and infectious.

I refer to my recent work – ‘Sansho Shima’ – I had something to say on empathy, movement, screen and the body as a site for cultural reference/discourse; I found a body; a script; some movement, some cameramen and an editor; some musicians; some gallery space (extended piece); a long enough rope – self constructed; I had something to say.

 

‘Sansho Shima’ in Nicheren Daishonin Buddhist terms means conflicting circumstances or obstacles to our inner harmony. I therefore felt that this name was appropriate for the piece. The words on the screen at the end read “all of their customs are upside down” which is an extract from the book ‘Things Fall Apart’ (1958) on which the piece is based. The piece and the book are the story of the main protagonist’s inner struggle with his balance of male and female. He is an alpha male, impatient, aggressive, a professional fighter, whose rage as displayed in the video is a response to the gradual introduction of colonial rule in Nigeria in the early 1900’s. The dismembered fist at the end of the piece signifies that he has lost his battle with himself and that he eventually hung himself – hence the fist is symbolically ‘suspended’ in the way it is held in the foreground in the final scene. I initially commissioned a less overtly masculine dancer, and Louis Roger Eboa was a last minute replacement when I was let down. He was perfect for the role as the energy and performance quality that this dancer’s lived body and spirit bought to the film evokes a corresponding kinaesthetic energy sensation in the spectator’s lived body and this was evident through the field research response.

 

‘Things Fall Apart’ presents an audience with a paradox. It is based on a fictional script, yet references a non-fictional issue which marks a cultural turning point within the society to which the story relates. The responses it may provoke are feelings of ritual, anticipation, engagement, embodiment, climax, combustion, resolution, event, ceremony, participation, empathy, drama, community and spiritual.

 

Communication both verbal and bodily occurred in rehearsal between me as choreographer, the performer and the camera man, in order to ensure that my choreographic vision was embodied by the dancer. My intention here was to present strong and subtle images that the audience could assimilate, read and identify with, without making a linear or contentious argument about the historical and social issue contained within the theme. One viewer relayed that through his storehouse of corporeal memories the dancers‟ movements triggered his extreme consciousness of his identity as a displaced black man. It was felt that the film constitutes a moment of cultural reflexivity, engendering reflection and critique, in its relevance to the social unrest in the current global society. I was pleased with this feedback as this was part of my intention – to make a culturally specific theme contemporary and relevant aesthetically. My dancer Louis Roger Eboa, needed to use his artistry, which he did, thus finding the unexpected in the workshop process and which is reflected in his performance as Okonkwo in ‘Sansho Shima’.

 

The bespoke musical score in this piece serves as an information carrier and communicative channel through which the dancer’s body is enhanced as a perceptual surface. This is achieved through the metaphoric association of the escalating score which engages the viewer’s body and compliments their visual perception of the choreography.

 

A strong reflexive connection exists between the filming, musical scoring and workshop processes through the use of metaphoric verbal cues based on proverbs and phrases from the book ‘Things Fall Apart’ and also through the inclusion of the camera into the kinaesphere of the dancer. This facilitates a close connection between the movement dynamics and the narrative drama, inviting the spectator to empathise both kinaesthetically and emotionally with the performer’s frustration. A close proxemic relationship exists between performer and camera – which is direct, intimate, and confrontational and serves to intensify the aesthetic sensation of watching this graphically performed choreographed burst of rage and frustration as the

performer attempts to assert himself (his masculinity), and his identity is examined and projected through stylised movement.

“All of their customs are upside down”; “His rage knew no bounds”; “He could not find the mouth to tell the story”; “A man cannot rise beyond the destiny of his chi”; “His way of walking . . . .” (Achebe, 1958).

This inventory describes a set of somatic, linguistic parables that have been absorbed and digested into Okonkwo’s lived subjectivity, and which were used to generate movement during the workshop process of producing ‘Sansho Shima’. His aggressive movements which combine gestural and corporeal repetition evoke a sense of the body’s protest inside a social structure or institution. Can this be referred to as transgression of disposition? Many of my viewers could read this body only as being in the state of extreme anger.

 

A haunting reference to Okonkwo’s feet (his walk) conveys a body that has borne cultural offence and therefore suggests themes of corporeal conflict, tension, and apprehension. The contrast between the performer’s top and bottom half of costume, the aesthetic and contextual difference between these (masculine formal white shirt contrasted with balletic tights) produces an ironic visual dissonance reflective of his internal struggle.

The effectiveness of this film in engendering empathy is experienced in those frantic moments in which the movement of the represented body creates a palpable and vitalised field of energy in the space between the character’s body and the viewer’s body, thus suspending the viewer’s kinaesthetic sense.

 

In the use of visceral emotional hooks such as the expression of frustration and anger, there is universality in the movement. Technique is peripheral to the actual context, content and composition considering that the movement is somewhat pedestrian and stylised toward the theme, in all three pieces analysed. Indeed the Academic Judith Lynne Hanna states, “. . . it is what is ‘felt’ rather than what is reasoned that is most critical in [performance] social relations” (Hanna, 1983: 5).

 

My dancer’s body extracts from the theme a momentum and ferocity embodying stored corporeal and historical memories of the character that he portrays. His haunted psyche is tangible as the camera plays with viewpoint, facial expression and the distal projection of his energy, with an emphasis on Okonkwo’s physical prowess enhanced through the use of a bespoke escalating musical score, white shirt in stark contrast to very dark skin and the stark white monotone background broken up by a solitary square window. His body is fit for purpose in its ability to project affectively loaded images to camera whilst embodying and creating an affect evoking site that contextualises my choreographer’s vision in a way not possible in live theatre.

Filed Under: Sansho Shima