Writings

For centuries, the world built up visions of reality. It sustained the belief that the eye was the best reporter of the truth. The ear was considered much less reliable in terms of the so-called real, and hearsay was not permitted in law courts. The mystique of art often got buried under the extraordinary techniques of surface representation and only the great artists managed to succeeded in using reality as a vehicle for deeper visions. The art world had departed a long way from primal abstractions, the raw elixir in which its rites were rooted. It often forgot its birthright.

It was dance which gave birth to theater. In a review of the evolvement of theater, just through its architectural and mechanical evolution, the methodical progression towards detailed visual reality becomes very evident. From the primitive dance ground there developed the ceremonial circle. Spectators were accommodated by surrounding seats, which developed into the huge Greek theaters, such as we find at Epidauris. The later Greek period and the Roman period cut the circle and added the scena (stage) for purposes of scenically embellishing reality. Shortly after this the entire theatre was domed and wood and canvas scenery introduced. The interior darkness then required illumination. Electricity finally permitted the most complex illusions of reality. The whole technical structure of the stage and its machineries was forced into more and more detailed reality and effects. Lighting experts knew what gel color to place over stage lights to give appropriate identity to practically all geographical locations, time of day and weather. In the 19th century the Moscow Art Theatre, and Balesco on Broadway and later thousands of directors and designers brought physical reality to the highest degree of refinement. Although the theatre was still blessed with fantasy it was a fantasy rooted in illusions of reality.

Dance at an early time became the victim of the theatre's quest for the literal and representational. What was initially an abstract motional event capitulated to the frailties of man's belief in his own personal godliness. He believed he was made in the image of god and what he saw and understood was the boundary of the divine intelligence as well. The eye was the culprit which formed this belief. Although Christianity is not the only religion to indulge in this belief, it is exemplary.

Other peoples of the world brought to visualization their hundreds of gods. Actors and dancers brought them into multimedia presence, to tell the stories of life as their civilization saw it. In a way, this was trying to make real for the mind the demons and heros of nature and the soul. It was necessary for them to take tangible shape in the onlooker's eye.

Although early ballet denied the flesh, it tried through the transcendence of the flesh to make real the superelevated creature whom they pretended to be.

In the art of ballet, the reality of gravity and corporeality were matters to be ignored and Newton be damned.

The next archetype began with the Greek revival in the late 1800's in Europe, and its aesthetic power culminated in America's Isadora and her Grecian image. This was another step towards a form of reality, but still not of man as he actually appeared. However what Isadora began here she made real through flesh and gravity. Wigman's metaphysical visions and St. Denis' exotic influences again added to and changed the look and fantasy of the dancing figure.

The later modern dance of the 30's made the common man the archetype and brought the eye to the reality of his own appearance. A new look at the flesh and the nature of the human soul and spirit took place. In the birth pangs of the American dance, the sociological spirit was "Life is real and life is earnest." The dancer finally wore dresses, pants and shirts and reality was finally reached with modern dance, as an art form. A melding of contemporary mind and body.

The Bennington period was the culmination of the "seeing is believing" aspect period of dance. The presentation of the flesh were ideal to the visions of the mind. But it was only to that part of the mind which dealt with the psychodynamics of "self". Although at the time modern dance considered itself abstract, it was only partially so. What was meant by abstract here was that the gestures were predominantly unliteral or more precisely, non-mimetic. However, the figures performing the gestures were real.

However there is also no such thing as total reality. In all forms of knowledge or realizations, there are mystical holes -- mystical in the sense that there are areas of nonknowledge -- which make reality only partially real.

In the early 1950's, through new concepts of time and space, another change occurred in the arts. Art is the vehicle for searching out the mystique that puzzles the collective mind and attempts to bring about some revelations. It does not do this by scientific methods or conscious verbalizations, but rather by new encounters which were unavailable before.

Although this new change was apparent in the 1950's, it began decades earlier with Einstein's theory of relativity. To the uninitiated the concepts of time and space, the two most treasured vehicles of life, were still for the most part incomprehensible. Although scientists began to understand these new theories, the general public was left only with a vague vision of a shaggy-haired scientist who had a genius for viewing universal dynamics and stating them in mathematical jargon. All this was an unapproachable esoteric world wonderful and awesome, but vague to the general collective consciousness, until the reality of the theories took the form of an apocalyptic explosion - the atom bomb. The fact not only reached the eye, but brought about awesome death and deformity. The reality of the flesh which was so recently acknowledged now found itself vulnerable to the existence of the powers of nature manipulated by particles beyond visibility. This terrified man. An invisible force was realized. A colossal "Wizard of Oz" now lurked behind the molecule. We knew now that an atomic blast could make a volcanic eruption look like fireworks. The day of "seeing is believing" was over. There rested in nature invisible realities.

In the psychodramatic period of modern dance, the human was a one-man galaxy, complete with the potential of galactic psychological implosions. His universe was the agony and ecstacy of the self.

Now came a new threat by forces beyond his sight and control. This danger aroused the most elemental and atavistic fears -- the threat of unexpected destruction. With this there also came the possibility of the contamination of the environment in which he moved, breathed and passed this time in life.

The realization of the magnitude and vital importance of environment and ecology arrived. Man was forced to place his sex games second on life's agenda and to now primarily contend with the space in which he indulged his lusts.

His spirit was shaken. It was hurled into the realization that he was only a miniscule cog on the countless spoked wheel of Nature. But whatever the substance of the new sociodynamics, the arts, to qualify as "Modern", had to identify with it.

The one most distinguishing aspect of American Modern Dance was the concept of the "Unique Gesture". Ironically this distinction was also its greatest hindrance. The idea of uniqueness would eliminate the practice of the prescribed vocabulary of movement forms which embraced the numerous creative varieties of dance. To this day, and particularly during the latter years it was often erroneously assumed that ballet technique was a basic requirement for art dance. Ballet technique is contrary to the concept of the "Unique Gesture". It is based upon the practice of motional rituals which stifles muscular liberty or make it glib athleticism. A modern technique is possible but it must not be based upon patterned motional forms. It can be accomplished by an analysis of human motion as an art and a practiced study of the aesthetic potentials of that medium.

One of the most vivid recollections I have in my dance study was a moment in a class with John Martin, the astute dance critic of the New York Times. He announced at a class in Bennington College that at this moment of dance history, at last we have discovered the full potential of the human body. This, in 1937, was to me a shocking statement. I had previously believed that this knowledge was centuries old. Yet modern dance was based on this new realization. Not on past forms.

It is essential to clarify the definition of dance. Once this is realized then a working order can be established. It must be a technique which does not impose styles or rigid patterns which lock the body into motional indigestion. This returns us to dance as the art of motion and consequently to the isolated study of motion per se, as the basis of that art.

In this process of isolation it is essential to erase the ego as the noun which is clarified by the motion -- and instead put the motion as a clarification of itself. It is possible in this way that techniques can be established which can bring dance training to the equal stature of the more disciplined arts such as music, painting, sculpture, etc.

With dance pedagogy today, patterns rather than aesthetics seem to dominate. Definitions remain vague and a precise training for participation in modern dance is without clarity.

The world is much confused about matters of ecology, atomic energy and the berserk ethics of society. What approach to dance should an aspiring student become engaged in to insure a technique for his or her expression of the world in which he must participate? Worn out ballet, jazz, modern dance techniques? Most students of dance try them all and the resulting smorgasbord leaves only an unrelated assortment of the obvious leaps, splits, turns and undefined gestures.

The first quarter of the Twentieth Century found the United States deluged with something it had almost never had before, that is professional dance. The deluge was not so much in quantity, but rather in variety. Ballet began to take hold, and Isadora left her mark. The Denishawns filled the stewpot with morsels from all over the world -- Spain, Indonesia, China, Japan, Mexico; plus invented concoctions of styles not heard or seen in this world.

It was out of the dance cuisine of Denishawn that new American dance arose. Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey and Charles Weidman toured as members of Denishawn company and performed everything from glitzy Aztec rites to Japanese sword dances, from fake Chinese rituals to glamorous Broadway musicals. It was a lot of art and a lot of showbiz, and one didn't know where one ended and the other began. The miracle was that out of this mad stew there emerged a single focused idealism. It happened without full conscious thought or scheming guile. It emerged from the morass as clean as Arthur's Excalibur arose from the lake. With incredible innocence a tenet was formed that could have served dance until the end of mankind. This was the idea of the "Unique Gesture."

Free people are not prone to following patterns. Patterns preconceived by others are the security blanket of the unadventuresome spirit, whose timidity requires the protection of pre-culled and predigested forms. The United States seemed to prefer cutting its own caper, and consequently was unabashed about creating its own unique mode of motional expression.

In coining the phrase "Unique Gesture," I have described a principle which opposed the existing processes that obliged the creator to pin his dance communication upon existing techniques and patterns of movement. Unlike ballet, for example, where an arabesque can be forged into the violent scream of a witch or the ecstasy of love of a princess, modern dance at its best refused to do this. It chose to mold the motion directly out of the impulsions of the creator's emotions, tailoring them specifically to the semantics of his particular expression. This meant that the design of action was not serviceable for other expressions. It could serve only one master.

The idea of the "Unique Gesture" was not a preconceived deliberate one -- it simply got born. Like a puppy let off of its leash, it darted everywhere. Its only discipline was the vision of a pathway into the landscape of the mind. To lead the spectator vicariously into that vision. Individual artists hacked through their mystical forests with their own aesthetic machetes and created their motions to conform to these paths and visions. Each trip was different, and although movement styles were created, these were characteristic of the dictates of a particular mind, rather than through generalized techniques. This individualism created confusions, frustrations and pedagogical difficulties.

The semantic substance of the word "technique" is broad. But fundamentally, it refers to a method used to achieve an end product. Because each end product of modern dance was devoted to unique ventures created by individual artists, generalized technique was always in a state of flux.

As a training technique, ballet, as well as the romantic gracefulness of Isadora, was impossible for the devotee of modern dance to utilize. Ballet was devoted to rigid classical patterns which were practiced with such endless repetitive passion that the muscles were in bondage to these actions and refused to respond to freer necessities. Modern dancers and ballet dancers were disdainful of each other. Modern dance claimed that ballet's gestures were elitist, slavishly repetitive, and idiotic. Ballet counterclaimed that modern dance was vulgar, graceless and lacked technique. This was no Yin and Yang totality. It was Conservative and Liberal opposition.

The modern dance proclaimed its earthling vulgarity as not only aesthetically viable, but richly devoted to the nobility of every man. And, so it was.

Modern dance was directed towards the potentials of the human body to respond kinetically to the dictates of the individual mind. Its motional design derived directly from the individual's unique generic sources. Each artist attempted to create his or her own motional forms. It was the marriage of mind and motion. The inventory of motion was as infinite as the myriad facets of the mind. Was there a technique? Absolutely. The technique was the skill of releasing the body to the service of the aesthetic mind, bypassing the temptations of the narcissistic ego and the pathways of unrelated muscular habit.

The concepts inherent within such an ideal contain a key to the meaning of humanism beyond any that had been advanced by dance before. The significance is that mankind had at its service the limitless source of its own generic endowments. This goes almost beyond Darwinian realization. It goes beyond known religion, Eastern or Western, and places the responsibility and glorification of life upon the spirit and vitality of the individual. His motional statement of life is his own unique expression as the forces of life course through him, his genes, and his huge accumulation of personal reference. What could emerge is not vague symbolism or copied patterns, but gestures of such revelation that one could mystically affirm the very fact of life itself as it transpires through him. This was the stamp of American idealism. It was the statement of America at its most glorious. The vital expression of the individual and of the individual having the fortitude and courage to respond to the dictates of the mind without coercions, physical detours or substitution of action.

This was modern dance at its best. This was its credo. This was also a time when many artists mixed political activism with art. Often political protest became significant aesthetic ventures. Some succeeded mainly because art compulsions are also primal moralistic forces which, when used as a base for a subject, either make it ridiculous or extol its logic.

The idea of the "Unique Gesture" changed the whole concept of concert dance. Particularly, it divorced dance from virtuosic displays which were loosely pinned upon a skimpy story line. The newest trends in music were also agreeable companions to modern dance. Dissonance and erratic conglomerations of pulse and meter were easily within the comprehension and aesthetics of the modern dancer.

But above all, ideally the concept of the "Unique Gesture" is perhaps the most profound concept of the combined human body, mind, and spirit that has arisen since the beginning of mankind. It is also the most fragile. The battle is to maintain the moral stamina required to remain wholly faithful to the impulsions of the deeper self. Man's compulsion for the easy life, to fall back on patterns, is so forceful and contagious that it constantly must be guarded against.

From this deep conviction all great statement of life are made. One can benefit by another's genius, but the genius itself cannot be shared. It itself is a ONE thing -- to halve it is to destroy it. One might as well share a balloon by chopping it in

Man can translate the results of his sensory perceptions into a literal communication. In effect, this literal communication is basically a report, in symbol form, of man's perception of variations and degrees of energy which have impressed themselves upon his sensory organs. He has invented words which through common understanding identify sensory experience. The word "blue" identifies a certain range of color. Dark blue or sky blue offers further clarification. This is an example of verbal communication out of which a whole literary art has evolved.

However, man participates in "non-verbal" communication as well. For our purpose "non-verbal" communication will refer to sentient communication, which is concerned with direct sentient response, the forms of communication which are directed through sensory experience rather than through the symbolism of either the word, pictorial or literal representation.

The non-verbal artist is primarily concerned with dynamics. His job is the control of energies. The concept, "Dynamics", includes not only real energy and force, but illusional and metaphoric power as well. For example, where as there are certain reflected vibrational energies which emanate from the color red, its juxtaposition to another color may add additional dynamic relationships to the eye and then to the mind which do not exist in actual, factual energy.

The word, "green", no matter how qualified cannot be as effective as the sensory experience of the color itself. Even when the qualifying words seem to give exact definition the word is still an inexact communication requiring interpretation. While the work of the non-representational artist also requires interpretation, it is for the most part directly sentient rather than routed through symbolic form. Pictorial and literal representation tend to alleviate a good portion of sentient responsibility from the onlooker through the process of familiar symbolic representation. One need only be subjected to the guided tours though great art galleries to realize how much of the esthetic dimension of a work of art is generally neglected in favor of its external literal or representational channeling.

Non-verbal communication reduces or eliminates the process of translating the object to a symbol, and then symbol to subject. It prevents the loss of meaning that circuitous translations inevitably produce.

Of all non-verbal communication, the art of music has been the most successful and has been so from its beginning. The sensation of the sound itself is the communicating source. There is no necessity of intermediary translation. When painting and sculpture become non-literal, sentient forms, they drop the literal representational image, and stated themselves directly through sensations of color and form.

The arts which are dominated by literal symbolism such as words, arrive at a sentient level of communication by other means. Some destroy the literal by treating it absurdly, by reordering the literal connotations to form controlled non-sense. In this way the direct literal meaning is destroyed, thus bringing verbal symbols into the realm of direct sentient communication.

Non-verbal communication is concerned with free flow rather than pictorial or literal representation and imagery. Consequently it requires a direct contact with the audience's sentient experience; an experience requiring a finely tuned and basic realization of dynamics, the essences and powers of relationships and change.

The dynamics of a line on a canvas are an illusional force rather than a real one. It is a psychodynamic event. A musician strikes a succession of notes and in doing so, he controls the initial amount of energy applied. This is energy in the real sense, and its control is certainly essential for the performer. Beyond this energy is that juxtaposition of sounds and silences devised by the composer and then interpreted by the musician that results in audio stimulation which in the mind of the listener causes a response. Thus from the composer to musician to listener there is the involvement and communication of psychical energy.

Although scientifically we know little about the reality of psychical energy, there does occur in art various forms of action which cause additional dynamic activity in the mind which are above and beyond the common and tangible definitions of energy. An obvious example is that of a painter's relatively small canvas which may call to the onlookers mind a cataclysmic event. By no means does the canvas hold this real energy, but it does hold the potential of creating an illusional dynamic happening in the mind. Implications of time and space, the power of metaphor, the suggestions of events, fantastic excursions into imagination all are dynamics within the mind of the observer.

If restricted to one's mind, this energy remains safely to a physical minimum. We can thereby experience a macrocosmic event vicariously, and without personal danger.

Art deals with microscopic vision as well as macrocosmic imaginings and the dynamics of minutae are revealed and reacted to as readily as are the gargantuan vistas.

To the mind open to abstraction, the force of abstract art is dynamically powerful and we often find that it is the abstract suggestion within a literal work that gives it its power.

Dynamics then, in the general sense, refers to degrees of energy, either real or implied, imagined or caused to be imagined. We have an actual source of energy wherein a piece of matter in a passive state that propels itself to move. We have the dynamics of space and time and the phenomenal energies of gravity, momentum, centrifugal and centripetal force. We have the human psychical response, as well as illusions of energy, and the actual psychical energies of motivation. Dynamics is everything which is opposed to stasis.

In dance it is the dancer's motivational energies which activate his sources of physical energies thus bringing his body into action. He combines these motivational energies with the energies of time and space, with gravity and the other phenomenon which govern the laws of motion. The artist's skill in designing all these varying dynamics is what causes the illusional dynamics to occur in the mind of the observer. Consequently, the artist's skill rests primarily in the manipulation and design of dynamics.

Dynamics are realized by means of our sensory meters. Sensation is brought about by relativity and change. If we place ourselves in a room entirely colored red, we will find that after a while the sensation of red is lost and there is a suspension of color sensation. Dynamics are not only actual energies, but are also forceful as a sensing of change. The sensation of dynamics may be real or imagined. It may be factual or illusional. The artist attempts to govern both the factual and the illusional, to control real energies as well as those implied or projected. His artistry is greatly determined by his skill in manipulating and causing the phenomena of change according to his esthetic dictates.

Dance employs a dynamic range which, with the exception of actual physical energy, is perhaps not different from other arts. But the definition of its range of dynamics arises from its emphasis upon motion which reveals a highly complex use of energy.

Energy, is the backbone of esthetic involvement and is the primal reference of all art. It is the power which impels man towards fulfilling a destiny, one in which there is a timeless morality referring to man's place and function within the universal stream.

In his spiritual history man is driven towards a metaphysical Utopia where all his efforts are devoted to a release from corporeal pain and bondage. Within this striving rests his reason for being. His greatest moments are those of the spirit. Art is the triumph over the physical. As science is to the body, art is to the soul, and the ecstasy of man's moral evolvement rests in art, and his response to it. It is the irrefutable religion; one in which all human behavior is judged and in which there must be reference to the stream of life which runs through all things, mystical as they may be. At the moment of art, there is mystery only to the conscious mind. In the inner-self there is assurance and clarity.

Both science and art begin in mystery. Science dispels mystery in so far as it is able. Art treasures it, eliminating even the concrete fact, so that the mystical forces beneath may be more accessible to primal sensory perceptions. It is in conscious reason that art is apt to err.

Dynamics is a power, a motivation of first importance. It is a primary force which includes man's instincts. It is the artist's sensing of this force and its direction that qualifies his art. The artist's creation must fall in to the stream of this force and it is his reference to it that gives his work validity and depth. This force compels him. To it he must make constant reference, consciously or unconsciously, during his whole creative function.

Although we do not know the actual nature of man's pysche, we do know that it is the psyche which dominates man's behaviorism. The energy of the psyche, whatever that may be, and the power behind it which drives it in directions unique to man is art's first dynamics which is defined as "motivation".

Next to the force impelling the psyche, the power of the imagination, serves the artist most. Imagination is also a form of dynamics, for out of imagination man has a choice of action. In the mind, one can split atoms with no undue physical disturbance. It is in the mind's eye that the artist may experiment and pre-destine his work. It is in the beholder's mind's eye that the artist's work is retranslated and where communication takes place, whether through empathy, metakinesis or esthetic Rohrschach.

From these two preceding dynamic forces, the dancer proceeds to physical energies, the actual moving of the body according to the dictates of his esthetic premises. Here the forces are more easily measured. However, there remains the necessary skill of manipulating the body as an abstract instrument rather than in a recognizable physical manner.

Once physical entities are set into action the external laws of motion come into play; gravity, momentum, centrifugal and centripetal forces.

Integral to the whole process of motion is another set of forces -- the dynamics of space and time which penetrates all dance procedures.

In summation then we find that dynamics occur through several processes. Each process involving either real energy or a psychical suggestion of force.

1. It represents the motivational power that drives man towards his idealization and impels him to expose these ideals through such communications as art offers.

2. It represents the psychical power that derives from motivation and in turn drives the imagination and the decision to act.

3. It represents physical energy which in turn is motivated by psychical power.

4. It involves laws of motion, including gravity, momentum, centrifugal and centripetal forces to which the body must cohere in order to stay within the good graces of external forces.

5. It involves the dynamics of time and space which qualify laws of motion but which extend beyond them in implication and eventually into aesthetics.

Art pursues its judgement through specific demonstrable determinations. The control of dynamics is by no means a wholly conscious act. A work is composed largely through the artist's sensitivity to dynamics, through equating sentiently rather than by conscious mathematical judgement. Reliance on patterned judgement will inevitably produce cliches. In the same way the dancer's reliance upon physical technique alone will result in sterile movement rather than sentient, motional dynamics. The role dynamics plays in non-verbal communication presents an appeal to sentient judgement rather than to surface realism or conscious rational.

We are concerned with the artist's skill in controlling the dynamic happenings and implications within his medium or media. The medium is not the art message. The message derives from what the artist causes to happen dynamically through the medium. The painter's canvas and oil colors are his media. The message derives from the real and illusionary dynamics emanating from the various medias after it is formed by the artist.

With the tendency now to eliminate the pictorial or literal image, the painter must make sense out of his colors. With no trees or boats or portraits he is obliged to create musicalities of colors. If he is not sensitively eloquent in this respect he communicates nothing. The dancer...whose basic concern is motion, mistakenly conceives of his art as rhythmatized literal emotion; spinning little tales and engulfing himself in histrionics, often adding, willy-nilly, twirlings, kickings and extensions to justify his label of "dancer."

The pianist's medium is the piano. The message derives from the sound emanating from the piano. The sculptor's medium may be marble but his art is qualified by what he does with the marble. The dancer's medium is his physical body. His artistry arises from the motional values he causes that body to enact.

Dynamic values also exist within the medium itself. Certainly the high development of sound and accoustical properties of musical instruments today are part of the dynamic value of the finished works themselves. The polished metal of Brancusi's "Bird in Flight" would be far different if it were sculpted in wood or marble. The dancer's body is the most complex medium of all. In addition to its direct, live, energy value, his physical characteristics can determine the nature of some of his roles. Nevertheless the dancer's power of "transcendence" can magically transform his actual corporeal vision into a completely different thing. Here, illusional dynamics can have more significance in the production of art than the dynamic value contained in the body itself.

It is the quest of the artist to correlate all these forms of dynamics. Each successive step in his art derives and evolves from the composite of forces he has assembled to reveal his subject or intent. Like the seed of a plant, his initial noumenon contains the nature of the matured product.

The artist's process requires him to sense how that seed wishes to grow, what energies are involved, and to then construct an itinerary in space and time which will allow this evolution to take place without interference.

In essence the artist's progress is a judgement of dynamics and it is the artist's refined sensory perception that makes that judgement. Through his sensory "meters" he controls the degrees of voltage necessary. The consequence is a structure or form which represents his esthetic thought which hopefully will result in a work of art.

Dance, very often has combined with the actor's domain and this combination of dance and drama has led to the ignoring of the scope of dance as an art in itself. This has contributed to a lack of faith on the part of the dancer in the communicative force of motional abstraction and consequently his art suffers this loss.

The great performers of the traditional modern dance period made considerable use of combining the arts of dancing and acting.

Ballet also uses literal and non-literal devices. Many of its early choreographers, instead of mixing the abstract and the literal, deliberately stopped a section of abstract dance and proceeded to a wholly literal mimetic action, only to return again to purer dance. Here, each level supported the understanding of the other by sequential rather than simultaneous exposition.

The pop cultural aspect of our involvement in mixed media is represented in the present day by the discotheque where the dancer is involved not only in his own motion but in the motion of light, color and sound as well. It matters not that this may be merely a present fad. At the moment it is a part of the socio-dynamics of our time, and consequently an insight into the present state of our esthetic evolution.

It is thru our control of sensory perception that we can refocus motional intentions. We can recircuit the senses to focus upon motion as a basic, abstract, self-contained statement rather than a definition of the performer's personal emotional condition or circumstance. Motion, in this process erases reference to the dancer's ego or personality, and redirects all sensitivity to the motional event itself.

Let me make an analogy here so that this process of technical training becomes clearer. Take for example the driving of an automobile. It is as if the driver is engaged not upon his destination but rather inspects the mobility of the car itself. It's variations of speed; the purring of the motor; -- the nature of the passage through space; -- the sense of the swing around curves; -- the nature of the smoothness on the open highway; -- the qualities of its centripetal and centrifugal forces; -- the spring and rebound as it passes into a declivity or rises over a promontory, the structure of one action as it relates to another; -- the logic of the car's motional phrasing as it passes thru different changes of velocity;-- and so forth.

Recently I happened to tune in on a television program of one of the most brilliant pianists I have ever heard. In this performance he had so completely attached himself to the musical sound that both he and the piano disappeared and the sound emerged seemingly without restraint. The sound existed on its own terms. Of course we saw him play, but his body and fingers showed no restraint as he passed through extraordinary phrases of sound. It was definitely as if the physicalities of the act were invisible mechanisms towards a greater end, the music. His aesthetic dexterity and control in passing from one chord to another, changing speed, density, and color made the flow so flawless, that one was carried into the brilliant context of the sound itself.

Here the pianist was not focused upon the physical dexterity of his fingers nor his technical virtuosity. These were instruments towards another result -- the art of sound.

I should emphasize that in these examples the intent is not to eliminate characterization or to depersonalize. It is rather to readjust the thinking; to focus upon a far greater practice of motional investigation and aesthetic dance technique. This is to greatly enlarge its aesthetic scope, not only as a destination in itself, but also to form a much broader substantial art basis for dance, whatever form it takes -- literal, abstract or any combination thereof.

Can the dancer do this? Can he restructure his focus in the direction of the isolated value of motion and make this the basis of his skill? Fortunately the human has the most complex and extraordinary equipment to do so, through his sensory perception.

Sensory perception lies primarily in sensory organs located in the muscles, tendons, and tissues. These senses respond to the degrees of flexions, extensions, twistings, placements, etc. of all body parts. But this by no means is the limitation of our perceptive potential. It has been a relatively few years ago that we referred to the Aristotelian five senses, sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell. Science now agrees to the existence of many more mechanics of perceptions, perhaps as many as 30. To mention a few -- there are; -- the sense of space, time, direction, balance, gravity, body temperature, sense of presence, velocity, pressure, as well as many others which determine quality of motion and presence in life.

Although kinesthesia was given its name less than a century ago, it never attained the class of Aristotle's old five senses.

There are senses which inform the body of its physical condition, such as blood temperature, carbon dioxide content, hunger, thirst, pain, etc. Our brain also houses certain obscure senses for which no special organs have as yet been found. In some cases wherein there may not be a specific organ relating to a specific event, there are automatic coordinations of various perceptions derived from more than one organ to report the particular circumstance.

Now that we concede to the fact that there are an abundance of perceptions to deal with, we also must realize that we cannot accommodate them consciously in one total mass. This means we must select those which serve our immediate purpose and relegate all the other to a state of limbo, a suspended storage, from which they can be drawn out at will. This does not mean that they do not function, but rather that their function is relegated to a non-conscious state. However, the skill to repress is not the skill of temporarily hiding the unused perception but of making certain that its contributions to the desired action is proportionately and appropriately present. A very good experiment in this vein, for those musically inclined, is to try to hear the overtones on a fine piano. For example hit middle "C" and at the same time hold down the "G" one octave above "G." On a fine piano you will definitely hear this "C" humming an overtone agreement. This experiment can now be carried further. Instead of holding down the "C", hold down the "G" above this. Then depress the Middle C on "C" and you will hear the "G" resonate because it is the natural overtone to the "C" which has, of course been activated by the Middle "C".

This process of overtones, greatly enhances the richness of a single note. So too with any gesture of the human body, overtones exist. This technical process should be put to aesthetic practice regularly in the daily class through the practice of totality, or total involvement.

The keynote to all of this is that with the wondrous complex of perceptions the dancer must not allow himself to make any motion without having the experience of sentient perception which might result from such an action. Because the body is so volatile and fluid, these perception may be changed quickly and at will. There is no single meaning to a motion until a single perception is realized and focused upon. The lift of an arm for example can be sentiently manipulated in many, many different ways.

Sensory organs are like a television camera which receives and records an event. Behind this are the mechanisms which transmit these results. These in turn are not received unless the performer and the observer are tuned into the same channel. Perception does not necessarily occur unless the mind is focused upon the event via the organ. One may look but not see; listen but not hear; move but not be aware of the motion. Awareness is the key factor here.

The human instrument contains a multitude of sensory organs having various functions. Some of them are best held in check. Their conscious focus is not required to fulfill their part in certain living function. For example, our taste for food is greatly affected by sight and smell as well as the sensations derived from the actual taste organs. Eating green-colored mashed potatoes sprayed with perfume is hardly a gustatory delight.

We often mistakenly conclude that a perception derives from a single organ or type of organ. We may credit the eyes with a perception which actually involves contributions by the ears and nose as well. Many of our perceptions, while predominantly derived from a particular kind of organ, receive support from other organs which add verification or understanding in depth, to the event.

So it is with dance motion. Dance involves human sensitivity primarily to motion. Of great significance to the dancer's sensitivity is the process of perceiving and interpreting the impressions of motion received by the senses. This perception is largely accredited to the kinetic sensory organs located in the muscles, tendons and tissues. These kinesthetic organs inform us only of our physical actions: the flexions, extensions, twistings, placements, etc. But they do not inform us of the condition of the space through which we move, nor the time, direction, balance, gravity, visual and auditory aspects of environment; nor do they inform us of the numerous other factors needed to qualify motion in detail from the aesthetic point of view.

Motion demands by its definition, the detail values of its itinerary. This means that whereas movement implies the form of action, motion implies the manner in which the action occurs. In this way it is like music -- an abstract language of sound in which the nature of the sound, its pitch, timbre, harmonies, time and juxtaposition to other sounds and silences cumulate into the aesthetic value communicated. The object is not the indiscriminate arrival at the final note, but the sense of the sound as it transpires and culminates towards the end. Similarly in basic dance, it is the nature of the details of action which give it its aesthetic legibility. Without this sensing and performance detail only a gross outline is apparent which communicates very little other than the visual structure.

Many dancers move with brilliant physical facility, but aside from the interest which acrobatic dexterity may provoke, the communicative level may be very sparse. The inability to communicate through motion is fundamentally the dancer's failure to transmit the motional values first to himself and then to his audience. We are in a sense left, with a movement doodle, of symbols without intelligence.

It is therefore within the sensory processes that we find the sensitivities which distinguish the artist. This may be of some solace to the artist who talks about feelings and sensitivities, offering no further definition, to the Empirical mind.

An examination of the aesthetic possibilities arising from these sentient processes can give the dancer a broader concept of his craft. The process of refinement however, requires awareness and judgement. We can stare into space and perceive nothing. The eye may be full of impressions of the space but the brain may choose to ignore them. The brain may choose to detour the impressions through the subconscious which can censor them and call to consciousness only those pertinent to its present need. Parents frequently have this experience. Engrossed in a particular task in which most surrounding sounds are ignored, they are alerted by the crying of the child. In this instance the subconscious mind, with instructions from the conscious mind as to what to call to its attention, acts as a sort of alert.

The mind has considerable control and fluidity within the perceptive process, whereas the sensory organ is generally fixed. Some organs do have some control of focus, such as the eye. The ears and nose, more stationary than the eyes, change their focal range by the turning of the head. The tactile power of the hands shows another focal facility, the power of which is increased by its mobility. A good illustration for the dancer is the turnout of the legs. By means of turnout one gains a greater three-dimensional mobility in space. The leg is not a sensory organ. However, within it are discrete sensors that distinguish spatial orientation. The opening of the thigh exposes a greater surface of this sensitive area. One has only to place the legs in knee-front, parallel position to feel the tactile difference in space. One can recall the common expression of embarrassment in which the thighs turn in as if to deny presence. Nevertheless, how many dancers practice to attain turnout to the extreme without perceiving the difference in feeling towards space derived from the rotation?

The sensory efficiency of many organs and sensors are increased focally, by actual physical maneuvering. The leg turn-out is a gross example compared to the myriad, minute body positions and actions which can place parts of the body into advantageous sensory attitudes the results of which will lend expressive detail to a gesture.

Much more complex is the skill of the mind to vary its perceptive dynamics in relation to a sensory organ or organs. The mind has its own power of focus within the data received by sensory organs. A particular sensory organ may receive the impression of the scene as a whole. The mind however, may choose to target or pinpoint its perception upon one detail within the total picture. It can intensify the perceptive experience by deliberately blocking out of consciousness all unwanted areas. This can be noted readily in such senses as sight, taste, hearing and smell.

The tactile (or touch) sense organs have a multitude of receptor organs serving it. These are distributed throughout the body, and separately or together, they can reveal the tactile landscape they encounter. The mind can pinpoint single parts of this landscape. It can block out of consciousness the tactile perception of one part of the body to intensify the experience of another. This process of perception is highly significant in kinetics when one wishes to highlight or diminish certain aspects of motion, in order to make others more evident.

The mind is the coordinating center for the senses. It can group the senses in cooperative action for a given task. Often this takes on the form of subduing deliberately the function of one sense to give greater dynamic power to another. Watch someone's eyes during a moment of concentrated listening. You will find them placed out of focus, if not completely covered, so that there will be no visual interference with the listening. On the other hand, the eye may assist the ear in its interpretation by giving it visual evidence. Very often the dancer must deliberately employ the technique of subduing one sensation to enhance the values of another. Perhaps the most obvious example is that of ignoring the sense of weight and gravity to give the illusion of lightness.

By the coordinate acts of senses we arrive at what we often call "a sense of". This "sense of" has no particular receptor organ of its own. We speak of "a sense of" motion but in reality this requires the cooperation of several senses. Similarly we speak of "sense" of justice, a mechanical "sense," common "sense" and even a "sense" of good taste. We can speak of a "sense" of shape, or time, or space without necessarily referring to the reactions of a particular organ, but rather to the coordinations of any powers of perception which permit the most acute acknowledgement of the desired factor.

We speak of the mind's facility to darken certain areas of perception or to intensify others or to confine areas of perception to the subconscious with instruction to alert the conscious when the need arises. We are apt to consider consciousness and subconsciousness a sharply divided black and white rather than a unit also controllable in degree. This control of degree of consciousness is of particular interest to the artist. It is of inestimable significance to the dancer who, albeit greatly concerned with the kinetic sense, must have the support of many other senses to give dimension to his art.

While the dancer is mainly concerned with motion, he must also have some sense of the sculptural form of the body in action. He must have a concept of shape. Because his action occurs in space and time, his sense of these too, must be acute. In his art he will find there are times when one of these will dominate the other, when either the values of time or space or shape take on greater significance than the others. There will also be times when motional concepts will share their importance. The dancer must have the skill of subduing the sense of one to enlarge the value of another. Certainly the control of these sensory subtleties are a major part of his artistry.

There is another aspect of the supportive roles of one sense to another which is highly significant to the artist. We cannot presume that all senses operate in the same fashion. Each one has unique values which add particular dimensions of understanding. Not only do the various organs have different physiological structures, they also vary considerably in their psychological entree into the mind. They function on various communicative levels. We can easily see this in the differences of psychological perception between the senses of sight and hearing.

"Seeing is believing" and "Show me; I'm from Missouri" emphasize the common feeling that the sight of something gives credence to its existence. There are qualifications to this; yet, by and large, the eye tends towards a much higher degree of reality acceptance than the ear.

Hearing promotes more active interpretive and imaginative process. Relieved of the responsibility of surface reality, the ear gives the mind a stronger invitation to abstract levels of action than the eye. It has the potential of plunging the hearer into a freer associative level. It is no wonder that music always has been and still is, a much more abstract art than the visual arts and dance has been.

The eye is capable of provoking the mind to a similar level of abstractional acceptance. When it encounters something which cannot be contained on the realistic level, it automatically attempts another facet of understanding. Often, however, a mind strongly oriented to the materialistically real cannot shift to, nor cope with, an abstract level of reality. The "seeing is believing" fixation demands the literal, and this criterion becomes primary as all other levels of communication are lost.

Although we have gained some concept of the differences of psychological perception between the eye and ear, we must consider that all of the senses have their unique psychological entree into the mind.

There are also different psychological paths for each sense. A single sense may have several routes of psychological entré. The eye is the most vivid example. When we look at a painting, the psychological entré refers predominantly to our color and pictorial experiences. The kinetic sculpture invites the eye to engage in both form and motion. In dance the psychological entree is routed mostly through motional and kinetic experiences.

One aspect of dance which I have creatively extended upon and explored is that which places strong emphasis upon sculptural forms and color. It is not that this has not been done before, or does not ordinarily take place in dance. It is rather a matter of degree. In my own creative work I have often raised the appeal of color and sculpture in dance to an equal, and sometimes greater, communicative importance than kinetic values. Any departure into such different dynamics tends to confuse the eye of the purist and is often upsetting to the onlooker who specializes in purism. Yet this is not an artist's concern. If the onlooker fails to join the dynamic scheme of the artist, he is left without a framework of reference to make judgement of that artist's work. His sensory perception and psychological paths are not open and free to function fully within that milieu.

Although the kinetic, moving sense is a major one for dance, it is the sense of motion which is more significant. In the course of the exploration of motion, we will find, in addition to kinetics, the "sense of motion" includes seeing, feeling, hearing, balance, gravity, sound, light, color, shape, smell and other senses as well. Some of these senses are of almost equal importance. Altogether they add support and semantic dimension, without which, dance as an art would be meagre indeed.

For the most part dance training revolves around gross physical coordinations devoid of sensitivity towards inner detail. The dancer does refine certain kinetic values, but very often he will touch upon space, time and gravity to that extent necessary to support his kinetic interests. Most of the rest is left to accident or subconscious experience.

The dancer must persist in concentrated focus upon whatever senses and resulting perceptions occur within a particular scheme of motion. The dancer can deliberately focus upon pertinent and particular senses, so that he can explore the greatest range of experience in any area of concern. In training, shifting perceptive focus from one exploration to another can develop a fluidity of awareness. For example, the arm can draw a circle in space in a multitude of ways, each one having its particular value. The periphery may be stressed so that the outer circular line of action is emphasized. The senses may shift to awareness of the line as a boundary to the space it encloses. In the periphery of a vertical circle, the gravity sweep of the lower arc may be emphasized or the high upward suspensional aspect can give further variation. These examples only begin to detail infinite possible variations, each distinguishing itself because of the difference in sensory and perceptive focus.

There may be in some instances a deliberate dulling of various senses for specifically intended purposes which is quite different from innocent insensitivity. One can concentrate on a particular action allowing whatever senses are employed to fall into place. Or one may inject imaginary sources of energy, thus causing a motion to occur with still other sensory connotations.

The possibilities are infinite and need not be induced by literal situation. As a matter of fact, it should be made clear at the outset that the dancer's art is motion, and the training that is presented to him must stress the communicative values of motion not of mime or emotion (in its unusual meaning). Basically, he does not practice sadness, madness, gladness or the like. His language is rather the textures of light, heavy, thick, thin, soft, hard, large, small, etc. Out of these components, he weaves a motional itinerary inviting the onlooker to travel vicariously with him. These motions can give both the dancer and the onlooker the sense of anything within the universe which is of a similar motional nature or which can be communicated by such motional metaphor.

We do not know the actual range of our sensory facilities. We do not have knowledge of some others that may actually be of significance to dance. The dancer need not study the mechanics of the senses and perceptions with academic rigidity, but we do need to regain faith in these amazing facilities in order to allow the body and the mind their powers, so that as instruments, they become responsive to the most minute detail of the artist's intent.

Although we cannot to any great extent refurbish our senses, we can greatly increase our skills of perception. We know that sensation occurs mostly when change occurs in body and environment. The senses register their differences in degrees, which, in essence, are dynamics or change. The artist's skill and finesse in perceiving and responding to these relationships and changes, is one of his primary functions as an artist.

In an oversimplified way we can say that usually a performing art comprises three components: 1. the medium, 2. the instrument and 3. the message. First it is essential to establish some precise definitions as to what is the instrument, what is the medium and wherein rests the message? In dance there are confusions and also irrational concepts about all three of these factors. In music, these three components are more precisely understood. The piano is the instrument, the sound emanating from the piano is the medium and the message is the nature of the sound structure caused to happen by the aesthetic manipulation by the performing artist. In dance the one great difference and certainly the most complex one is that the instrument and the artist are one and the same. The task here is to distinguish the boundaries and domains of each. The human body as an instrument is an endless complex array of bones, muscles, tendons, nerves, and sensory organs.as well as a morass of other biological material. All of these have communication to the brain which forms the center of the nervous system and the seat of consciousness and volition.

In trying to bring about a change in technical and aesthetic practice of dance we must deliberately set up guards at the gates of the brain to admit into its comprehension only those sensations which promote the understanding of motion. The brain has enormous powers of selection and rejection. In addition it can diminish some avenues of receptivity as well as over point up others. It also stores habits of behaviorism which intrude inadvertently upon a motional event. Consequently this confuses kinetic definition by loading unwanted debris into the motional path.

Much of the teaching process is the clarification of motivation and its motional result.has no identity until there is a consciousness of reference to it. Yet in a mysterious way both space and time play havoc upon life by virtue of their both being major canvasses upon which all living reference is made. Each is relentless in the sense of its continued presence, whether or not consciousness of them exists. We age and deteriorate whether or not we count our hours or years. It is not that time ages us. It merely measures the temporal continuity of our deterioration in relation to human and personal sociodynamics. Although we might accuse it of wreaking the havoc of longevity, it is merely an innocent cavity in which we measure our span of vitality. We conceive of space and time as forms to be measured. Describing what happens within them however does not describe them. Description mostly furnishes adverbs and adjectives. Even when the description becomes a noun, such as a square or sphere, these indicate the nature of the boundary -- not what the boundary contains.

Still our reactions to space and time can be definite -- and qualifiable.

Both are measurements or sensations of relativity existing in many different dimensions and forms. We understand them mainly through a recurrent pattern of happenings or of boundaries occurring either in nature or in artificial structures made for the convenience of reference. In nature we have the rise and set of the sun and our natural environment. In artifice we have the clock and yardstick. We have the recurrent breath and heartbeat. We have the presence of the corporeal body occupying its volume in space.

Dance is commonly defined in dictionaries as rhythmic movement, implying that rhythm is an essential ingredient. This is the usual "quicky" definition and its implication are incorrect and misleading.

Although rhythm is understood as a regular recurrence of emphasis, it does not necessarily mean mathematical exactness of time spacing. However, even in this freer term of definition it is questionable whether rhythm as such is an essential ingredient in dance.

In musical terms rhythm usually implies the regular recurrence of an emphasis during a regular succession of pulses or beats. A pulse is simply real or implied division of time of any duration just as an inch or a foot or a yard is in linear measurement. In sound an emphasis on every second pulse implies a two rhythm; one on every third implies a three rhythm. Rhythm or meter, therefore, implies a recurrent blocking of pulse beats.

Music's tradition and use of notation has long ago set a system of time analysis and writing which dance relied upon heavily. This is firmly imbedded in dance tradition because of the interrelationships of the two arts in the historical development of both. Dance has long been the slave of this musical system which actually is devised for the ear rather than the eye.

Rhythm implies recurrent emphasis, mathematically precise or not and we may seriously question whether or not such dynamic recurrence is essential to the definition of dance.

For decades music has been trying to relieve itself of this somewhat primitive limitation as has dance within the last decades.

Both dance and music are reevaluating their concept of time and experimenting in new areas which cannot be described, notated or conceived in terms of the traditional sense of rhythm of music. As there is musical time there is also dance time.

The art of painting and sculpture, both sight arts, have always had their own implications of rhythm. Although these are not temporal arts such as dance and music, their freedom in dynamic interpretation of time can be applied to dance and extended into actual temporal concepts. This is now in the process of development and use, but perhaps not so consciously realized in visual terms as it may ultimately be.

As dance reevaluates its concepts of time, the consequent construction of choreography becomes based upon a sense and perception of time rather than in the mechanical beat and rhythm.

The musical system of time analysis is fairly elastic and purposely far less mathematically precise than is usually implied by the insistent metronomic associations we make to it.

There have been some scientific experiments which have revealed that often the great musical artist takes more freedom in time within the mechanical boundaries than the stilted academic performer who does not stray from mathematical precision.

Time, for the artist, is basically a sense and perception of change or evolution. Thus when there are no sensations or realization of change, monotony, doldrums, lethargy, rest, peace, quiet, relaxation and the like, we feel that time passes all too slowly. And at the opposite pole, of course, perceptions of quick change alters our sensation of time in terms of linear speed. All this computes itself in relation to a universe of happenings which we guided by temporal phenomena about which are still known very little.

Even within the human body there are constant evolutionary changes brought about by biochemical as well as psycho-physiological change. Even in this we retain a degree of control as the Yogi may govern heartbeat and metabolism to achieve the minimum of change required for continued life. The mathematical computation of all these relationships of time are far too vast and subtle to document or to practice within the confines of a beat or rhythm.

The dancer whose skill demands his control of time, is left either with a mathematically incomputable morass of time happenings or with the dubious comfort and meagre esthetic result of metronomic measurement.

Dancers are dependent upon their ability to sense time. We operate on faith for little is known scientifically about our manner of sensing time. We do not know whether or not there are actual organs or coordinations of organs which allow us this perception. We know only that we do perceive the progress of time -- some more acutely than others.

Time to the human mind is one of the aspects of change of evolution. As such, it is a sensation. But although we speak of a "sense of time," we are as yet unable to explain, except in very general terms, precisely what sensory organs contribute to this perception.

We know animals and insects have such time perceptions, that a bird can migrate and arrive at its destination with amazingly accurate schedule. Perhaps in the process of evolution man may have obscured this sense to some extent, and the artist must reassert its function to that quick point which enables him to adjudge to the fraction of a second the exact moments of time evolvements.

We ride the time of nature. The human being carves time spans within a time-band permitted him by his powers and invention. Yet each individual has his own variance within that span. So too each object and element in nature carves its own unique time-space volume. Man has the facility to perceive this and evaluate it through his empathetical and meta-kinetic powers. Because we ourselves have the power to create fictional time-space we can metaphorize almost anything in nature, including mankind.

The artist is a specialist in sensation and perception and the artist dealing more directly with time must sharpen his time wit to the highest degree.

A dancer may expect more artistry from a sense of time than from a skill of rhythm. It is paradoxical that the latter makes for the broadness of generalization -- the former for specifics. A sense of time lends semantic dimension impossible in strict rhythm.

Isolating and manipulating time as an experience to be felt and remembered becomes an illusive problem. We customarily associate time with an audio or visual boundary. Most often the boundaries become more evident than what transpires between them. As there is a difference between time and motion -- so there is a difference between time and pulse. Consequently the practice of accurate metronomic pulse does not necessarily create sensitivity to time itself -- time is not pulse, meter or rhythm. These are designations of measurement. The substance of what is measured is not necessarily revealed by the measurement itself. Two miles does not describe the journey. An inch of string is not the same as as an inch of wire or wood or copper. The supposed attributes of "I've got rhythm" may mean only that -- and that is insufficient for the artist.

The artist is constantly concerned with a reality which he in turn must recreate into a vision or illusion. Out of the reality of time the dancer must recreate the illusion of it as a dimensional substantiation of, his subject.

Beginning with reality we are faced with the difficult creation of immediacy -- that is, to place ourselves actually and wholly within the transpiration of the immediate happening.

We return to that enlivened act of stillness where, so that we may be still, we place ourselves within the ongoingness of time, like a thing floating in the current of a stream. In this case we are a sentient thing, aware of its speed by virtue of our keeping acknowledged pace with it -- with no temporal anxieties of what's ahead or behind it. Here there is no time segment, pulse, meter or rhythm -- only the horizontal transpiration of time. This is the essence of dance -- a sustained lyricism without interruption of dynamic emphasis -- lyricism in stillness -- lyricism to achieve the purest sense of change, continuity and evolvement.

The implications of this act are considerable. When we say that in this instance, we stand sentiently alive within the ongoingness of time, we mean we stand upright, totally in definition of mankind, for to be sentient to this happening we must fulfill every molecular particle of our being in terms of all the primal energies out of which man defines himself.

Any action out of this immediacy places the dancer in a state of relative time. Being on the current of the time stream either going faster or slower than the stream itself. It is within this new relativity of time that other definitions may occur. Here begins the drama of life -- the operation and happenings of all things as they manipulate phenomena towards their needs and ends.

We become aware that many different clocks operate. We slow the clock of the ear to intensify the time of sight. We stay the urge of hunger to reach a different sensation. We reverse speeds to equalize. Perhaps there is never a moment when all our clocks are in agreement. As our needs arise, our perceptions are intensified within the particular senses allied to those needs.

At this point of social history we find demand for more sentient experiences. Painting becomes sculpted. Sculptures move. Moving things add sound. A total theatre art involving more sense participation is increasingly evident. Perhaps our age of communication illustrates to us that reportage from only one sense does not offer as much substantiation as the combined reportage of several.

Space is that in which time evolves. Time is the essence of change -- not time in the traditional metrical or clock sense but in its relentless, uninterrupted, lyrical, monotone of flow. Although we may chop it up in our minds, its evolvement is constant. Through time we have the fact of space which offers us a limited liberty to shape that time to our needs. Our bodies are privileged to carry out some of this shaping of time in space. Our dreams shape space and time beyond the capacity of the body. Our inventions in space travel extend us physically into other remarkable time possibilities.

We rhythmatize time so that we may better comprehend its evolvement. That time itself is of rhythmical essence is certainly not within the scope of our contemporary knowledge of time.

We are privileged to speed ahead or slow down in time. We may retreat into past time. We may vacillate between advance time and past time -- our memories store past times which we may choose to delve into, alter or mix at will.

Dance is a temporal art. It exists in the performer's skill to alter the time of now, to recreate any time conceivable and necessary to illuminate that thing which he wished to expose in the now.

Time is the dancer's most vital tool, for only through and with it does action becomes computable.

The inspection, study and analysis of anything requires one to place one's self in some area of sensory reception as the thing to be studied. Time is one of the most illusive abstract factors and how one studies it from the point of view of sharpening one's perception of it is not a matter of precise knowledge (although there is the everlasting practice of rhythm). We know that the fine artist has an acute sense of timing which often gives him the liberty to ignore mathematical precision in favor of a richer and usually uncomputable use of time evolvement in his performance.

Unless the experience of time has some form, the security of the event is lost. We would not have any realization that it happened in the first place.

However if we think of this elastic definition of time from the point of view of its study, we are left with an undefined time limbo into which we will place the student with little hope of tangible results. The other choice is to set a boundary -- a time limitation -- a segment of a kind of time to be tasted. But since time consumes itself, the practice of repeated tasting of the same segment is essential in order to sharpen one's impression of it.

I spent the entire period between 1957-'58 exploring time. What constituted fast, what was the sensation of slow. The how of how long was a stop and the when of when did one begin again. All practiced and sensed for their own sentient identity.

On one concert I had a remarkable experience. I set three black panels across the center of the stage. In front of each I had focused a spotlight with a filter that eliminated the usual afterglow when switched off. Each light was individually controlled within a rigid time structure in which the choreography also occurred. After the curtain rose a single figure was illuminated in the center panel. The light was shut off. It went on again illuminating the same figure in the same attitude. Again a black-out. Now in the dark the figure dashed to one of the end panels where that light revealed him again in the same attitude. Again black out and within three seconds revealed another male dancer in the same posture as the first but in a different colored unitard. Then continued an appearing and disappearing game using these same devices. Replacing dancers in dance attitude but in different color and ultimately changing attitude. Finally I added motional motifs. It was interesting to note that one critic remarked that in the ballet consisting of eight pieces, this one was only one in which kinetics were foremost. What she did not know was that in this particular segment the dancers for most of the piece were rarely seen in actual motion. The piece succeeded in destroying the common concept of time. Here I created a false illusion of time which suited my choreographic intent. It was as if the time barrier had been broken. In talking later with the Gestalt psychologist Rudolph Arnheim he mentioned an experiment he had made. In a completely darkened room he placed three people, each with a shielded light. They pressed their lights on but never at the same time as the other. Onlookers were invited in for their reactions. Their unanimous reaction was that these were in reality only one light which darted around with great speed.

I do not mean by these examples that in dance training the musical treatment of time in the musical manner should be ignored. On the contrary, it is an essential basis. But pulse as a framework of time must be carefully and extensively experienced. Within the structures of musical measures there should be the beginning sense of time boundaries as qualities. The student should sense the reason for the choice of a 3/4 or 5/4, a 6/8 or a 2/4. The musicality they each represent. As there is musical musicality, so too there is dance musicality Within these time structures there are sensory qualified definitions and a time measure cannot or should not be chosen willy-nilly. By consciously participating in the time sensation, be it pulse or free, the dancer harnesses one of the universal forces.

Today the world speaks a new language. Painting, sculpture and music have found a new language and have produced eloquent, revelations of our new society. Dance has failed to do so. This is mostly because dance has failed to define itself in the new world. It goes on merrily with its boy-girl stories and still tries to make sense in dance what has already been very deeply imagined and illuminated in various forms of writing.

Painting, music and sculpture fairly quickly found its way into eliminating the literal representations and resorted to the dynamics of abstraction in color forms and relationships.

What can the dancer do? He can do what other arts have done; he can restudy the components of his art and discover their force as communicative powers. He must then rebuild his techniques to use these powers towards more contemporary ends. He will probably find himself back into the very beginning of dance history when dance avoided imagery and danced directly the magic of his art.

Just as the magic of painting is color and the juxtaposition of its relationships, so too the dancer can sensorily defines his motions and test the values of their relationship with other motions.

What are these motions or components that we must contend with, study and manipulate? There is one inseparable factor that dominates all motion and that is gravity.

The dancer has much more to learn from the comedian's pratfall than the scientific analyses of gravity. Although there is a relation between the action of Newton's falling apple and the dancer's descent to the floor, the dancer's acute and minute perceptions of the dominant effects of gravity on his action will serve him much more rewardingly than Newton's theory. So too with all the phenomenal visions of time, and space, momentum, centrifugal and centripetal force, the dancer must learn about and control these thru his bones, muscle, tendons, and all the sensory organs that provide him with the sentient knowledge and control of his actions. This he does not do thru principles of astronomy.

From the dancer's point of view thru his exploration of gravity there is a wealth of essential aesthetic skill available to him.

Branded upon my brain is a remembrance of a vaudeville act I saw when I was an early teenager. It involved three hoboes who stood very close together on stage. The whole act consisted of their drunken vagaries which caused them to very gradually capitulate to gravity in excruciatingly slow motion one at a time. Before anyone of them completely collapsed, one of the others pulled him upright only to begin his own descent. The control was so magnificently choreographed and performed it held the audience spell bound and seemed to me to be a great dance.

I have already spoken of Isadora Duncan's performances in Carnegie Hall in New York City. That particular dance was one in which she started prone on the floor and by gradually pulling herself from the earth she finally achieved her posture of a fully risen body with arms gloriously extend into upward infinity.

However gravity treated in these narrative ways is not the purpose of this exploration. We are searching for the sense derived thru abstract analyses rather than literal dramatic episodes.

Man stood upright, whatever were his reason for doing so. When he did so he entered into an architectural definition -- a commonly understood label we know as "vertical". This is also a label for a particular dimension -- "height". Height, or verticality has two directional definitions -- upward and downward.

In the process of motional study we must dissect and isolate the object of our study. Our senses are our scalpels. Thru these we streamline our experience. To analyze the basic sensations of downward and upward. In his process we can separate the negative behaviorism and then examine gravity on its own terms before it has become the instrument of sadness, moroseness, weakness and other submissive sensations.

Although this may seem a simplistic idea, just recall that the great art of ballet stressed to the physical limit the vertical passion of upwardness. On the other hand Isadora and modern dance generally utilized downward as well to extend their expressional interests. I was discussing these aspects of verticality with Buckminster Fuller. He reminded me that from an astronomical point of view there was no such thing as upward and downward. So you see the scientist's reasoning is by no means the same as the dancer's. But the dancer does not exist in the wild blue yonder but rather the down to earth reality of corporeal weight. Although the astronaut may float around in undefined directions in his space craft, the dancer contends most realistically with verticality based in gravity.

When we speak of upward or downward we are speaking of motion taking place in defined directions.

Our business is motion and the perception through our senses of the various qualities of action can be put immediately into practice.

In this aspect of motion we are involved in a phenomena which is peculiar only to this structure. This is, the fact of gravity.

We are searching now for an abstract knowledge of sense of gravity. Of all the motional laws there is none so powerfully drawn to literal interpretations as gravity.

Here we must return to realism. Our instrument is the human body. It has been subject to many bombardments of decadence. These have taken their toll upon it thereby wreaking a certain amount of havoc upon its physical stature.

Downward basically is a direction -- not an emotion. Yet we are so accustomed to associating downward to negative emotion and behaviors that it is difficult to sense downward simply as a motional act. At this time we must assume the dancer at least has an average ability to stand vertically. We can assume this until we can operate on the upward direction of his verticality.

Referring back for a moment to the statements in sensory perception to be reminded that the mind can refuse entree to certain perceptions so that it can illuminate another more powerfully. In this case we can disregard sensations of upward even though in the study of gravity we engage in that direction.

We would try to sense the motion as going away from downward rather than rising towards upward. This takes subtle control and sensibilities; but it is essential both from abstract as well as literal expressionism. To embark upon this exploration, the subtleties of motion must be entered into at the beginning.

The experiences can best be started by isolation and practice with the extremities (arms, legs and head). I usually begin these in the dancer's warm-ups (the modern dancer's floor work).

Because of gravity, verticality has far more complexities than the width or depth dimensions. Ultimately it is preferable to think of downward as a direction rather than a gravity dominated action. It is best to explore each on its own terms despite the fact that they are interwoven. Thru the delicacy of our sensory control we can filter out the sensation of one or the other, that is gravity as a sensation separate from downward as a directional interest. Because of the extraordinary power of gravity it is best to explore and gain knowledge and control of it first.

Our primary focus in this instance is the recognition of the complex control of weight. We have two words which suggest the oppositional points, concerned with, in this exploration. They are: Suspend (hang from) and Fall (drop, collapse). There is no difficulty with the words fall, drop or collapse. However there are some with the word suspend. Take the arm for example. In holding it vertically we do not actually suspend it. There is no marionette string or sky hook upon which it hangs. Instead, by a system of muscular leverages it balances itself in a vertical, upward position. To allow it to fall we must release all these muscular leverages so that the arm collapses into gravity. This opens up a large area of technical practices and exploration. Again we find the extremities the best body parts to begin with. You will find that at least 10% of the dancers are unable to release their muscle's tensions quickly. One good test is to hold out two arms as if to receive a package. Ask the student to lay an arm across your arms. Direct the student to release his muscles as you suddenly take away your support. Quite a few will be unable to do this sudden release until after repeated trials. This same test can be applied to legs, head and even to the trunk. Of course in the latter instance one must arrange that the capitulation to gravity does not end in physical harm. Sequential releases of various body parts is an excellent practice and can be pursued during locomotion with interesting motional results.

Although gravity is a directly downward force, it can be used effectively by aiming the downward capitulation into particular directions. This may result in swing; thus involving momentum and centrifugal force. Because these motional qualities should be studied later, emphasis upon them at this point will be withheld so that detailed performance can be pursued later.

Attention at this time should primarily be concentrated on instantaneous release to gravity. One difficult part is the release of muscular restriction in the hip joint. This skill is very necessary in leg exploration and practice. This too applies to the arm in isolating it for such practice. Release of different areas of the spinal column is also an essential practice. One area we usually generalize is the upper vertebra which supports the head. Here, release of muscles in the vertebra close to the skull is quite different from release of those joints deep in the neck area.

After this comes the return of the body part to verticality. Now then comes the judgement of weight and how much energy is used to lift a body part away from the weight of gravity. This needs to be felt to acertain whether or not excess energy is utilized. This generally causes undue tension. Undue tension overpowers sensitivity and the body part becomes wooden and without kinetic quality. However, here again, the activity of restoring vertical balance should avoid the sense of rise towards upward but rather the departure away from gravity. This is so that the sensation stays within the content of gravity acknowledgement and its role in education of body weight.

Despite the explorations of the wild blue yonder, the stratosphere, the space shuttle and the man on the moon our every day contention with space is basically with the horizontal plane. It is on this low level of space that man's friend, lover, enemy, stranger, and animal creatures exist. His awareness is so stressed in this level that he is less frequently aware of what is above him. Yet man's three dimensional occupancy of space requires, in archetypal thinking, a recall of the significance of overhead projection and sensory presence.

We have no problem with gravity and downward. Even here we can project thru the floor surface into space below. It was a theory of the German modern dance technique that from the waist downward the dancer should direct himself in that direction and from the waist upward to project into the space above. I prefer to shift that point and encourage upward projection from the floor contact, through the vertical body and penetrating upward into space. Thus the body as a whole, like the arm reaching upward, structurally erects itself, extending into the spatial area above.

In stressing upward experience and sensitivities we shift our sense of grain now. It is no longer a departing from gravity but actually a rising up without reference to downwards. Here again the finer sensibilities are employed.

Even if we descend we do not descend into gravity, but rather we depart from upwardness. In this instance there isn't weight but rather a continued sense of lightness even though descending.

This process of controlling directional sensitivity relates to our animalism. Through open pores and tactile alertness we can focus on specific directions of interest. It has been noted that the surfaces of the body that are relatd to the direction of our interest become more alert, warmer and sentiently more attentive to that direction, even though we may be going away from it. We may note that an arm descending may feel the weight of its descent or on the contrary, despite descent, feel the lightness of upward interest. This is just as it was described in the previous chapter on gravity that the ascending arm could seem to go upward away from gravity rather than just rising. However these subtleties might be best left to later controls and until after direct acccomplishment of ascent and descent are sentiently mastered.

Elevation it should be understood does not define itself as the joy of elation, and just as downward is a motion not an emotion so too upward is an action in itself having no specific reference to an emotion. We can qualify it later as an emotion which can be anything from elation to pomposity, to anger, to disgust, etc. In its initial study we want to feel its values on its own innocent terms devoid of emotional rules and regulations. It should be as innocent of literal meaning as the color green and red before they have been painted into asparagus and apples.

Upward energy is an elemental motional force.

In attempting to establish a standing stasis out of which our first dance action may occur we have entered into a morass of complexities. We have established gravity as an external power -- a power which can be utilized to manipulate an endless variety of motions. Obviously there are other external powers, such as pushing, pulling, lifting, etc. Then there are aerodynamics, and the many variations derived from this source.

These energy controls are difficult enough in themselves but add to these another major force, such as gravity, and the action becomes far more complex. For example, throw an object into the air. It will rise to a point where the energy of the thrust becomes exhausted. At that point there is the briefest moment of suspension as gravity takes over and forces are switched to bring it down to earth. Obviously gravity has been a part of the whole process. It has actually caused the slow-down, suspension and reversal.

The most rewarding practice at this moment is to determine the place and moment of suspension at which that point of equi-balance between upward and downward forces occurs, and to then hold that suspension point with a minimum of effort.

However, let's deal first with the external power of gravity and the internal psychical power of self motivation.

Complete capitulation to gravity (in-so-far as we are able to) brings us into a state of passivity and is best accomplished by a prone position on the floor. Gravity is an external form of energy which completely compels all body parts towards downward and towards passivity. Consequently any motion of the body must be accomplished by force outside of gravity control.

The most immediate source of this motion is the will of the individual. The mind in one way or another wills the body part or the whole to move. The strength of that will counteracts the gravity force and motion occurs. With the dance, it is the vitality of this will which generally characterizes his or her capabilities, although much more than this is involved.

Man seems to be endowed with an insatiable will to rise upward. All sorts of unsatisfactory scientific reasons are given for this but the dancer must be satisfied with the fact that he is of a particular height and his capitulation to anything less than this seems to deny his living stature. Obviously this means striving away from gravity. Consequently we have two major forces at hand; upward and downward, rise and fall, elevate and descend. Within these two simple directions of kinetic sensations, hundreds of metakinetic projections exist. I have written earlier about the art of ballet being devoted almost entirely towards the upward gesture, the illusion of gravity defiance.

Gravity energy is not complex. .It is simply a downward energy. Upwards energy or any energy causing action in any direction but downward is highly complex. It is made complex by the state of mind that controls its design. Consequently psychical energy is one of the major substances of dance. How it deals with gravity can determine where, how, why and when motion occurs.

The body as an instrument is mainly axial in structure and loaded with extraordinary sensory equipment. However, like a marionette whose strings have been cut it can be a tumbled mass of flesh and bones heaped upon the floor. It necessarily must capitulate to gravity unless some motivation causes it to rise, and to rise to its full potential height.

There is no motivation which science, anthropology, psychology and other ologies have found acceptable as to why man stood upright. The answers have ranged from "the better to reach a banana" to "the desire to emulate the phallus in erection."

At this point we must establish a beginning posture from which the dancer may depart into motion. The most convenient one is the posture of standing. Then we must describe the nature of stillness out of which motion is born.

Standing in stillness is no easy accomplishment. It is however a basic endeavor which needs to be accomplished. Definition of where one is, is an essential realization before proper departure from that place can be achieved.

In the early 1950's many choreographers became enamored of stillness. There was one notable performance when a choreographer assumed a posture with his partner. The curtain raised and then lowered after three or four minutes of barely perceptible action. One critic headlined his review then left three inches of blank space followed with his by-line. Some afficionados acclaimed this to be the most brilliantly written review written by this critic. Whereas other wags claimed the choreographer's creation the most profound of any of his work.

In scientific definition, stillness is labeled as inertia. However in the dancer's case this is far from true. We might call it either stasis or state of standing presence. Standing presence implies the dancer's awareness of existence in a defined space and time. Space and time are transpiring energies. To be present within them the dancer must conceive of riding with them. Somewhat like Alice in Wonderland he must move to his state of awareness to stay in one place.

Within his perceptions he must include the acknowledgement of the action of space and time otherwise they will out distance him and fall out of range of his immediate awareness. Part of his act of stillness is the balancing of his energies and perceptions, so that they ride upon time, neither exceeding it nor falling behind. The same is true of space. As one stands, there is the implications of range of perception in space. Involved here are the three dimensional radiations within the orbit of one's presence. Thus one stays alive to the happening of self in space and time. Stasis in this sense is multifocal.

The dancer stands open like an aeolian harp. As time and space pass through him leaving in their wake their nature which manifests itself upon the dancer's consciousness and upon his body. Resonating within and upon him, acoustically rebroadcasting their nature through his pores and the microscopic receptors of the flesh.

The quality of stasis in this sense is one of immediacy. As such it is specific. Immediacy in stasis means to perform stillness, communicating or performing the fact of presence; or a qualification of a nature of presence. The dancer, through imagination, so thoroughly imbues himself with presence that it will seem not only as if presence were transpiring but as if he also called upon the forces of nature to verify the condition.

Presence is not actually real. Fantasy is necessary to be drawn upon because the performer must fully will himself into this imagined state of presence. He must do this with such force that his undivided faculties are there and nowhere else.

Presence with its inherent immediacy is an abstract classically balanced state. Here the performer does not imagine an emotional state or a conditioned environment to achieve it.

Because the space surrounding the body serves as an atmosphere for the mind, there is to the human, in stasis, an implied volume far beyond the confines of his actual physical shape. Consequently he is capable of acheiving a dimensional size of greater proportion when his projected psychical volume is added to his corporeal dimension. Such dimension is, in effect, a psychical aura.

As a start in the practice of stasis we must conceive of a status quo out of which we may depart into action. The standing posture serves us best.

The inability to achieve presence in standing stasis can be due to an endless variety of both physical and psychical deficiencies. The physical ones, for the most part, can be corrected. This is so particularly if the psychological causes have disappeared, but the muscular habit remains. Physical habits can be corrected. But on the other hand if the psychological conditions are still active, then correction becomes much more difficult. However I have found that frequently, if the physical stance is corrected, it, in effect, leaves no room for the psychological detriment to house itself. If the psychological condition is not too severe it is likely that it will release itself and the physical slate will be cleaned.

When we conceive ourselves in the act of standing presence, we must be vitally aware of the space surrounding us. Our presence can be illuminated by the nature of the space around us as it both states and announces our presence.

The human body comes in all shapes and sizes; some tall and thin, others short and wide and so forth. But except for extraordinary deviations we can usually describe bodies somewhat roughly as, so high, so wide and so deep (meaning forward to back, not depth). We can say the same of a milk carton, a house or an ocean liner. However, these designations applied to the human body gives a simple vocabulary and a mutually understandable means to correct and add to the dancer's technique. The concept can also give us a means for many corrective processes that are required to bring about the dancer's full mobility.

But because the body is an axial instrument, without motivational strength it is likely to collapse. The external force of gravity is a downward energy. So the dancer, to remain erect is obliged to furnish an oppositional power, an upward energy to counteract gravity. We have here two directions of energy; downward, furnished by gravity and upward, furnished by the dancer. In other words, the dancer must project himself above the gravity pull. The dancer must imaginatively devise an upward force. He has a built in mechanism to accomplish this, This is an innate sense of well being, a spirit, a vitality, which he can utilize to accomplish this height. This need not be thought of as a mystical power but rather as a status quo which aids him in fulfilling his height dimension. This takes much more than the rigidity of a military posture of straightness. We refer again to the aura volume required of the body which in this case is the sensitivity to the space above him -- a realization of an area above him into which he must project himself to be aware and perceptive of the happenings above him.

This projection needs to be projected thru a particular body part which can most conveniently hold up the body skeleton. This is the sternum. (The head is self supporting). If the sternum does not fulfill this task then it is likely that the shoulders take over. When this happens there occurs a negative posture which will cause difficulties in the mobility of the arms. Most important is the projection of a vertical line which begins from the balls of the feet thru the legs, hips, chest and head and up into vertical space above the head.

At this point, the dancers should begin to sense body line. This is an imaginary line which does not exist until the dancer causes its presence by his performance vitality. The significance of the space above the dancer's head cannot be overemphasized. Failure in these instances causes that space to go dead and a great loss of kinetic projection results.

This height dimension is certainly one of the most significant ones to the dancer. If it is not given importance it is likely that gravity will take over and to the extent it does, there will be negative connotations to the dancing figure. The dancer must learn to use gravity as a push off and helpmate rather than an anchor and a detrimental force.

The dimensional concept does not stop at verticality. Horizontality also comes into significant play. For simple clarity one can refer to width and depth (forward and back).

Just as verticality has two motional directions so too have the other dimensions. Width involves sidewards right and sidewards left. Depth concerns itself with forward and backward.

In the stasis standing position all these directions are equalized. If any one direction becomes more powerful than another restraining tensions develop or the figure is pulled into that direction. It is the dancer's control of these multi directions that again contributes to his technical development.

In a vertical stance the dancer radiates equally in all directions. In locomotion, he then purposely releases his forces of radial energy to cause him to move in any direction including upward and downward.

We understand the direction of wind by the simple mechanism of the weather vane. The current of water, the rise and fall of tides are also mechanically computed. We comprehend the north and south pole by virtue of the earth's axis and east and west are thereby also ascertained. Some directional phenomena we discover by the use of scientific instruments. When we get into outer space certain concepts of space, such as up and down, no longer exist in the sense we understand it on earth. The astronaut's body can float in his vehicle oblivious to direction. But with feet planted on the earth the concept of "forward" to the Chinese, Eskimo, Frenchman and American are the same. The definition of direction to the human creature standing on earth is no big mystery. Yet the human's capacity to move clearly into defined direction is often bumbled to a point of ridiculousness.

Dance as the art of motion is among, other major things, the design of architectural directions. As a teacher I must devote much time to such technical controls because within them rests an endless multitude of aesthetic revelations. Obviously the simplest directional control is the act of progressing forward. Forward is an horizontal venture into space. As an example of how easily horizontal can be confused, in class I had a young student who was rather tiny and persisted when supposedly going forward to turn her head upward and looked into space several feet above the horizontal destination. It took me days to discover the reason for this discrepancy. The tiny young lady was an aspiring and talented organist who spent five hours daily practicing on a huge organ console, on which the music rack was set at a considerable distance above her head height. Five hours a day of such a visual exercise convinced her brain that such was the direction of forward.

Another incident of amusing directional confusion was during a lecture demonstration I gave at a college for men. I asked their head athletic coach to have five of his best athletes available for me to use in demonstration. They appeared with a slight attitude of amusement, embarrassment as well as a chip-on-the-shoulder behaviorism. I asked them to do what seemed very simple things always moving forward four steps, then changing direction, still going forward. With each change they were to look upward or downward. Within no time there was a confusing and hilarious mess of directional inaccuracies.

The common accord of body and mind is essential. A mind, intent on a vision not in agreement with the body's activity can only create confusion. However, it is also possible for the body and mind to be together in action but in disregard to its actual environment in space and time. Here the body coordinates with the mind but ignores its presence in the actual surroundings such as the performing grounds.

One may also have a coordination of mind and body but in an imagined environment; or an imagined state of mind in a real environment.

The performer uses many variations of combinations. However, his studio and technical practice, exists mainly in a state of real presence. The studio is usually the boundary in which he utilizes his focal orientation.

There is also a certain amount of fantasy necessary for the performer to fully will himself into the totality of presence, so that he is there and no where else. In other words in studio practice he wills himself to be totally present in the actual environment. This, in itself, requires a coordinated mental and physical discipline. In addition to this he will be required to enact certain motions and while engaging in them, his immediacy of will, will fulfill the action in its space and in its time. This action no matter how abstract is a combined psycho-physio dynamic event. This immediacy is either an invented or imagined state and not a normal one. This requires his skill of projecting his presence so strongly that the imagined reality becomes a reality. Although it may be referred to hereafter as actual presence and immediacy, they are in reality the performer's state of mind control which creates them and consequently they are an imagined state of realness.

In the bulk of technical direction and practice the major process is one of correction and practice of this performing presence. This particular process is an abstract classical balanced one. Here the performer does not imagine an emotional state or conditioned environment such as fear, hate, nostalgia, love or the like. It is a direct action devoid of any discrepancy in agreement between mind, body and environment.

The word emotion is a confusing one to use. All human motion is embodied with emotion for somewhere in the process there occurs a response to one's sensations which in turn causes decision and action. What we more commonly refer to as emotion is when there occurs degrees of inability to act as a direct result of sensory stimulation. This takes on overtones of frustration, discontentment or other forms of displeasure even to the extent of rage, fear, hate or more passive states of longing, nostalgia or the like. It may also be in a state of excessive pleasure passions, beyond the body's capacity to deal with them. This too will cause imbalances. The classical aspect of motion would be free of these conditions. Instead there would be coalescence between mind, body, environment, space and time, and consequently, a state of presence. In the dancer's classical practice of dance, it is this consonant behavior that, we will indicate as the performer's state of presence.

Within the three phases of motion (which we will later explore in depth) we find the first phase, that of passivity, stillness or stasis most significant to the concept of performer's presence. In this phase of stasis we are concerned with the dynamic state of the dancer's bulk, the corporeal instrument.

From a beginning point of view we must conceive of a status-quo out of which we may depart into action. The standing posture serves us best in this examination.

This posture them is not only a matter of physical dynamics but is rather one brought about by proper motivation related to space.

To the onlooker, this state is apparent in the manner in which the performer stands. It occurs in the textural tone of the body as a whole. A seemingly correct physical posture will not accomplish this by itself. It must have the illumination of the mind which then activates the fine detail that will not be present otherwise. On the other hand it may occur that the state of mind is correct for the event but the body fails to possess the thought. There may be a nonperformance of the thought due to physical weaknesses, nerves or muscles in a stupor or devious subconscious antagonism to the act.

Although the body is the house of the mind the environment also houses the mind. The space surrounding the body implies an additional volume to the human in stasis far beyond the confines of his actual physical shape. Consequently he is capable of a dimensional size of far greater proportion when this psychical volume in space is added to his physical dimension. It is, in effect, a psychical aura.

Since early civilization man has recognized an environmental or non-physical volume to man. Out of this emerged a multitude of expressions characterizing behaviorisms. Among these are phrases such as, "beside one's self","narrow minded", "shallow", "throws one's weight around", "big hearted", "small minded", "reduced to a pulp", "depths of despair", "bursting with joy", "self contained", "pull yourself together", "let yourself go", etc.

These descriptions are partly hyperbolic but also curiously real. We can say of the physical build of man that he is so high, so wide and so deep. We can also say in the non-physical sense, that he is a shallow person, one lacking breadth of concept, or he is high or low spirited. A wholesome man is well balanced in all directions. He is a well-rounded person.

Within these statements rest vivid concepts for dance and for corrective process as well. Both the body and the environment are instruments for the mind. The shapes man creates with them; their dimensional character, reveal the circumstance of that mind.

In technical practice one attempts to gain the skill of of the performer's presence.

The force of the mind in its environment reveals its life through the body. The body is the conduit between mind and space. Through its means the performer reveals his state of mind and environment. The body reveals the measurement of the mind in space. It does so by physical expansion or contraction. The greater the thought of height in space, the taller the body. And so too with other spatial projections.

The depressed mind recedes from participation in the environment and usually results in a contracted or depressed physical body. Or if the mind merely elects to descend, or recede for other reasons the body responds by releasing that part of the space not concerned in the desire. There is a relationship between sanity and sensitivity, and insanity and insensitivity. Sanity is related to a reasonable participation in an environment. This requires sensory perception of that environment and its consequence upon our experience. If once we recede, or "drop out", then reference is made to some earlier experience, not the immediate one, creating a mental enclave without continuity of full living vitality until the moment when contact with environment is reestablished.

The significance of this to the dancer, from a technical point of view, is his control and skill of manipulating the body as it reflects the mind's drive to relate to environment or space. Of greater importance is that the well spring of direct knowledge which fortifies the dancer comes from the experience of environment and the manipulation of both it and himself within it. This is so, even if he chooses later to deny the circumstances. Denying it is very different from ignorance of it. One has control of denial.

It is easy to conceive then how a dimension of mind can affect that dimension of the physical body which in turn causes a particular state of relationship to space.

In any event any misalignment in the vertical stance by any body part is visible. We can approach this correction by a method which refers to our ordinary language of dimension.

The body may be conceived roughly as a rectangular three dimensional bulk having height, width and depth. This rectangular form has a front, because of placement mainly of eyes, nose and mouth and sensitive areas of the trunk, which give a psychological determination to front and forward.

In height dimension there are two possible directions of dynamics: upward and downward. In depth, there are forward and backward. In width there are sideward right and sideward left.

These dimensions and directions now give us a relatively specific framework of reference not only to the physical form of the body but to its relative surrounding space. Because of the physical form of the body, as an instrument to the mind, we find the mind too, can be referred to in these dimensional terms.

At this point now we can begin to check on the performer's capability of agreement in these dimensions. That is, one can now question, does the performers concept of height in his mind agree with his actual physical state of height and its consequence in vertical spatial impression. At the beginning of training such agreement is rare. The other dimensions may be checked in the same manner.

The failure of agreement in one dimension usually takes a corresponding toll upon the others. A failure in height will affect width and depth as well.

Here then is the basis of a performer's abstract script, abstract, yet specific. Here is the beginning of a technical practice and endeavor to acquire the skill of matching or tuning the body and space to the mind.

Much more, too, rests within this concept of dimensional tuning, which will be extended considerably in later explanations. At the moment we are concerned with a status-quo, a selected neutral point from which specific measurement can be practiced. This neutral point is a standing stasis.

If we return for a moment to such an expression as "one is narrow minded", or "beside one's self", we can conclude that mankind has some concept of an ideal status-quo, which if we do not achieve, is discernable in our behavior and allows one to make such conclusions of a failure of character. It is obvious then that when the dancer, in perfecting his instrumentality, must achieve that idealism as a performer even if his final product is an exposure of various deviations from this attuned figure. More important, it is this unified accomplishment which introduces him to his full dynamic control.

Our search at the moment is for the dynamics involved in the standing stasis figure in terms of the ideal.

In this figure we strive for fulfillment of dimension, We avoid narrow vision, one-sided-ness and the like and search for wholeness. Wholeness implies in this case, the full projection of height, width and depth, by the mind and through the body into space. In terms of the performer it is full presence of mind, in a fully enlivened body, in a three dimensionally enriched space. At this point we may inject the fact that this full projection actually takes on a quality of radiation in all directions rather than just deep, high or wide ones. The dimensional terms are the most convenient to use as a framework of reference.

More needs to be explored in relation to the dynamics of the space or environment as it contributes to the performer's "presence". We may conceive of the performer's environmental dynamics as a psychical aura, that is, it is a volume of space affected by the mind of the person present in it. If one took a photograph of this space alone, avoiding the actual figure, the picture would be blank. However the performer when seen in space visibly projects the shape of this psychical aura into space. Whether there is an actual energy expelled from the individual is not determined.

We now know that light and sound reflections bombard the eyes and ears, heat and cold affect the skin surfaces, etc. Certainly a good portion of this illusion of psychical projection derives from the appearance of the body in a state of open sensory perception being used as a sounding board to these reflections and circumstances of the environment. Some of this aura illusion derives from the volume or extent of one's awareness. In any case, whatever this mechanism may include, at this time it is convenient to describe this aura volume as a projection even though it may be a receptivity to environmental reflection instead. The state of mind in practice of this spatial control is stimulated far more precisely by the thought of projection.

In effect then we can conceive of an active perceptional and or projectional aura surrounding the body as far into space as the assembly of senses can effectively penetrate. Our homespun phrases make more sense now for actually they refer to the non or malfunctioning of perceptions into certain directions or a stress in one direction at the unintended loss of perception in others.

Thus the dancer's perceptive exposure to environmental time-space is a significant qualitative element to his technical skill.

The idea of presence in the combined physical, psychical time and space can be somewhat literally computed in terms of dimension. In standing, there is no excessive urgency. All focal senses are arrived at with no one energy projecting beyond a normal condition of alertness. There is a sense of consonance in this achievement. We cannot say specifically what senses and consequently what perceptions participate in this act. It would obviously include sight, hearing, kinesthesia and tactile sensitivities. Despite our lack of knowledge of how we perceive space, direction and time we nevertheless know this act of presence must include an awareness of all of them. It includes many other senses as well. Senses which we are familiar with as well as those obscure ones about which we have no knowledge but are aware of. Because of our lack of knowledge regarding the specific contributions of these related senses, we can combine them all into one concept. Their union becomes a total coalition, contributing to presence in space.

There is no doubt that we live in a world today that demands a speed and fluidity of focus to participate to any degree with it. The human animal must now adapt to the habitat it has created for itself. To cope with this multifocused environment he must develop his multifocused facilities.

How can dance, so vividly visible in a psychologically dominated body, become the instrument of communication for such diverse forces of less than microcosmic to more than galactic dimensions? How can it transcend erotic-ladened gestures to represent forces beyond the eye? Painting, sculpture and music were potentially well suited for such a change into visual and aural abstraction. These arts were able to proceed without difficulty into their new contemporary visions.

But for the arts dominated by the exhibition of the human body, it was not so easy. The method for success was, by the use of choreographic and performing slight of hand, to distract the onlooker's eye away from the performing ego and the physical reality by making the body the instrument of other visions.

This process of shifting the onlooker's attention is one of decentralization. By this I meant the process of focusing one's dynamic force away from the self and egocentricity and allowing it to reach out and bring into control other variable concerns. This process presented a hornet's nest of difficulties. The idea of decentralization, invariably caused resistance, but perhaps by this way the dancer can achieve a basic discipline applicable to all forms of modern dance.

I recall an interview in which the reporter asked me about my outer space theatrics. We were sitting in a restaurant atop a skyscraper, and I told him to look out the windows. A celestial canvas of stars, moon and aeroplanes merged into the surrounding buildings, which, like the sky, were also dotted with glowing lights. Streaks of traffic lights merged with a cacophony of horns which accompanied the choreography of dark masses of people, flowing through paths in a multitude of directions. I told the reporter about my company performing in front of the antique temple of Bacchus in Baalbeck, in full moonlight the night the astronauts landed on the moon. I could see an endless stream of cars enroute from Beirut crawling up the long hill to Baalbeck. Periodic announcements about the moon landing were made during the dance intervals. There in front of the Roman Temple in the presence of a multitude of audience, my own visual concepts were magnified.

But the dimensions of time and place were even more exploded after our performance. We returned to our hotel, a small hotel in this tiny town of Baalbeck, amidst the gargantuan Roman ruins. In the guests' lounge we watched on television the first landing on the moon. I ran outside and stared up at that distant golden orb. My eyes filled with childhood visions of cheese and an old man with puffed cheeks, whose golden-white glow now cast moonshadows over the hoary Roman ruins. I ran back to the TV set and there were the astronauts doing slow motion jetes on a pockmarked surface inches thick with dust. I thought wistfully there would never again be a moon of cheese, or that jovial old man, just thousands of square miles of haunting, moonscaped loneliness.

The New York City multidimension of time and place below us was vividly apparent. The reporter reluctantly accepted this comparison to Baalbeck, but I don't believe he looked at his world, as I did mine and it was also difficult for him to comprehend his presence in a multi-dimensional environment. I don't think he realized he was part of the panorama, and that he had the skill to transform himself and become any part of it if he chose.

His next question was why did I choose to do such unnatural movements. This floored me. I began to think -- what is a natural movement? Unfortunately all I could come up with was bowel movement. At this moment I felt the thought was appropriate. I had a bright idea. I asked him if he liked ballet. He replied he adored it. I then asked if he thought dancing on the tips of one's toes in a steel-supported shoe was natural. He was perplexed and aghast. He never thought of that. I am always wary of people who bandy about the word "natural" so passionately.

Probably the most ridiculous incident in relation to this subject was an experience I had with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. A film was being made on the meeting of Gemini V and VI in outer space. I was asked by the film editor to create an electronic score for it. I watched all the rushes taken during this fantastic flight and agreed to create a score. After it was finished, the film editor took it to NASA for approval. He brought back word to me that they found the electronic score unacceptable: "It was too far out."

I realized that many people were unaware of the times in which they lived. Even as with NASA, their fantastic contributions to this vision of Time-Space dimension never wholly seemed to have occurred to them.

The kind of life participation demanded by our present time in history requires multidimensional foci. Through new inventions in travel and communication, we are transported and often hurled into seemingly unrealistic time-space experiences. We might sit passively in the Concorde or in front of our TV watching the space shuttle take off and land. At the same time we are haunted by a primitive fear of death and destruction, not only by a knife in the back, but by the threat of a nuclear holocaust. Our sensitivities swing constantly from in to out.

A constant state of pulling in, of centralization can be a refuge from this megalomythic whirlwind, but when it dominates all our responses it becomes as unreasonable as choosing New York City in which to live like a hermit. To participate in the knowledge of our time decentralization becomes necessary and that means extending out of our center, to decentralize.

Decentralization has offered us a huge advance in our freedom to experience. It also offers us little security but an abundance of thrilling unanchored adventures.

But first there was the phoney sacrosanct fixation about the violation of the body. This is a religious and sexual fixation rather than an actual fact.

The strongest force in centralization is egocentricity, and the strongest force in egocentricity is sexuality; therefore I felt it necessary in a classroom situation to break this down first.

Polarizing the male and female I felt was unreasonable. The act of greater masculinity and greater femininity stem from the long defunct need to increase society. Human behaviorisms in this respect are as forced as hot house flowers. The design of behaviorism, clothes, occupation, etc., are all capitulations to the outmoded gender role. The practice of this also increased the power of egocentricity.

Stripping down dance technique to a non-machismo and non-weak femininity state begins to reveal dance as an art. The battle of the sexes is no longer the essential, or only subject, for dance.

Breaking down the polaric distance between the male and female brought me to utilize unisex costuming (1953). This also allowed greater freedom in assigning roles in the dances. In most cases the male and female roles could be interchanged. From that point to this day I have rarely singled out the sexes.

Relieved of the overemphasis of sexual behaviorisms, dance could concentrate more intensely upon the motion itself. Motion itself could more easily become the subject rather than the adjective or predicate of dance. In working from this perspective, the most positive reaction was the emergence of a stronger definition of dance. With dance as the art of motion, one is immediately freed from literal subjects. Motion is no longer the servant of the individual, but becomes the master. The medium becomes the message.

The mind and body contain vast stores of knowledge, much of it predating the birth of the individual. This knowledge is the well-spring and major force in the shaping of the individual's life and the nature of his primary behaviorisms. It is a constantly flowing force. Automatismic dance is an affirmation of the existence of this art force.

However, what this force is remains undefined, despite the many confusing and conflicting explanations, practices and experiences which permeate the metaphysical jargon of myriad cults, religions, mystical and philosophical beliefs.

If life is motion, then motion must be the life force. The force derives from an undefined vault of life information from which, if one develops the necessary facility, one can make selections from this life knowledge and reveal it through a medium or combination of media. Whatever else it might be, the content of this life stream is unique to the individual. Like a mountain stream, although its water is water its content varies according to its source and of the various substances carried in it, all of which are gathered from the landscape through which it has travelled. This content extends in knowledge far beyond the actual life span of the individual. Flowing into a genetic memory bank, the life encounters of the individual very often throws all sorts of obstructions into this stream, causing deviations, dams, overflows, diversions into tributaries, pollution and stagnation.

I watched carefully as I direct class activity. The process was to implant a motivation and then to examine very carefully the route to the outcome. After summating the results, I initiated corrective activities to clear the path of psychical interference or unresponsive body parts -- all very simple as an idea but discouragingly difficult in achieving. The centralizing "me" factor is extraordinarily powerful, and performers are reluctant to relinquish the exhibition of self in favor of the act. The "me" was always prominent.

In searching for a new technical approach I gradually developed my definition of dance. I also began to conceive of a new creative direction for myself.

The major objectives in my new exploration were identifying the role of the dancer and the nature of his motivation. Then followed the search for the manner of teaching and developing this technical ability of the body as the instrument.

Unlike painting and music, the dancer bears with him a potent force in the literal presence of himself. It is not only his physical presence, but also his psychical force and the strong tendency to force his psychical presence upon the onlooker.

The more closely I tried to observe motion of the body, the more impatient I would become with the ego intrusion upon the action. I found myself trying all sorts of devices trying to eliminate or at least minimize the ego dominance.

The German theories lent themselves well here, particularly the Laban concepts of dimension, which were mostly serviceable in the correctional process. Like Laban, I conceived of the body as a three-dimensional entity empowered by the mind. Looked at this way, a simple abstract motivation such as forward, backward, up, or down quickly revealed dereliction of any body part, or the whole body to fully engage itself in the event. Mannerisms, negative idiosyncrasies, timidities, aggressiveness, and all other hindrances in executing the act were quickly revealed, and corrective processes were initiated. The Laban theories were precise ones of centralization out of which there were specific architectural radiations. Despite this centralization it partly furnished a fine corrective basis for technical study. Its precise architectural devotions revealed very clearly the students inadequacies in controlling the union of intent and achievement. Consequently it offered a discipline which lent skill to executing the varied dynamics of decentralization.

Notation also was a great aid to looking at motion objectively rather than subjectively. Consciousness and clarity of dance structure was increased.

By this time the Henry Street Playhouse which housed my school for twenty years was attended by hundreds of children to be taught dance. The four to eleven year olds accepted and were enchantingly eloquent in their creative experiences. Goldilocks and the Bears were not essential. These youngsters who were not yet in puberty and not bugged by sex, found no difficulty in exploring abstract motion as an event on its own merits and subjects for dances. Their direct doing helped insure me that the automatismic gesture still existed within us however sophisticated our society had become. Children before puberty have no problem in being involved in abstraction and non-literal things. Puberty is the classroom of centralization and sexual fixation from which many do not graduate.

Relieving oneself of centralization allowed motion, free of its bondage to the psyche, in the literal sense, to open up a vast new area of metaphoric expression. Clearly this was my path to travel. I found this new world of extended dimensions, beyond the seeing eye, was truly a contemporary world to be experienced on its own terms.

Eventually my conclusion was that the message existed in the motion itself. My definition of dance was now fixed. Dance is the art of motion -- not emotion, and it carries its own intelligence within itself.

In 1953 we presented our first concert in this new vein of releasing the focus from self and self image. It was called "Village of Whispers." It was composed of many pieces -- group works, solos, and duets -- which were prepared in composition classes. The main suggestion was those images which rested beyond or behind the facade of a village.. The titles were Glade, Creech, Dark Corner, Styx, Hex, Gemini. Tournament, Tensile Involvement, Evil Eye, Monarch, Lorilei. The endeavor in this work was concisely summated by the new York Times Dance critic John Martin, who visited the Playhouse to observe classes and rehearsal. His wife Louise, a teacher of Boleslavsky method of acting , made a comment to him which I did not hear. He replied, "No dear, Murray (Louis) is not someone in a dark corner -- he is the dark corner." And so it was with all the events on this concert. It was an attempt to enact the entire statement in the structure and not pursue it through characterization or situation. Its concept, therefore, was much more in the musical than the theatrical sense. I was fully aware that this process was a familiar one in acting. But there it was a device to develop characterization and my attempts were to clarify abstraction and abstract choreography.

But I was not wholly satisfied with the dancers' success in decentralization, which was just being things other than themselves.

This first step of decentralization refuted several early theories of motion that had their origin in the region of the solar plexus. With these new realization one could place the origin of force on any surface of the body, even a pinpoint of flesh. Such a concept quickly developed into a new potential of motional coloration. Its main advantage would release the choreographer/dancer from the centralized gut pain which strongly chained the dancer and the subject to character and situation.

Decentralization raised praise and interest but also equal amount of negative response from the establishment. The criticism came particularly from those whose self-identification with the dance archetype found no peg upon which to hang their own ego.

Cries of "dehumanization", "coldness", "puppetry", and "mechanicalness" arose. The outcries are reminiscent of the early days of abstract painting. With no figurative or representational vision as a portal into the understanding of the painting, persons with literal minds and with low Rhorshak response failed to get the message. Abstraction requires a multifaceted and lively frame of reference from both creator and viewer alike. Depth of aesthetic perception is measured by the degree to which one responds to the abstract. The detail and summation of the abstract components in a work aesthetically defines the quality of a work. One can be educated to perceive structure yet not be sensitive to the creators qualifying substance, which validates the choreographic form.

In this vision of decentralization, the less aesthetically oriented person is left in a dither because the obvious external form, the personality presence, is subdued.

Unfettering the force of dance from its centralization allows the smallest kernal of force to appear on any point in or on the body surface. It could also cause a force to arise from any source in the space surrounding the body. It was not a matter of eliminating the center but of relocating it to other parts of the body or other points in space.

No one art, compelled by a socio-dynamic force, is alone in seeking out a new venture. Music for hundreds of years had developed a highly sophisticated technique on the basis of tonality. Music, like dance, started without regimented pattern. The sound, innocent of preordered form and dependent upon its direct impact, was the magical thing. It was undoubtedly as innocent as the cry of pain before the word "Ouch" was invented. Symbolic representation removed the event from primal utterance into the practiced "How Now Brown Cow" stage and pressed sound into a formal protocol. The major formalization revolved around the creation of a musical "Do," the first tone of the diatonic scale. The "Do" became the pivotal point around which harmony and melody evolved. It was in a sense the egocentric vortex. It was the magnet to which all the ensuing events related. The well tempered scale arising out of the "Do" then gave rise to complex rules of harmony and melody. Developed over centuries, it served the art nobly until the vitality of the system as a contemporary expression no longer sufficed. It had a Rolls Royce elegance, but could not take to the air, let alone outer space.

In the early part of the turn of the century, attempts were made to break away from this system. Schoenberg was a notable example. His twelve tone musical technique allowed a greater choice. The tonal scale, consisting of twelve half-tone pitches, as in the old system, progressed in ascending sequence. Schoenberg devised a system whereby a scale could be formulated using the twelve notes but not in ascending sequence. One invented his own progression and relate his melody and harmony upon that structure. The system was labeled "Atonal". It was anticentric but still bound to the twelve well-tempered notes. In this way it conformed to the structure of Western Instruments and system of notation. It was in effect a new tailoring and style on an old structure.

Also during this period there were attempts to adopt the scale of exotic and antique cultures. The need to break away from the tonal system was strong, but not until "Music Concrete" was there a complete freedom from relying upon earlier structures. Music concrete was the theory of making music from a choice of any sounds capturable by the human ear: from the clanking of automobile spare parts to the roar of planes: from cricket chirping to crowds in riot. Here, as in my theories of contemporary dance, the selection was unique; the entire responsibility of choice and arrangement was left to the creator. Nothing was pre-orderd or arranged. This took a new kind of ear both in the creating and listening. Just as in contemporary dance, there was a lack of known patterns which usually gave the unadventursome a foothold into the new creation. No map or guideline existed. The listener was totally on his own. With the advent of tape music and its potential for manipulation, another large contributor to the evolution of music appeared. Now the demand upon the listener became essential, and challenging.

Painting, too, showed a similar development. From using a center as the dominant focal point of interest the new creations burst from any a central point and equalized the visual force to cover the whole canvas; the corners and sides became as significant as the middle, and one looked with equal interest upon the entire surface.

Accepting such a principle of decentralization does not necessarily mean abandoning completely the centric event. The idea extended choice and release into a new area of dance experience.

NOTE: This extension is apparent particularly in the works of Murray Louis, whose total training was in this area. This is apparent mostly in his solo choreography where his ability to grain his motional concern, fluidity throughout his body is remarkable. He rarely devotes himself to decentralization, yet in his centric work his range and detail of action are always evident and is almost always noted by dance writers. In my own case I vacillate frequently between the two highly different points of view. Yet it is when I am strongly in a decentralized vein that the reaction of the onlooker is most absorbed or disturbed.

In releasing oneself from bondage to the centric self, a vast arena of life stuff is made accessible. In the act of decentralization, the archetypal figure is abolished. Motion is no longer a secondary event which functions as an explanation of that archetype.

In the concept of decentralization, motion does not explain other things -- it defines itself. In a sense, it returns to the primal automatismic motion, but on a new plane of life stuff.

Only when one is released of centralization is one more completely aware of an infinite environment. Decentralization is a flexible network of itineraries into this vastness.

With personality and ego made transparent, the dancer now is able to merge into an environment of which he is a part. He finds himself a functioning kinsmen rather than a dominating dweller within. Space is not just a hole in which to kick into or spin about, it is an architecturally fluid companion. Time is not a metrical reiterated beat to discipline the dancer's step. It is, rather, a malleable measurement adapting itself to the shaping of the art subject, flowing with its needs rather than forcing the action into rigid, metrical guidelines. Motion becomes the stuff of the human structure not a classical decorative posture or a skillful movement cadenza decorating the figure.

Shape is not just a static attitude or pose. It transcends its literal function to become whatever vision the choreographer proposes. It can become a mobile calligraph.

I am well aware that the practice of decentralization seems to contradict the very core of personal assertion and even to practice it. Performance, after all, makes a high demand upon the human ego. Yet the artist must go beyond himself. The great performers must often transcend themselves and live within the substance of someone or something else.

In decentralization he goes even beyond this point. The head often may not be a head, or the arm an arm. They may give up their identity totally to place themselves at the service of something that has no resemblance to their physicality but by the magic of motion illuminate the poetic substance of some other thing even a non-thing.

Shaking off the shackles of the fleshy identification, the body may become the eloquent motional spokesman of all things within the reach of man's most mystical visions. He may then inform us of things beyond ordinary vision and comprehension and tell us of the wonderment of life itself beyond any visions previously felt or observed, or even beyond vision itself.

Painting can tell us of this through color; sculpture through three-dimensional form and music through sound.

However, only dance can tell us of these things through motion -- motion channeled through the limitless, fantastic orchestrational capabilities of the human body.

One of the methods to achieve this transformation is through graining.

We speak of grain in wood. This indicates a channel of force or power which shows the life direction of a tree or the bough of a tree. The human body also produces grain however in a much more complex way. It is somewhat like an electrical power which the mind produces to fortify its directional thought. It is one of the more complex mechanisms of the body. It is capable of giving aesthetic colorations to kinetics without which motion would be somewhat bland. We can pursue a study of grain thru utilizing a mime problem. Suppose we are in a famished state of hunger. A bowl of delectable food is set in front of you. Obviously the grain of the entire body is directed and drawn towards the food. However the strongest grain is in the face; particularly in the area of the mouth. Now suppose there is a restriction placed on your eating the food The grain towards the food would still exist but certain grains on the body would appear in opposition. The nature of the grain would depend upon the circumstances of the restriction. These could be hundred fold -- dietary restrictions, indigestion, guilt of sharing, etc. These communications would be accomplished by control of the graining process.

Now to abstraction. To illustrate graining, if we held a drawing of the body on a paper horizontally and peppered it with metal granules and then put a magnet underneath the section of the right wrist, all the metal granules would radiate directionally towards that point. These evidences of grain fundamentally control qualities. They need not be mimetic but rather controlling qualifications. Using the arm for example; an arm reaching straight forward can only be a dead sign post unless it is imbued grainwise with forward vitality. Now the same arm in the same position can grain downward or upward instead of forward. It is the same in motion; one can lift the arm but grain downward; thereby calling attention to the space below. One can see now that in the effort of ballet to give the impression of weightlessness the dancer would have to grain upward despite the force of gravity. On the other hand a wish to give downward the quality of excessive weight; then one would have to add downward grain in excess of the normal weight.

One thing that must also be made clear is that grain does not actually have physical circuitry. The force travels thru space as well as the body nerves. It can project itself thru space or into the body, however one chooses to direct it. Consequently it is one of the main controls of abstract qualifications of motion and should be explored to the fullest possible extent.

Permeating the entire scheme of motional dynamics are the twins of power: time and space.

Space is the blankness of area. Emptiness -- the vacant life canvas ever available for content. In macro-cosmic terms it is infinite and structureless. In lesser terms, it is generally measurable when a point of reference is visible; a projected linear boundary or an enclosed volume. A dot in space can be near or far. What is beyond it is farther. That which is beside it is either close to or distant from. When boundaries qualify the space then we may begin to identify the shape of space. It may be circular, square, oblong, triangular, or three dimensionally, a sphere, a cube, a pyramid. Space is characterless until relative reference is possible, like time which too has no identity until there is a consciousness of reference to it. Yet in a mysterious way both space and time play havoc upon life by virtue of their both being major canvasses upon which all living reference is made. Each is relentless in the sense of its continued presence, whether or not consciousness of them exists. We age and deteriorate whether or not we count our hours or years. It is not that time ages us. It merely measures the temporal continuity of our deterioration in relation to human and personal sociodynamics. Although we might accuse it of wreaking the havoc of longevity, it is merely an innocent cavity in which we measure our span of vitality. We conceive of space and time as forms to be measured. Describing what happens within them however does not describe them. Description mostly furnishes adverbs and adjectives. Even when the description becomes a noun, such as a square or sphere, these indicate the nature of the boundary -- not what the boundary contains.

Still our reactions to space and time can be definite -- and qualifiable.

Both are measurements or sensations of relativity existing in many different dimensions and forms. We understand them mainly through a recurrent pattern of happenings or of boundaries occurring either in nature or in artificial structures made for the convenience of reference. In nature we have the rise and set of the sun and our natural environment. In artifice we have the clock and yardstick. We have the recurrent breath and heartbeat. We have the presence of the corporeal body occupying its volume in space.

Dance is commonly defined in dictionaries as rhythmic movement, implying that rhythm is an essential ingredient. This is the usual "quicky" definition and its implication are incorrect and misleading.

Although rhythm is understood as a regular recurrence of emphasis, it does not necessarily mean mathematical exactness of time spacing. However, even in this freer term of definition it is questionable whether rhythm as such is an essential ingredient in dance.

In musical terms rhythm usually implies the regular recurrence of an emphasis during a regular succession of pulses or beats. A pulse is simply real or implied division of time of any duration just as an inch or a foot or a yard is in linear measurement. In sound an emphasis on every second pulse implies a two rhythm; one on every third implies a three rhythm. Rhythm or meter, therefore, implies a recurrent blocking of pulse beats.

Music's tradition and use of notation has long ago set a system of time analysis and writing which dance relied upon heavily. This is firmly imbedded in dance tradition because of the interrelationships of the two arts in the historical development of both. Dance has long been the slave of this musical system which actually is devised for the ear rather than the eye.

Rhythm implies recurrent emphasis, mathematically precise or not and we may seriously question whether or not such dynamic recurrence is essential to the definition of dance.

For decades music has been trying to relieve itself of this somewhat primitive limitation as has dance within the last decades.

Both dance and music are reevaluating their concept of time and experimenting in new areas which cannot be described, notated or conceived in terms of the traditional sense of rhythm of music. As there is musical time there is also dance time.

The art of painting and sculpture, both sight arts, have always had their own implications of rhythm. Although these are not temporal arts such as dance and music, their freedom in dynamic interpretation of time can be applied to dance and extended into actual temporal concepts. This is now in the process of development and use, but perhaps not so consciously realized in visual terms as it may ultimately be.

As dance reevaluates its concepts of time, the consequent construction of choreography becomes based upon a sense and perception of time rather than in the mechanical beat and rhythm.

The musical system of time analysis is fairly elastic and purposely far less mathematically precise than is usually implied by the insistent metronomic associations we make to it.

There have been some scientific experiments which have revealed that often the great musical artist takes more freedom in time within the mechanical boundaries than the stilted academic performer who does not stray from mathematical precision.

Time, for the artist, is basically a sense and perception of change or evolution. Thus when there are no sensations or realization of change, monotony, doldrums, lethargy, rest, peace, quiet, relaxation and the like, we feel that time passes all too slowly. And at the opposite pole, of course, perceptions of quick change alters our sensation of time in terms of linear speed. All this computes itself in relation to a universe of happenings which we guided by temporal phenomena about which are still known very little.

Even within the human body there are constant evolutionary changes brought about by biochemical as well as psycho-physiological change. Even in this we retain a degree of control as the Yogi may govern heartbeat and metabolism to achieve the minimum of change required for continued life. The mathematical computation of all these relationships of time are far too vast and subtle to document or to practice within the confines of a beat or rhythm.

The dancer whose skill demands his control of time, is left either with a mathematically incomputable morass of time happenings or with the dubious comfort and meagre esthetic result of metronomic measurement.

Dancers are dependent upon their ability to sense time. We operate on faith for little is known scientifically about our manner of sensing time. We do not know whether or not there are actual organs or coordinations of organs which allow us this perception. We know only that we do perceive the progress of time -- some more acutely than others.

Time to the human mind is one of the aspects of change of evolution. As such, it is a sensation. But although we speak of a "sense of time," we are as yet unable to explain, except in very general terms, precisely what sensory organs contribute to this perception.

We know animals and insects have such time perceptions, that a bird can migrate and arrive at its destination with amazingly accurate schedule. Perhaps in the process of evolution man may have obscured this sense to some extent, and the artist must reassert its function to that quick point which enables him to adjudge to the fraction of a second the exact moments of time evolvements.

We ride the time of nature. The human being carves time spans within a time-band permitted him by his powers and invention. Yet each individual has his own variance within that span. So too each object and element in nature carves its own unique time-space volume. Man has the facility to perceive this and evaluate it through his empathetical and meta-kinetic powers. Because we ourselves have the power to create fictional time-space we can metaphorize almost anything in nature, including mankind.

The artist is a specialist in sensation and perception and the artist dealing more directly with time must sharpen his time wit to the highest degree.

A dancer may expect more artistry from a sense of time than from a skill of rhythm. It is paradoxical that the latter makes for the broadness of generalization -- the former for specifics. A sense of time lends semantic dimension impossible in strict rhythm.

Isolating and manipulating time as an experience to be felt and remembered becomes an illusive problem. We customarily associate time with an audio or visual boundary. Most often the boundaries become more evident than what transpires between them. As there is a difference between time and motion -- so there is a difference between time and pulse. Consequently the practice of accurate metronomic pulse does not necessarily create sensitivity to time itself -- time is not pulse, meter or rhythm. These are designations of measurement. The substance of what is measured is not necessarily revealed by the measurement itself. Two miles does not describe the journey. An inch of string is not the same as as an inch of wire or wood or copper. The supposed attributes of "I've got rhythm" may mean only that -- and that is insufficient for the artist.

The artist is constantly concerned with a reality which he in turn must recreate into a vision or illusion. Out of the reality of time the dancer must recreate the illusion of it as a dimensional substantiation of, his subject.

Beginning with reality we are faced with the difficult creation of immediacy -- that is, to place ourselves actually and wholly within the transpiration of the immediate happening.

We return to that enlivened act of stillness where, so that we may be still, we place ourselves within the ongoingness of time, like a thing floating in the current of a stream. In this case we are a sentient thing, aware of its speed by virtue of our keeping acknowledged pace with it -- with no temporal anxieties of what's ahead or behind it. Here there is no time segment, pulse, meter or rhythm -- only the horizontal transpiration of time. This is the essence of dance -- a sustained lyricism without interruption of dynamic emphasis -- lyricism in stillness -- lyricism to achieve the purest sense of change, continuity and evolvement.

The implications of this act are considerable. When we say that in this instance, we stand sentiently alive within the ongoingness of time, we mean we stand upright, totally in definition of mankind, for to be sentient to this happening we must fulfill every molecular particle of our being in terms of all the primal energies out of which man defines himself.

Any action out of this immediacy places the dancer in a state of relative time. Being on the current of the time stream either going faster or slower than the stream itself. It is within this new relativity of time that other definitions may occur. Here begins the drama of life -- the operation and happenings of all things as they manipulate phenomena towards their needs and ends.

We become aware that many different clocks operate. We slow the clock of the ear to intensify the time of sight. We stay the urge of hunger to reach a different sensation. We reverse speeds to equalize. Perhaps there is never a moment when all our clocks are in agreement. As our needs arise, our perceptions are intensified within the particular senses allied to those needs.

At this point of social history we find demand for more sentient experiences. Painting becomes sculpted. Sculptures move. Moving things add sound. A total theatre art involving more sense participation is increasingly evident. Perhaps our age of communication illustrates to us that reportage from only one sense does not offer as much substantiation as the combined reportage of several.

Space is that in which time evolves. Time is the essence of change -- not time in the traditional metrical or clock sense but in its relentless, uninterrupted, lyrical, monotone of flow. Although we may chop it up in our minds, its evolvement is constant. Through time we have the fact of space which offers us a limited liberty to shape that time to our needs. Our bodies are privileged to carry out some of this shaping of time in space. Our dreams shape space and time beyond the capacity of the body. Our inventions in space travel extend us physically into other remarkable time possibilities.

We rhythmatize time so that we may better comprehend its evolvement. That time itself is of rhythmical essence is certainly not within the scope of our contemporary knowledge of time.

We are privileged to speed ahead or slow down in time. We may retreat into past time. We may vacillate between advance time and past time -- our memories store past times which we may choose to delve into, alter or mix at will.

Dance is a temporal art. It exists in the performer's skill to alter the time of now, to recreate any time conceivable and necessary to illuminate that thing which he wished to expose in the now.

Time is the dancer's most vital tool, for only through and with it does action becomes computable.

The inspection, study and analysis of anything requires one to place one's self in some area of sensory reception as the thing to be studied. Time is one of the most illusive abstract factors and how one studies it from the point of view of sharpening one's perception of it is not a matter of precise knowledge (although there is the everlasting practice of rhythm). We know that the fine artist has an acute sense of timing which often gives him the liberty to ignore mathematical precision in favor of a richer and usually uncomputable use of time evolvement in his performance.

Unless the experience of time has some form, the security of the event is lost. We would not have any realization that it happened in the first place.

However if we think of this elastic definition of time from the point of view of its study, we are left with an undefined time limbo into which we will place the student with little hope of tangible results. The other choice is to set a boundary -- a time limitation -- a segment of a kind of time to be tasted. But since time consumes itself, the practice of repeated tasting of the same segment is essential in order to sharpen one's impression of it.

I spent the entire period between 1957-'58 exploring time. What constituted fast, what was the sensation of slow. The how of how long was a stop and the when of when did one begin again. All practiced and sensed for their own sentient identity.

On one concert I had a remarkable experience. I set three black panels across the center of the stage. In front of each I had focused a spotlight with a filter that eliminated the usual afterglow when switched off. Each light was individually controlled within a rigid time structure in which the choreography also occurred. After the curtain rose a single figure was illuminated in the center panel. The light was shut off. It went on again illuminating the same figure in the same attitude. Again a black-out. Now in the dark the figure dashed to one of the end panels where that light revealed him again in the same attitude. Again black out and within three seconds revealed another male dancer in the same posture as the first but in a different colored unitard. Then continued an appearing and disappearing game using these same devices. Replacing dancers in dance attitude but in different color and ultimately changing attitude. Finally I added motional motifs. It was interesting to note that one critic remarked that in the ballet consisting of eight pieces, this one was only one in which kinetics were foremost. What she did not know was that in this particular segment the dancers for most of the piece were rarely seen in actual motion. The piece succeeded in destroying the common concept of time. Here I created a false illusion of time which suited my choreographic intent. It was as if the time barrier had been broken. In talking later with the Gestalt psychologist Rudolph Arnheim he mentioned an experiment he had made. In a completely darkened room he placed three people, each with a shielded light. They pressed their lights on but never at the same time as the other. Onlookers were invited in for their reactions. Their unanimous reaction was that these were in reality only one light which darted around with great speed.

I do not mean by these examples that in dance training the musical treatment of time in the musical manner should be ignored. On the contrary, it is an essential basis. But pulse as a framework of time must be carefully and extensively experienced. Within the structures of musical measures there should be the beginning sense of time boundaries as qualities. The student should sense the reason for the choice of a 3/4 or 5/4, a 6/8 or a 2/4. The musicality they each represent. As there is musical musicality, so too there is dance musicality Within these time structures there are sensory qualified definitions and a time measure cannot or should not be chosen willy-nilly. By consciously participating in the time sensation, be it pulse or free, the dancer harnesses one of the universal forces.

In dealing with space, it would be best not to think of it as an invisible void, but rather as an alive, vivid canvas. Vibrantly with sound and light waves, and bombardments of invisible particles. The way a swimmer would think of carving through water, a dancer thinks of carving through space. Through his imagination the dancer makes this invisible matter of space a tangible material which he can form and mold and texturize.

It is from this volatile matter that we will deliberately created and manipulated space shapes, and carve out boundaries. Thru this matter we will clarify our directions, and with it make shapes appear and disappear.

Very simply we can demonstrate this by a gesture of the arms in describing something as being "so big". Here the arms form a space boundary or a suggestion or projection of a space boundary which indicates three dimensional size. In basic dance, of course, the space so indicated is abstract. That is; the shape it forms does not represent a literal thing but instead, it manifests a dynamic architectural value in terms of itself.

Space can also be manifested by its use as a canvas upon which linear designs and boundaries are created.

In essence our practice is to become cognizant of space values as they are created by our shaping, and designing them by means of motional boundaries.

We may work from the proximate forms close to the body to the projected outer ones. We might start with the perception of shape areas as they are designed by using our physical parts to give them boundaries. Here we may become more aware of the space shapes that exist between the arms and the trunk or the head and the shoulders or between the legs. We may then explore the values of expanding or diminishing these volumes, sensing the simple narrative drama of these dynamic changes. From here we may explore the treatment of actions of the arms and legs as forming or implying boundaries of space rather than as indicators of linear extensions. Here, too, the body as a whole may enact in such a manner as to project a space shape somewhat as in the case of the spherical form implied by circular locomotion. We may enact these actions with such persistence and concentrative force as to cause these forms to remain alive even after the action is terminated. (This, of course may be done with any projected form).

In this practice we are again deeply involved in the power of grain and tactile sensation in relation to a form. For example an arm extended forward for the purpose of forward linear projection is quite different in feeling than the relatively same arm position which now serves the purpose of a spatial boundary to that area which is above or below it. If the forward arm is used as a top boundary to the space between it and the floor then the tactile surface of the whole underpart and palm of the hand becomes hypersensitive to the space beneath it. The grain too instead of direction itself the long way out of the arm into a horizontal line, now spreads itself across the width of the arm and with a downward direction.

Another example is in the creation of a spherically shaped volume, the size of a large beach ball against the front of the body at stomach height. Here the arm or arms may define part of the boundary and the stomach area, chest and thighs define the rest. These latter areas like the arm will have a tactile sense of its function of boundary and will also shape themselves accordingly.

After inventing all varieties of architectural space patterns as a challenge to one's skill, imbuing them with performance life, is an essential technical practice.

Although the forms are not infinitely numerous the variety of juxtapositions of one to another, are. Mixtures of these volumes and linear forms as well as of their dynamic natures add a large range of possible explorative ventures as well as technical finesse.

As we did in our earlier exploration of axial sensations we should first release ourselves into spatial activities and experience their resultant sensations. Bear in mind that we have been spatially disciplined all our lives to a point of being afraid of spatial freedom. We are confined to rooms, corridors, streets and aisles. We have first to overthrow the fear of space. The first attempts will be almost wholly in forward going eventually involving turns, circles, and shape angles. Sidewards, upwards and downwards are not too frightening but backward is downright hazardous. Ask children to run backwards and there is suddenly a provocative, dangerous and giggly thrill in the air. All sorts of involvements in spatial freedom can be explored in innumerable ways. These can then be restricted and qualified to a point where exact discipline can be exercised until one finally reaches the portals of space action that brings one into new dimensional spatial experience. Space then becomes not just a hole to kick, spin, leap, run or twirl in, but a whole new sensation of environment.

The process of decentralization becomes an effective and necessary component in creating space-shapes. Here thru a strong mind control, one replaces the body's center into the center of the newly created space form and the body then becomes a part of the boundary rather than the center of the form. The form assumes the role of the motional generative source.

Space is common to all things that exist, things both animate and inanimate. It is not limited to the present, past or future. It can become an area in which the artist can cause things to exist that can reveal knowledge not hitherto realized.

One can address it and give it boundary, etch it and form volumes that had not existed before, and just as easily erase them from our vision with equal speed.

The self study of the wonderfully complex articulation of the human body is essential for dancers to experience. This should be done with intense concentration on the kinetic sensations derived from such exploration. The organs of kinesthesia must converse constantly with the mind and consequent kinetic memory to create an abstract language of motion out of which abstract communicative intelligence can emerge.

We go about this by feeding into the kinetic memory isolated experiences.

Some of this will take elementary involvement such as where does the joint begin (thus defining the length of the body part). I recall in my own study the day I discovered where my leg emerged from the hip. This gave me an entirely different sense of leg action. Peripheral and rotary motions were much better defined and the kinetic sensation much more specific.

The most easily comprehended motional exploration by the dancer is the articulation of his joints. Because his kinetic organs are in the muscles, tendons and tissues, isolated experience in motion in these joints is a good way to begin sensory judgement. The extremities (head, arms and legs) are part of this beginning. After simple improvised joint exploration of these parts, more disciplined actions should be pursued and sensed, concentrating on one joint at a time to understand its motional potential.

The next step is to see how the attention of the rest of the body can amplify the experience. This is a particularly difficult control task. It requires the action of a whole network of nerve circuitry. Although this process sounds theoretical when it is accomplished it becomes quite visible. For example if we isolate the right wrist in the area around the right hip, this point now becomes the center towards which the rest of the body will direct its focus. This involved the concept of "graining."

The attitude of the entire body grains itself to accommodate the pinpointed interest in the wrist. Because the wrist is at hip level, the upper body would incline downward towards that point. Since the wrist is on the right side, the left side would twist toward that point and the left arm would circle around towards it as well. To further stress the grain, the palm of the left hand might direct itself like a flashlight beam on the wrist joint. The strong focus of the eye would also concentrate its beam towards the point of concern.

The premise here is one of full communication of the joint action not only to one's self but metakinetically to the onlooker. This consequently becomes an exercise in performance as well as to the dancer's technical control. By going methodically over the whole body, isolating various joints, including parts of the spine, a technique of specific articulation begins to emerge. Bear in mind that it is the other parts of the body that are usually derelict in giving their attention to the concerned articulation. This pliancy of the body to shape itself quickly as one goes from one joint to another, testifies to the body's intelligence of purpose. It is also best to practice articulation by focusing on joints not in close proximity.

A common problem is the tendency of some body parts to be unwilling to give up its loyalty to a previous focus and adding that flavor to the new interest thereby muddying the clarity of articulation. When a new focal point is determined the whole body structure must divorce itself from the previous interest and focus uninhibitedly towards the new point.

All of this can be explored in technique class as well as during improvisations and finally in composition where performance quality can be more carefully observed. Bear in mind that the purpose here is to intensify both focal and grain sensitivity. Here the channels are cleared for the kinetic organs to relay to the brain the qualitative description of the motion in the joint.

We think about a great pianist who thru this kinetic device mainly in the fingers controls extraordinary aesthetic results. With the dancer we have a similar focus upon the area of motional occurrence. The great variety of motional experiences should be explored and the sentient findings stored in the brain for recall and control when the need arises for creative and performing use.

One area of major technical benefit to the dancer is a precise definition of where a body part begins and ends. For example the relationship between the arm and shoulder can be qualified by separating the activity of one from the other.

One of the most important sets of joints are the hip sockets. The process of walking has in most cases become so automatic that reference to the hip joint in the walking process has become obscured. Yet it is an amazingly sensitive joint and sentient knowledge and control here is essential to the dancer, particularly in the process of locomotion.

We should look upon improvisation with axial motion as necessary exploration. Every attempt should be made to encourage sensory explorations, especially those that are particularly strange to one's ordinary experiences. One will soon discover that wild, disorganized and abandoned movement quickly leads to dead ends and that the student quickly discovers the importance of articulation. An intelligence then begins to take place and the meaning of dance begins to be clarified. With a single joint experience, the senses become more acutely responsive to the aesthetic definitions of specific action.

Motion involves four major control factors for the dancer. These are shape, time, space and motion itself. Inadequacy in the perception and control any of these areas will reflect in a major way upon his skill as a dance artist. There are a myriad of other control factors he must acquire, but these are the "big four."

His skill in controlling the shape or the sculptural design of this body has some equivalence to "form" in sports. Here one says, "He was in good form," implying that the body design in action was congenial to the desired end. However, in dance the criteria would refer to a far more complex function. The sculptural accomplishment of the body in dance has a complexity of finesse as does the art of sculpture itself. The design of the body shape can often be as significant in dance esthetics as is motion itself.

The human perception of and response to shape is as mysterious as his reaction to space and time. We have for example passed through the Freudian concepts where all reaction was conceived as sexual, and the phallus shape was a major Freudian symbol.

We have basic names for geometrical forms which as shapes identify themselves. Cubes, triangles, isochedrons, spheres, etc., these are abstract. On the other hand there are much more complex shapes which identify recognizable forms. For example, a chair is a practical piece of furniture, but it is also a shape. A table is similarly identifiable. There are shapes in nature which we formed out of an understandable germination such as flowers, vegetables, fruits. We distinguish a lily from a rose mostly by shape, although they may share the same color. So too visually an apple differs from a pear by virtue of its shape.

From nature we get our greatest variety of sculptural forms. Our response to their beauty is certainly not governed by erotica but rather by the aesthetic response to a structure that emanated from a single germinal force. Consequently -- no matter how complex the structure is -- it was an inevitable outcome from those specific energies or set of energies which in a sense genetically spawned it.

One can only theorize about reaction to three-dimensional forms. Cubes, triangles and spheres are more than mathematical formulae. They are also dynamic entities and perhaps relate to some specific forms of energy. For example, spherical forms relate to a vortex of power and the balance of centrifugal and centripetal energy within them. There are suggestions of momentum within some forms and perhaps even to lyrical sensations because of a lack of any angular boundary. Spherical forms can also suggest balance of pressure upon both the intrados, the living inside, and the extrados, the outside. One can easily suppose that some shapes are tactile and others kinetic. But what specifically causes the feeling of an artful accomplishment in , for example, an art form as against the indefinite lumpiness of a rock is still a mystery. One can only suggest that one has order or comprehensible structure and the other has not. Yet this says nothing. We have many works of sculptural art which are as lumpy and complex as the most disorganized garbage.

Some sculptural structures become coherent because of their resemblance to an already familiar form, even though perhaps the object might be streamlined or considerably abstracted. Such a thing could be any representational thing -- a sculpture of an animal, or person or even vegetation.

When we come to dance we are indeed in a quandary. The dancer is a humanoid form -- one of nature's millions of variations, yet even in most extreme cases, recognized as human. Then comes identification of male -- female -- young -- old. Then there are ethnic and/or other character differences.

We recognize some physical human shapes as being more beautiful than others. Perhaps when we are farther removed in time from adolescent and Freudian influences we might not judge human beauty as basically erotic.

From the point of view of dance artistry the design of the sculptural use of the human body is exceptionally wide ranged. We are not concerned here with the common shapes of human beauty in their more obvious aspects -- but rather with concepts of sculptural design of the body for esthetic purposes.

Here the dance artist designs his body to cause a transcendence to some degree, which will temporarily suspend his immediate psycho-biological presence. Even if there is no extraordinary change such as merely assuming the attitude of himself as a dancer he needs the skill of shaping any sculptural attitude related to the particular dance image with which he is involved.

Forms of dance -- ethnic, folk, entertainment or art have vast differences in sculptural and transcendent demands. Consider the Balinese legong with its peculiar postural and angular design as against the square and weighty stance of the Hopi Indian antelope or snake dance -- and all of these in contrast to the attitudes in Swan Lake. In many instances costumes help the transcendence and shaping; particularly in East Indian and African Dances. We can recognize many kinds of dance alone from sculptural design. The skill of the dancer in shaping his body to the needs not only of the stylistic distinctions of a particular dance but also shaping it to the demands of any laws of motion.

Aside from such skills which are relatively obvious to the needs of various forms of dance, there is the direct esthetic study of the use of the body in terms of sculptural design. Here we are concerned with the exploration of the basic feeling of the three-dimensional design of the body. Not as obvious humanistic representations -- but in the most purely possible consideration of shaping the physical body to communicate as vitally as possible on its own terms.

Dance has always been considered mostly in terms of kinetic impact, yet it is a visual art as well and as such can entice the eye and mind to equally effective reaction to sculptural manipulation. The most affective consideration here is the sense of body sculpture on its own non-representative terms. In other words, sculpting the body for its own value rather than as a supportive factor. Not using it to represent a dog or cat and get down on all fours to represent a dog or cat, but rather to sculpt a body shape that entices interest in the beauty of the shape as a thing in and of itself. Forming in such a way that the onlooker is not led into expecting a character sketch, mood or situation but rather compelled to react to the beauty of the shape on its own terms.

For explorative purposes of basic and strong perceptive realizations of sculptural power it is best to streamline and focus the event in such a way as to eliminate any enticements to any other dynamic interests. A sculptural form exists -- good or bad -- in any comprehensible chunk of matter. However, in the art of sculpture the accomplishment of a three-dimensional structure is to arouse interest by the particularly compelling quality of the shape itself. One might theorize that when the shape assumes a literal suggestion rather than the more primal experience of the shape itself it does not meet the purist definition of shape. For example, if one created a sphere that begins to suggest a cat then it is likely that the onlooker will begin to related to his experiences of that animal. He is consequently distracted at least partially from the purer sculptural reaction. This should not imply that representational sculpture is bad art -- but rather that there is a danger of missing the impact and generative vitality of pure form if representational structure is the main criteria. If one senses the vitality underlying the basic form then it is that vitality that enlivens the realistic creation (if the realistic thing is the thing desired). This in effect is the same with painting. To paint representationally without a fundamental love of color on its own terms would certainly weaken the result.

To enhance the power of a shape all attention should be brought to that shape, but there can be other distractions. For example, certain sculptural designs -- even though non-literal -- might involve or suggest projections into space -- inviting the eye to fly away from the actual form of the body. There is nothing aesthetically wrong with such a thing but in the class room the experiencing of the shape will be weakened.

There are many other possible distractions from a basic experience of shape. One in particular is that of accidental symbolism. For example, one might design in all innocence a shape involving hands covering the eyes and the upper body rounded over. Even though the creator had no intention of dejection in mind -- the position itself is a strong symbol of dejection, and will court the onlooker's eye to that dramatic possibility even though it is performed devoid of any such projection or suggestion.

Even in the successful abstraction itself there can be abstract dramas. Here undue physical tensions in one area of the body can distract from the coalescence of the whole. Of course -- so too a misalliance of a body part can draw the eye away from the total structural harmony.

For anyone dealing with the abstract shaping of material, the question is, at what point does the final shape identify itself as a completed, finished, whole gestalt or res? This is a matter of continuous concern to the contemporary artist skilled in sculpting. Since the artist was now free of the representational in the sense of assuming a likeness of a known thing such as a bust, a hand, an animal or whatever. He was exposed to an endless choice of designed shapes.

One might ask then -- how can a human body which is so powerful in its literal suggestion hope to achieve an abstract sculptural basis. It is exactly because of the metaphoric facilities of the body that this can actually happen. Again it is a matter of performance power. First there is the creation of the sculptural design and next is the insistence that the performer assumes the responsibility of illuminating the shape. This is done by his own concentrations upon the design which in turn will cause the onlooker to join him metakinetically in the experience. If the design is free of diverting distractions and if it is forceful enough in structure -- and if the performer grains his entire interest towards that structure -- then in all likeliness it will be successful.

We do not understand our response to shape in this basic sense any more than we do our response to the non-literal but wonderfully moving sounds of a Bach Fugue. Here, too, free of literal suggestions it is superb creative artistry which juxtaposes sounds on their own terms without attempts to cause pastoral or other visions. Yet here are some of the most moving creations of any art. It tells no story -- suggests no visual images, yet by standing wholly on its own terms it achieves a grandeur to the listener.

It is interesting to watch fine, high fashion models in this respect. Their manner of calling attention to the costume being modeled employs some of the performing qualities necessary in dealing with shape. Of course, there are other overtones of behaviorism here as well, but the visibility and consequent salability of the garment depends upon this accent of bringing into visible emphasis the thing in point -- the garment.

Although the prostitute also adds overtones, she, too, employs this principle. She calls attention to the body. Once contact is made, she dolls it up a bit, but she is by no means selling the sound or color or the time-space of her product. She knows her stock in trade and that is what she concentrates on and puts on display, her shape.

Since in dance, so much rests upon the sculptural design of the body, the dancer must be able to emphasize this fact. He does it by controlling the dynamics of his dimensional components. He also does this by separating himself from his awareness of external space and looks sentiently (not sensually) into his corporeal design which consequently invites the onlooker's eye to that event as well. This process can be employed in any shaping of the body. Shaping the body is a multifocal process. The foci permeate the entire physical body, but does not call attention to the external space. Here too all contributing factors are equally balanced even in the most asymmetrical and disturbed sculptural attitudes. If they are not so, the attention will be called to those physical areas which are more powerfully injected dynamically, and call attention away from the total shape.

Although in this sculpturesque principle, the attention is not drawn away from the body, nevertheless, the entire shape is injected with a radiating grain emanating from the center of the shape which magnifies and enlarges the shape as a total, to its aura capacity, but not beyond its physical boundaries. This center of the shape is not necessarily a fixed physical center. It is simply that point around which the body balances. Thus as the shape changes, this point will relocate to the new center.

This sculptural emphasis is not wholly in terms of the sculpture. A piece of sculpture may, even in its inanimate character, have projecting parts inviting the eye outward. It is not that the human body cannot do likewise, but rather the full application of the process described above involves the full dynamic practice of a physical body calling attention wholly to itself. As in all principles, they can be mixed and it is likely that the dancer will use more frequently a combination of sculpturesque plus spatial projections, although for a more effective basic practice, they should be separated and experienced separately.

Gesture confined to isolated body parts are by no means fully explained by the process described above. Nor is the range involving pinpointed focus on and within the body. This requires a reversal of the focal lens and so will be held until that principle is discussed.

In earlier chapters, we have been concerned with radially outward, multifocus dynamics. However for a clearer understanding of shape we have retracted these radial dynamics both symmetrically and asymmetrically to points extended only to but not beyond the aura of the body.

Because in stasis all directions are in balance, we cannot proceed further unless we do so asymmetrically. By asymmetrically, it is meant that now certain radial projections will be deliberately pressed beyond the length of others, breaking the symmetry of stasis.

For example, an arm reaching forward now destroys the symmetrical radial balance of shape and indicates a greater interest in forward. An extension of a leg or any other part of the body will distort the same balance by favoring a particular radial lengthening into space.

From an idealistic point of view there should be a consequent shortening of the opposite radial projections to a somewhat mathematical degree proportionate to the lengthening. The result of such an opposite adjustment is the physical release of that part of the body allowing it to move into the desired direction. Thus making the transition from shape to motion.

Motion, as the medium of dance, is the basis of its technique and artistry. It includes within it all the dimensions related to time, space, as well as the additional companion dynamics involved in laws of motion. During the process of moving, one can explore separately all the components involved. One can taste the nature of gravity or momentum, the mathematics and sensations of time, the volume or length of space; these in all their known values or mystical implications. But for now, we are concerned with the sense of the motion itself -- where all else gives innocent support to the qualification of action.

If we could reduce the human instrument to its motional capacities along with the most elemental control of the psychical stimuli to move, we would probably gain a wonderfully primal experience of the meaning of action.

The human body is predominantly an axial instrument. Bones, tied joint to joint, are pulled into action by muscles which in turn receive their explosive power from the nerves, which in turn receive theirs from message impulses from the brain.

We cannot relieve ourselves of all motional censorship, nor would it be safe to. We have learned to stand upright and to walk by means of the censorship which experience brings. The child, after learning the disasters of falling, finally learns what not to do as well as what to do. On the other hand, many motional inhibitions stem from fear sources which are not kinetic but psychical restrictions -- so many of which must be unlearned by the dancer.

However, in this exploration we are concerned simply with mobility and the basic feelings of mobility -- devoid of the literal drama of mad, sad, or gladness.

By no means the most simple act of mobility but the most fulsome one is that of propelling the entire body through space.

Dance as the art of motion is subject to the same physical laws of action as all moving objects.

Man enjoys unique privileges of motivation because of the nature of his physio-psychological energies. However, his physical action itself, aside from these energies, is as liable to gravity, momentum, centrifugal force, centripetal force, aerodynamics and friction as any other like body of physical matter.

From the cradle the baby learns subconsciously as well as consciously to cope with these laws of motion. His first walking steps are precarious adventures in which he strives to control and direct his body into harmony with these external powers.

He learns to loose his balance purposely into the direction of his interest and to ply his feet in that direction in time to prevent disaster. He learns to lift his feet high enough to overstep obstacles. He begins to compute his will of action with space and time. His every waking moment employs him in refining that skill until he encompasses a control within the normal range of maneuvering required in his society.

His learning process involves the energies of his mind as they direct the energies of the body as these in turn compute and utilize the energies of time and space. He acquires special recreational and work skills, yet his skills need never reach his ultimate capabilities.

In dance the skill of motion is challenged to the highest, not the special skills of manipulating instruments outside of the body, but the skill of handling the body itself in action. Ultimately the dancer makes the motional forces serve rather than dominate him.

Motion is the result of a particular kind of phenomena. It is that which occurs when energy displaces a body of matter. It is change of location in space. The nature of energy, the nature of the matter plus the laws of motion governing the change is that which gives us the realization of life. Since varieties of motion are infinite, motion as the medium of dance provides a limitless scale of kinetic possibilities.

Motion, of a body of matter, involves three elemental phases: "passivity", "disturbance", and "outcome".

Passivity refers to the still object from a relative point of view. The object particularly an animate thing, may have motional life within itself. Yet as a passive entity it remains within its own space. The dancers use this as inaction, although the body itself is alive. Inaction in the human instrument is highly complex and variable. But for the moment we can conceive of it as being in stillness, pause or stasis.

All physical bodies in the passive stage have certain properties which condition the manner of its motion. The properties of a rubber ball makes its reaction to the impact of a blow different from the reaction of a wooden ball or a balloon. The size, shape, weight and nature of the physical properties predetermines to an extent the nature of the object's action.

The physio-psycho-biological character of the human body adds its complexities through its muscular ability to change the body's texture. Muscles can be hardened or softened or divided between the two in their arrangement of textures. Through the axial facility of the body it can change shape. Consequently the physical properties of the body unlike the inanimate thing, are endlessly variable. Therefore stillness or the passive phase is predetermined by the state of mind and varies in qualities and shape the body assumes.

The second phase of motion is disturbance, i.e., the direction and force of the power which activated the thing. Direction refers to where the object receives its impetus; and the logical consequence. Disturbance is further qualified by whether it is expended immediately or varied in its release, distinguishing the force as percussive, push, pull, sustained, held and released or the like.

In another form of action out of stillness, a position is held and then simply released into gravity and its companion forces, no energy is expended to cause action but rather the reverse; energy is removed. Falling, dropping and swing actions result from this nature of doing. In this instance, it is gravity which supplies the driving power. The release is the disturbance.

It is in disturbance that motion particularly defines itself as dance. Previously the word dance was customarily applied only to those actions which resulted from the energy arising and determined in the body of the moving thing itself. Furthermore this thing must be neuro-physiologically endowed, all other moving objects being said to dance only metaphorically.

The human instrument, for the most part, offers its own disturbance, delivers its own impulsion, by way of motivation.

The third stage, outcome, brings into greater play the laws of motion; gravity, momentum, centrifugal and centripetal force. In the inanimate object the nature of this stage is predetermined by the properties of the object plus the direction and degree of the disturbance source. Thus the rubber ball will respond to the friction and degree of force according to its properties of resilience, its size, weight and shape and the laws of motion governing such an object.

In the human instrument the psycho-physiological endowment and conditions make this stage infinitely variable.

For example, motivation may stimulate certain senses which may cause reactions that change body textures in such a way as to affect the motional result. Or more precisely it may change its shape or textural properties while enroute. These varient can effect actions within the body which in turn can affect the motion as a whole.

The human being is such a multidimensional instrument that he can assume metaphorically, any kind of form, therefore his first decision is to determine what nature of thing, res or gestalt his instrument will be.

If we now inspect this figure in terms of the three phases of action we again find a considerable change.

In the passivity or stasis stage the metaphoric figure need not necessarily represent mankind either specifically or generally, both his physical and psychical attitude are free. The human instrument in this state is akin to a musical one, one finely tuned to motion but not limited by action normally associated with human psychological life, abstract or otherwise. A whole other realm of actional language becomes possible. Instead of being the human being in a particular space, the metaphoric dancer may be the nature of that space instead. In this case instead of designing himself as a human creature in space, he must create the means whereby his literal humanism is subdued. His body becomes instead an instrument directly revealing the quality of his space idea. Like a musical instrument, instead of seeing the piano being played we hear its sound.

More specifically, in the still or stasis state the tensions the dancer sets up on his body do not necessarily relate to a human mood, instead he sets up tensions which relate metaphorically with his subject. His tensions are not representative of emotion. In the arms of a boy who plays at being an airplane the tension of the spread of his arms is the stress of plane wings. This example is quite literal, unsubtle, but the analogy serves to illustrate the difference of relative dynamics. If we were to dance not an airplane but a state of space or time, or anything non-concrete, the poetic challenge is apparent. By this metamorphosis all physical barriers are removed and dance becomes the art of motion in the same way that music is the art of sound.

Proceeding to the second motional phase, that of disturbance; the impulsion to move relates to the logic of the established stasis. The qualitative nature of the body will dictate the nature of the movement. A metaphorically tense body moves in consonance to the tensions and stresses which characterize it.

The third motional phase, that of adjustment or outcome follows the same principle, in terms of its identity. That is, the bulks and tensions of the subject refers to their identifying Gestalt and to the resulting logic of their dynamics in space and time. Such tensions are no longer considered bias or restrictive to action, but compatible to the action. The arms of the airplane boy are tense because they represent a thing which has that tension as a reasonable and necessary fact of its being. Consequently such tension is not a hindrance to his act but a necessity. The boy's actions take into account the holding and manipulation of tensions essential to qualify his subject.

The arms of the airplane boy are not stiff because of fear, anger or the like. Redundant tensions or other forms of bias are as unwanted as they are in the other forms. As a matter of fact tensions of emotional derivation are more likely to destroy a metaphor because their chance of obliterating an illusional subject are greater than in an actual dramatic context. Tensional manifestation of emotion are very powerful and the slightest appearance of any of them will cause all other action qualities to be relatively subservient to it. (This is often why the contemporary dancer may seem to be dead-pan. The tensions of the face are now obliged to match the tensional structure of the whole body and as such are much more subtle in appearance than the emotive face of the traditional modern dancer.)

In dance the figure may transcend its humanism and, like music, become anything. The dancer may be abstract or concrete. He may be the essence of a character without being the character itself. He may be a sound or a color. He may be an emotion without being the emoter. He may be the quality of a time or a space. He may be a thing of nature or an invention of the mind. In the act of transcending himself he utilizes the most powerful and valuable thing of humanism, that is his power of change, of becoming, of full transcendence. He can reduce himself to the microcosmos or expand himself to macrocosmos. Instead of only the world, he can now encompass the universe.

Motion, as the medium of dance, is the basis of its technique and artistry. It includes within it all the dimensions related to time, space, as well as the additional companion dynamics involved in laws of motion. During the process of moving, one can explore separately all the components involved. One can taste the nature of gravity or momentum, the mathematics and sensations of time, the volume or length of space; these in all their known values or mystical implications. But for now, we are concerned with the sense of the motion itself -- where all else gives innocent support to the qualification of action.

If we could reduce the human instrument to its motional capacities along with the most elemental control of the psychical stimuli to move, we would probably gain a wonderfully primal experience of the meaning of action.

The human body is predominantly an axial instrument. Bones, tied joint to joint, are pulled into action by muscles which in turn receive their explosive power from the nerves, which in turn receive theirs from message impulses from the brain.

We cannot relieve ourselves of all motional censorship, nor would it be safe to. We have learned to stand upright and to walk by means of the censorship which experience brings. The child, after learning the disasters of falling, finally learns what not to do as well as what to do. On the other hand, many motional inhibitions stem from fear sources which are not kinetic but psychical restrictions -- so many of which must be unlearned by the dancer.

However, in this exploration we are concerned simply with mobility and the basic feelings of mobility -- devoid of the literal drama of mad, sad, or gladness.

By no means the most simple act of mobility but the most fulsome one is that of propelling the entire body through space.

Dance as the art of motion is subject to the same physical laws of action as all moving objects.

Man enjoys unique privileges of motivation because of the nature of his physio-psychological energies. However, his physical action itself, aside from these energies, is as liable to gravity, momentum, centrifugal force, centripetal force, aerodynamics and friction as any other like body of physical matter.

From the cradle the baby learns subconsciously as well as consciously to cope with these laws of motion. His first walking steps are precarious adventures in which he strives to control and direct his body into harmony with these external powers.

He learns to loose his balance purposely into the direction of his interest and to ply his feet in that direction in time to prevent disaster. He learns to lift his feet high enough to overstep obstacles. He begins to compute his will of action with space and time. His every waking moment employs him in refining that skill until he encompasses a control within the normal range of maneuvering required in his society.

His learning process involves the energies of his mind as they direct the energies of the body as these in turn compute and utilize the energies of time and space. He acquires special recreational and work skills, yet his skills need never reach his ultimate capabilities.

In dance the skill of motion is challenged to the highest, not the special skills of manipulating instruments outside of the body, but the skill of handling the body itself in action. Ultimately the dancer makes the motional forces serve rather than dominate him.

Motion is the result of a particular kind of phenomena. It is that which occurs when energy displaces a body of matter. It is change of location in space. The nature of energy, the nature of the matter plus the laws of motion governing the change is that which gives us the realization of life. Since varieties of motion are infinite, motion as the medium of dance provides a limitless scale of kinetic possibilities.

Motion, of a body of matter, involves three elemental phases: "passivity", "disturbance", and "outcome".

Passivity refers to the still object from a relative point of view. The object particularly an animate thing, may have motional life within itself. Yet as a passive entity it remains within its own space. The dancers use this as inaction, although the body itself is alive. Inaction in the human instrument is highly complex and variable. But for the moment we can conceive of it as being in stillness, pause or stasis.

All physical bodies in the passive stage have certain properties which condition the manner of its motion. The properties of a rubber ball makes its reaction to the impact of a blow different from the reaction of a wooden ball or a balloon. The size, shape, weight and nature of the physical properties predetermines to an extent the nature of the object's action.

The physio-psycho-biological character of the human body adds its complexities through its muscular ability to change the body's texture. Muscles can be hardened or softened or divided between the two in their arrangement of textures. Through the axial facility of the body it can change shape. Consequently the physical properties of the body unlike the inanimate thing, are endlessly variable. Therefore stillness or the passive phase is predetermined by the state of mind and varies in qualities and shape the body assumes.

The second phase of motion is disturbance, i.e., the direction and force of the power which activated the thing. Direction refers to where the object receives its impetus; and the logical consequence. Disturbance is further qualified by whether it is expended immediately or varied in its release, distinguishing the force as percussive, push, pull, sustained, held and released or the like.

In another form of action out of stillness, a position is held and then simply released into gravity and its companion forces, no energy is expended to cause action but rather the reverse; energy is removed. Falling, dropping and swing actions result from this nature of doing. In this instance, it is gravity which supplies the driving power. The release is the disturbance.

It is in disturbance that motion particularly defines itself as dance. Previously the word dance was customarily applied only to those actions which resulted from the energy arising and determined in the body of the moving thing itself. Furthermore this thing must be neuro-physiologically endowed, all other moving objects being said to dance only metaphorically.

The human instrument, for the most part, offers its own disturbance, delivers its own impulsion, by way of motivation.

The third stage, outcome, brings into greater play the laws of motion; gravity, momentum, centrifugal and centripetal force. In the inanimate object the nature of this stage is predetermined by the properties of the object plus the direction and degree of the disturbance source. Thus the rubber ball will respond to the friction and degree of force according to its properties of resilience, its size, weight and shape and the laws of motion governing such an object.

In the human instrument the psycho-physiological endowment and conditions make this stage infinitely variable.

For example, motivation may stimulate certain senses which may cause reactions that change body textures in such a way as to affect the motional result. Or more precisely it may change its shape or textural properties while enroute. These varient can effect actions within the body which in turn can affect the motion as a whole.

The human being is such a multidimensional instrument that he can assume metaphorically, any kind of form, therefore his first decision is to determine what nature of thing, res or gestalt his instrument will be.

If we now inspect this figure in terms of the three phases of action we again find a considerable change.

In the passivity or stasis stage the metaphoric figure need not necessarily represent mankind either specifically or generally, both his physical and psychical attitude are free. The human instrument in this state is akin to a musical one, one finely tuned to motion but not limited by action normally associated with human psychological life, abstract or otherwise. A whole other realm of actional language becomes possible. Instead of being the human being in a particular space, the metaphoric dancer may be the nature of that space instead. In this case instead of designing himself as a human creature in space, he must create the means whereby his literal humanism is subdued. His body becomes instead an instrument directly revealing the quality of his space idea. Like a musical instrument, instead of seeing the piano being played we hear its sound.

More specifically, in the still or stasis state the tensions the dancer sets up on his body do not necessarily relate to a human mood, instead he sets up tensions which relate metaphorically with his subject. His tensions are not representative of emotion. In the arms of a boy who plays at being an airplane the tension of the spread of his arms is the stress of plane wings. This example is quite literal, unsubtle, but the analogy serves to illustrate the difference of relative dynamics. If we were to dance not an airplane but a state of space or time, or anything non-concrete, the poetic challenge is apparent. By this metamorphosis all physical barriers are removed and dance becomes the art of motion in the same way that music is the art of sound.

Proceeding to the second motional phase, that of disturbance; the impulsion to move relates to the logic of the established stasis. The qualitative nature of the body will dictate the nature of the movement. A metaphorically tense body moves in consonance to the tensions and stresses which characterize it.

The third motional phase, that of adjustment or outcome follows the same principle, in terms of its identity. That is, the bulks and tensions of the subject refers to their identifying Gestalt and to the resulting logic of their dynamics in space and time. Such tensions are no longer considered bias or restrictive to action, but compatible to the action. The arms of the airplane boy are tense because they represent a thing which has that tension as a reasonable and necessary fact of its being. Consequently such tension is not a hindrance to his act but a necessity. The boy's actions take into account the holding and manipulation of tensions essential to qualify his subject.

The arms of the airplane boy are not stiff because of fear, anger or the like. Redundant tensions or other forms of bias are as unwanted as they are in the other forms. As a matter of fact tensions of emotional derivation are more likely to destroy a metaphor because their chance of obliterating an illusional subject are greater than in an actual dramatic context. Tensional manifestation of emotion are very powerful and the slightest appearance of any of them will cause all other action qualities to be relatively subservient to it. (This is often why the contemporary dancer may seem to be dead-pan. The tensions of the face are now obliged to match the tensional structure of the whole body and as such are much more subtle in appearance than the emotive face of the traditional modern dancer.)

In dance the figure may transcend its humanism and, like music, become anything. The dancer may be abstract or concrete. He may be the essence of a character without being the character itself. He may be a sound or a color. He may be an emotion without being the emoter. He may be the quality of a time or a space. He may be a thing of nature or an invention of the mind. In the act of transcending himself he utilizes the most powerful and valuable thing of humanism, that is his power of change, of becoming, of full transcendence. He can reduce himself to the microcosmos or expand himself to macrocosmos. Instead of only the world, he can now encompass the universe.

In review, the state of inaction has been described. The next process is by our own willfulness to disturb that state of being inert to enable us to achieve a new place in space. However, achieving a new space is by no means the main aesthetics of dance. But for our start we must understand disturbance and its outcome. Thus in class practice it is a concocted disturbance. This then brings us into three basic phases of motion.

The first phase has already been described at length. Inanimate objects in the still stage would be described in science as being in a state of inertia. The dancer's standing in presence in time and space is an act of will with no desire for action to move elsewhere. Unlike a stone or any inanimate object his stillness is willed, motivated, performed, enacted. He is in a defined state out of which action can occur. Consequently he must motivate a disturbance of his stillness or inaction. This is the second phase of motion and is simply stated as disturbance. Disturbance comes in many varieties. So there must be a common understanding between teacher and student as to what body part is to be disturbed, and how much and in which direction or to which destination. The most elemental disturbance is an explosive one. This is one which we label as percussive. We know of percussion instruments and can use these for understanding; drums, gongs, piano, marimba, bells, etc. The characteristics of these instruments is that they are sounded by a controlled blow by a stick, felt hammer or the like. Once struck there is no further control of the sound except by dampening its resonance by some means or other. These instruments can be struck hard or very lightly, but always the disturbance is percussive.

The third phase of motion is "outcome" which in the case of musical instruments is how harsh and how long, as a result of the strength of the blow, will the resonance last.

In the case of the human body, the disturbance phases can be as varied as that of these musical instruments. However, in the case of the instruments, the space outcome is a matter of acoustics. In dance, the outcome is spatially directed and has further to do with laws of motion; to propel is one way to describe this second phase of motion in the human instance. In dance this phase is devised, or imagined, or concocted; but in any case at deliberately causing the action. Even if we wish to enact that the propelling is a surprise, nevertheless it is concocted and performed as such. The choices of which manner of propulsion should be used are endless even before qualifications are added to it.

In inactive standing innumerable muscular directional cords, like guy wires which balance the tensions on opposite sides of the body allow it to remain erect. A strong yank by the muscular cords on one side executed by equal release of cords on the opposite side enables the body or body unit to be propelled into the direction of the tug. This sharp tug is the propelling force and may be hard or gentle depending upon the spatial distance desired in the outcome.

Practice in this area of motional quality is most complex. The body, made up of so many components attached by hinges to adjoining body parts allows a vast array of motional possibilities.

Each body unit by itself may enact a percussive action, but two or more body units may also interlock with each other as well so that both can be affected by the same percussive disturbance. Examples of this may be as follows; A. hand interlocked with the lower arm, or all the parts of the whole arm. B. The lower leg locked with the upper leg or with the hip. C. The hip locked with the chest. D. The head and the chest. E. The whole body trunk, etc. Considering the directional control and the force of the propelling force there is an almost endless practice of this motional quality. This action can also be applied to twist and turn actions. One of the most common failures in achieving a turn destination is the lack of enough explosive propelling force.

It is this explosive vitality and control which often distinguished a fine technical performer. The ability to suddenly fire up the necessary muscles and the equally swift ability to cause the expulsion of the energy from the muscles is a major dance factor. Without the swift release of energy after the disturbance action the body unit is sluggish in fulfilling the natural destination enabled by the basic laws of motion. The consequence then also affects the conditions of the time and space inherent within the action.

Every action enacted by the body (that is from a self motivated source) is initially a percussive action. (Gravity can be considered a percussive source by a sudden release into its downward power.)

Percussion is a force resulting in spatial definition. Percussive action is explosive and consequently sprays its forces in all directions unless, of course, it is blocked by some barrier. The human body can explode in almost all directions and usually does so in fits of emotional bursts. But our main concern is the control of simple focal destinations. In this practice we need to determine the architectural designation of the body so that there can be agreement about what constitutes a front, back, side, diagonal or up and down. Although these are meager architectural directions they offer a definition of direction to practice the aim of the body towards specifically understood destinations. Here then begins the architectural skills necessary to be developed for technical as well as aesthetic accomplishments.

Momentum completes the three phases of motion. From "inactivity" we go to the second step, "explosive propulsion" or disturbance, which in turn concludes in "outcome" (result or effect). Momentum is the consequence of the force caused by the act of propulsion. It is the going, the movement itself. It is therefore the basic substance of dance because it defines the kinetic condition occurring between "propulsion" and outcome.

Momentum is the form of action arising from the strength of the propulsion together with the resulting speed caused by the disturbance. We can also refer to it as the outcome and nature of the propelling force. Because, we have used disturbance as explosive in nature we should continue to evaluate any outcome on that basis. One of the fine points of aesthetic technical control that must be mastered by the dancer is the judgement of the necessary energy needed to bring the explosive energy to a determined point of termination.

It is in this phase that the dancer's concentration is often predirected towards the conclusion or finality of the act rather than towards the nature of the psychical as well as physiological path, that occurs in between.

However, before bringing ourselves into very specific momentum disciplines it would be best to explore momentum in its many forms rather than defining it solely as a directional employment.

In this practice the suggestion is to propel the body randomly to get a better sense of momentum on its own terms, rather than using momentum as a device to achieve a specific end. From a standing position give the body percussive propellings into random directions to sense what actually happens during momentum. In an improvising way, we should feel out momentum and gradually by variations of force become aware of the outcomes and their control. These experiments should be done over a long period of time. It would be of great advantage to begin to set some of these sequences so that their repetition can solidify one's knowledge of the process of momentum. If the percussive propelling is devised to occur in different parts of the body, one can realize the great variety of possibilities there are in the experience of being propelled from body shape to body shape.

The sensitivity and control of momentum should occupy the dancer's technical exercises for as long as he continues to study dance.

There is also the further subtlety that within a single explosive gesture of a body or body part, one realizes that the velocity is not constant.

That motion starts at its high speed and diminishes as it proceeds until it is brought to the destined outcome unless on route it is charged by additional forces.

There are other causes of change in velocity. For example the friction of the floor can slow momentum. A wall or other surfaces will necessitate a sudden change. Aerodynamics of loose flowing garments or scarves add odd qualifying sensations to momentum. The skater, gliding on ice; the smooth quality of the ball bearings on roller skates; the slipperiness of a polished floor surface may increase the velocity; all are conditions or qualities giving variety to momentum.

A minute sentient examination of qualities of momentum under the most varied circumstances can only fortify the dancer both technically and aesthetically. Always keeping in mind that momentum is not only a basic property of motion but also bares within itself the very substance of the aesthetics of dance. It is the ability to utilize this multiplicity of variations of sentient designs to control momentum that distinguished the artist from the commonplace dancer.

In the practice of achieving an outcome of disturbances and momentum, there is the very brief moment when the energy is expended, that another quality of motion arises and must be recognized.

Dance is kept alive and is propelled by explosive energies caused to take place within the body. However, percussive motion, explosive motion and/or disturbance are not the only means of propelling motion. In describing sustained motion we go off on a different method of action.

By sustained motion we mean a continuum of undisturbed action. A process where the velocity is never altered by the continuous minute explosions that gives the illusion of sustained lyrical ongoing action. It is the difference between a two cylindered machine of a cheap motorcycle and the multiple cylindered Rolls Royce. Although the superbly built automobile is propelled by a multitude of small explosions, the resulting action is totally smooth, uninterrupted and lyrical.

This causes a continuity of momentum that gives an illusion of no variation of speed. In the performance of sustained action both momentum and gravity are treated as if they did not exist. The challenge of swing action becomes most inviting at this point because of the tendency to capitulate to gravity. Gravity is the hardest part of the swing to control in this instance. The inclination to succumb to gravity is most prevalent in all downward peripheral actions which results in swings rather than a sustained action. In its initial investigation there is the tendency to associate sustained with slow motion, which in effect it can be. But just as with a Rolls Royce it can also be maintained at high speeds as well.

After control is managed and the quality of sustained action is mastered, then one can introduce changes in speed while still maintaining the same sustained quality. There will of course be subtle additional sensations introduced by change of speed.

One of the most beautiful accomplishments in sustained quality is achieved by placing the whole body in the fluid state of mobile continuity. In this instance the coordination and pliancy of the spine can be a reluctant contributor. The most disruptive action that is inclined to occur is when the quality from one body part is passed onto another without interrupting the ongoing sustained sensation.

Within sustained quality there is a necessary space time control; which calls for major technical practice in that area. Evenly allocating the motion with its time allotment, for example, within the simple lifting of an arm from low to high to be accomplished within the time span of four moderato beats, one can see erratic control. Although it may not be sensed by the dancer the instructor can easily see variations of speed -- a too fast start and a consequent slowing to reach the destination at the correct moment. This inaccuracy mars the sustained quality.

There is also the control of change of direction to contend with. Here a small circular action in the transition is necessary to absorb the abruptness of change, so there is no loss of sustained continuity. As an exercise this can be practiced by all body parts or combinations of parts. The ultimate point as in all quality action is the accomplishment of the sentient knowledge and control of a particular form of motion. Definition rests in purposely eliminating any emotional attitudes and exhibitions of extraneous actions and sensations that distract from the basic quality intent. In all sustained action, gravity, shape, time, space, etc. still exist but by the magic of performance their existence is sublimated. One is able to enact this control by the ability to create sustained illusion through aesthetic and technical skill.

After achieving the quality of sustained action comes the practice of controlling different speeds without sacrificing the quality. This should start with the practice of maintaining the quality at different sustained speeds. Then one can proceed to the excitement of accellerandos and decellerandos without sacrifice to the sustained quality.

Gravity is an ever present force. It is in constant operation and in readiness to pull down any physical object that has exhausted its motional force and is left without further energy to sustain its outcome.

Here we must introduce an energy which acts as an antidote to gravity. (That is, of course, unless gravity is desired). This energy is a power which enables the body or body unit to rest in the outcome position. We can label this as the power or quality of suspension.

We speak of suspension here as a quality of motion. It is the skill of holding an outcome position with the minimum of muscular effort.

Suspension ignores gravity because its use of energy counterbalances both the upward and downward of verticality. Neither dominates.

In arriving at a point of suspension one of the greatest difficulties is the arrival of all body parts at the conclusion of the action at the same time. This is most difficult when the body is designed in a sculptural position and the action to follow must bring it to another entirely different sculptural position. Here there is apt to be a race. Certain body parts will arrive at suspension while others follow along as late arrivals. In such an instance some body parts may be further away from the destination. Consequently the percussive push must be greater on these parts so that momentum is increased on them to cause their simultaneous arrival. It is a judgement of control of concentric speeds.

Suspension can in effect be a point of rest or pause just as in music there are frequent moments of desired silence to allow the previous sounds to complete their resonance. This aspect of motion (or stasis) must be diligently practiced because its contribution to the aesthetics of timing, phrasing, and even motional summation is essential to the art of dancing.

If more effort than is required is exerted it will make certain parts of the body tense and give the appearance and kinetic feeling of over control. It will also, most likely, have a tense dramatic look. Too little effort, on the other hand, in maintaining the suspended position will cause an opposite appearance of weakness and insufficient vitality. Actually what we have achieved here by the correct balance of energies is a new state of stasis or stillness, a new point of beginning.

These judgements of time length of suspension are the commas, colons and semicolons of dance. There are moments at which point the gesture becomes intelligible to both dancer and onlooker. If the gesture is simple then perhaps only a very brief moment of suspension is required to highlight it. But no matter how brief the outcome of a gesture may be it should show its termination. However in the course of motional design aesthetic reasons may change all this. But change cannot be intelligently executed unless there is a motional identity to which the change can be compared.

With these latter controls also rests determinations of path of motion. For example if the right hand rests on the left shoulder and its next action is to bring the palm of the hand on the right hip it would seem that geometrically a straight diagonal line to that position would be the correct motion. This however is not so. The straight path of action is one that dynamically shoots past the hip. Since the body is of three dimensional proportion, the more expedient path is to curve the action in an arc so that its terminal point is on the hip. This would be true at all speeds. By doing the straight line path quickly, one can readily see that the directional momentum brings the hand past the hip or causes the arm to tense or put on breaks so that it does not go beyond its desired conclusion. Proving that the best mode of travel to a specific end is not always a straight path.

In centrifugal and centripetal force we have the delight of the indulgent dancer. It is the Viennese Waltz syndrome; the sacrifice of 90% of the art to meaningless self involved gracefulness.

Yet here are two of the most significant natural forces to be controlled and used with disciplined discretion.

Both are by-products of momentum which usually take on circular action. Within them rests all forms of swings, turns, circles and some elevations. Whenever curving action occurs these forces are also evident.

Both forms relate to a central point of anchorage and relate to powers towards and away from this central point. This is perhaps best understood by analyzing and practicing swing action.

The simplest swings are made with the arms and legs, attached at one end while the outer tip is released into peripheral action. High to low vertical swings are basic. The arm held in high suspension, without any flexation can swing into gravity. If left completely free to do so it will pass the gravity point and its momentum will carry it to the end of its path of weight release and then return in the direction from which it came, repeating the swing until the energy is expended. When we submit to the gravity force the release to downward becomes a sort of percussive power and the height of the resultant swing will be completed at the exhaustion of that power. Each successive one however becomes weaker because of the gravitational pull, arriving at a point of vertical stillness just as with a carpenter's plum line. If one desires to keep up the same swing structure and avoid the energy decrease one must add additional percussive power to the gravity power at the beginning of the swing. A larger pressure can cause a complete circular form. These additional thrusts are often used to increase the height of elevation. Endless variations are possible with the arms.

Add to this the same motional abilities of the legs and again variations are multiplied. Then too torso peripheries can be added and these can add up into extraordinary acrobatic feats. However if one is inept or not careful in complying with the natural laws of these centrifugal and centripetal powers then injuries can result. In executing centrifugal and centripetal movement, one must take care to realize the location of the fulcrum point. The careful study of where the legs begin in the hip sockets and the arms in their beginning point are basic and essential. The control and study of the tension and release in those areas is also basic study. As it is with all joints of the body. Other attached body units can add their force to the swing part; for example the hip can thrust the leg or the shoulder the arm, etc.

Swings are not all in the vertical plane. They can be horizontally directed or tilted to any diagonal degree. The major change here is that the centrifugal force can easily throw one off one's balance much more so than through the vertical. It is in these non-vertical actions that turning and circular technique come into play. It is from these motional sources that we see the virtuosities in acrobatic and ballet displays. These are leap turns in the air defying the body weight and interbalancing the centrifugal and centripetal forces.

The most simple ways to experience the sensations of these two forces are thru the extremities and also other controlled isolated parts. Technical studies and inventions in these instances are fairly simple. It is when the whole body as a unit becomes involved that analysis and experience becomes increasingly complex.

Our ability to sensorily perceive our behaviorism is the essence of our communicative power. This means that our success as performing artists is our ability to invite the onlooker into our sentient experience. This goes beyond merely feeling ourselves in the action but doing it in such a way that self indulgence does not set up a murky barrier between the performance and the audience. A great performer understands this sharing. In this way he controls and directs the fluidity of reaction in his audience.

Empathy, an essential communicative mechanism of art, rests in our sensory and psychological functions. It is a process which enables man to feel the value of external happenings by comparative reference to his own feelings. A pain occurring to someone else can only be conceived by us through our own knowledge of pain. Empathy is a vicarious experience. It is indirect, caused by our observation of an actual happening outside of ourselves. When we speak of a person as being particularly sensitive, we do not mean that he is more than ordinarily skilled in perceiving; we imply rather that his empathetical reaction to external conditions and happenings is particularly refined. In dance this empathetical response is called "metakinesis."

It is not necessary to witness the actual sight of any event for an empathetical response to occur. It can happen by any means which suggests that event. The experience of salivary glands excreting at the sight of someone else sucking a lemon is a common empathetical response. Even reading about the tartness of lemons can stimulate a salivary reaction.

Empathetical response can be provoked in any of the senses. These responses may be circuitous or even subliminal in their occurrence.

We say trees stand, logs lay, a stream runs. These are empathetical in that we describe the object by experiences relative to ourselves. When we stand in the presence of tall objects we are inclined to become taller. When surrounded by low objects our physical height diminishes even though this fact may not be apparent to us. If we are in the midst of depressing events we find our spirits dampened. We attempt to understand the substance of our world, its objects, people, animals, plants, by vicariously becoming them. The more completely we can do this the more enhanced our spectrum of knowledge and feelings become.

With this additional richness we may reasonably object to dance being described solely as a kinetic art. The dancer employs more than his sense of kinesthesia in his art. Meta-kinesis which in effect is the same as empathy, is more strictly applied to the onlooker's reaction to the motion. Meta-kinesis is the vicarious experience of motion. An audience "understands" motional abstraction by vicariously entering the action performed by the dancer. What the dancer "feels" about his motion is most likely what the onlooker will "feel".

If the dancer has no feeling for his motion, or if what he has in mind is not happening in his motion, the onlooker is certain to be confused. In such a case the onlooker must invent his own meaning, which might not be the same as what the performer or choreographer intended.

In simile and metaphor, we say "he ran like a deer," "he was strong as iron," "steady as a rock," "sharp as a tack," "big as a house," "good as gold," or "her heart is ice." Here there is empathetical employment relating to our feelings towards things, which in turn derived from direct empathetical reactions from our experience with them. Simile and metaphor are empathetical terms. The quality of one thing is made comprehensible by empathetical comparison to another.

To perform effectively the performing dance artist must acquire a highly sensitive metakinetic skill. First he must transcend himself, and become two beings inhabiting one body. His physical instrument and the thing being created. He changes his identity to thing, creature or abstraction. However, motions of this metaphoric figure are guided by the feeling he, as a real being, has acquired and now projects thorough his forces of imagination into his created role.

To substantiate qualitative values, the dancer directs the narrative line of the dance back into himself, back to the metaphoric figure. One often hears a dancer say, "That motion doesn't feel right," meaning that in tasting the action, his metakinetic evaluation finds the motion lacking in certain respects, and makes adjustments.

Through this tasting and evaluating judgement the performing figure gives the action an immediate, first time, freshness. With abstraction, empathy thus used is the basis of the creative communicative process, particularly during improvisation, where intuitive judgements are quickly made.

Dancers are often called upon to produce structures composed of many elements. Colors, sounds, divisions of time, structures of space, light values, etc. These choreographed structures are created by skills derived from direct empathetic experiences. These experiences are then persistently refined until, through selection and control, the artist is able to construct a comprehensive metaphoric entity in dance terms. In turn the viewer responds empathetically to the art structure, retranslating it back into his own area of meaning and response.

In addition the artist must make certain that his experiences are not private. His associations or empathetical experiences must be available to everyone, if they are to aspire to any level of universal understanding.

We can refer to a Pavlovian example of sorts. If a child is repeatedly given a tasty treat, and at the same time someone bangs a dishpan the sound will become a pleasantly associative sound. If the child now proposes to "express" himself musically, he may bang a dishpan because of his pleasant personal relationship to it. Although he has self-expressed himself honestly, the sound lacks a common association with pleasure to his audience.

We are full of such purely personal associations, common to every one, but which are part of our own private and obscure world which can however serve as spice to the main course.

The metaphoric medium of dance is motion. The metakinetic response of the onlooker derives from his vicarious ride within the itinerary of the dancer's action. The quality of action fills him with that sensation of motion specifically designed by the creator. It is a metaphoric representation of the artist's aesthetic intent. The dancer's technique requires an extended refinement of his feeling for motion and all the many elements related to motion. He increases his motional knowledge by direct kinetic and metakinetic experiences. These become his language, his sentient symbols of communication. His technical skill lies in the control of these elements for this is the stuff of which his art is made.

Despite our concern for the metakinetic event in dance, there is another possible aspect of dance which cannot be overlooked. Although we speak of dance primarily as a motional art, it is simultaneously a visual art. Music, obviously is sensed through the ear and consequently the sensation of sound enter the brain via the psychodynamic paths and interpretations peculiar for that organ.

Sight is more complicated in its psychological entry into the mind. One may theorize that all sensation derive from motion -- which is primarily the sense of change. Without change sensation ceases to exist, but when an artist speaks of motion in a painting, he is not speaking of a metakinetic reaction quite like to that of dance. The motion in this instance differs in dynamic value from the dance art. In sound, too, we may respond by tapping our foot in response to rhythms but this too is not quite the same as our metakinetic response to dance action. (Let me add here that there is much music that is untappable.) Yet in both the arts of color and of sound there are certain possible reactions which may be close to kinesthetic interpretation.

In dance we may find that although it is an art that is seen, it may sometimes be received in more purely abstract visual terms rather than be translated into a more exact metakinetic response. In other words, it is possible for dance to enlist reactions through the eye in a manner similar to the eyes' response to color in painting. Here then, one may reduce or insofar as possible eliminate kinetic sensation and appeal to the eye directly. Through visual reception it can coax the eye into a psychological area usually engaged for painting. In effect this would be dance of more pictorial rather than kinetic appeal.

This offers problems of definition, yet it is an aspect of dance which has been employed innocently and frequently from the earliest primitive ceremonies until today.

Definition has the power to illuminate as well as to arrest meaning. We commonly associate dance with kinetic experience. A dancer employing a large quantity of direct visual rather than kinetic appeal may leave some of his audience confused. It is somewhat like expecting ice cream and tasting cheese instead. No matter how excellent the cheese, the taste shock is unexpected. The word dance generally prepares the onlooker for the kinetic experience. The lack of that appeal may so upset the onlooker in his anticipation that no matter the aesthetic value of the visual experience, it may prove, like the cheese, to cause many to be unable to shift receptivity to that particular area of understanding.

Yet this optical event of dance is legitimate both as dance and art despite its strain on the confines of definition.

More important than the purism of definition is the event of art.

There are often other tensions or forces which are required to be executed to emphasize a particular quality of action. A literal case in point is the child making believe he is an airplane. He stiffens his arms out to the side and runs in his make-believe airplane attitude. In abstract dance such extra force is often required to qualify an action. I refer to this as the dancer's skill of creating illusions, the ability to become something, in reality, which he is not. It is a practice of motional adjectives, or metaphors. Again we can refer to ballet in which the major effort is to make the dancer seem to be lighter than his or her actual weight.

Choreographic illusion is a major function of the choreographer. He or she designs motional phrases which deliver illusions to the onlooker. Awareness of motional illusions such as hard, heavy, fast, light, thick, thin, etc. gives the choreographer and dancer additional technical and interpretive skills which enrich his or her technical achievements. One assignment which I usually give in a composition class is the creation of a study in speed. Invariably a dancer will exhaust himself by running around the studio to get this effect. Another, more ingenious one will stand in one spot and choreograph fast, jerky motions of body parts which give a far greater illusion of speed. Of course choreographic invention is involved here as well as performance illusion.

Another example is a study of "heavy". Again, this is a choreographic as well as performance challenge. Heavy, in this instance means to choreograph motion which make the dancer appear heavier than he or she actually is. This takes skill both in choreographic invention as well as dancer's performance in interpretation.

In all these instances we are involved in the control of abstract quality. In these instances we are not talking about a fast person or a heavy one but rather abstract qualities which can be used in abstract expressionistic invention.

The dancer must now learn to use his illusional skills to emphasize the colorations of the choreography. His artistry is judged on these terms. He must have a distinct feeling towards these illusional qualities. Only then will the metakinetic process work.

Art is not concerned with purity of media. Its sole concern is with the materialization of an esthetic communication. Certain socio-dynamic climates may create the need to combine certain arts in order to produce an effective result. For example, in the late Renaissance, the combination of music, scenic art, drama and the vocal range gave rise to opera.

Recently there is an even greater urgency to mix media in order to make contemporary esthetic statements. The painter begins to sculpt his canvas. Sometimes the sculptor makes a work that not only moves but makes sounds. An art of theater (aside from drama) is now evident in which all the arts function towards a totality.

Art has no particular concern for the traditional specializations or limitations man imposes upon himself. Art is by no means pure in this sense. It makes no demand that the artist be rich or poor. Nor does it demand particular religion, race or politics. It cares not whether the artist is a male or female, homosexual or heterosexual. Above all, art places no limitation upon the artist's media other than its suitability for the ultimate art idea. Consequently the purist may find his purism to be a limitation to his understanding and development. More so now than ever before the purist who pronounces that such-and-such is not dance may very well be exchanging diamonds for gravel. For art cares only for art and has complete disregard whether it takes the form of dance, painting, sculpture, music or any other media. It cherishes loyalty only to itself and therein rests its strongest values. It is only in such an absolutism that the framework of value stands without coercion.

The education of the artist deals with the refinement of his senses and perceptions and in the development of skills so that he can state his findings through the media of his choice. When his medium is color we call him a painter. When it is sound we label him musician. Shapes of things are the province of the sculptor. The dancer communicates through motion.

Dance, very often has combined with the actor's domain and this combination of dance and drama has led to the ignoring of the scope of dance as an art in itself. This has contributed to a lack of faith on the part of the dancer in the communicative force of motional abstraction and consequently his art suffers this loss.

The great performers of the traditional modern dance period made considerable use of combining the arts of dancing and acting.

Ballet also uses literal and non-literal devices. Many of its early choreographers, instead of mixing the abstract and the literal, deliberately stopped a section of abstract dance and proceeded to a wholly literal mimetic action, only to return again to purer dance. Here, each level supported the understanding of the other by sequential rather than simultaneous exposition.

The pop cultural aspect of our involvement in mixed media is represented in the present day by the discotheque where the dancer is involved not only in his own motion but in the motion of light, color and sound as well. It matters not that this may be merely a present fad. At the moment it is a part of the socio-dynamics of our time, and consequently an insight into the present state of our esthetic evolution.

"The mind and body contain vast stores of knowledge, much of which predates the birth of the individual. This knowledge is the wellspring and major force in the shaping of the individual's life and the nature of his primary behaviorisms. It is a constantly flowing force. The noted embryologist, Dr. Viktor Hamburger, calls this instinctive force, which is visibly inherent in the wakening embryo, automatismic. I adapted this term by referring to the affirmation of the existence of this art force in dance as automatismic dance.

However, what this force is remains undefined, despite the many confusing and conflicting explanations, practices and experiences which permeate the metaphysical jargon of myriad cults, religions, mystical and philosophical beliefs.

If life is motion, then motion must contain the life force. The force derives from an undefined vault of life information from which, if one develops the necessary facility, one can make a selection and reveal it through a medium or combination of media. Whatever else it might be, the content of this life stream is unique to each individual. Like a mountain stream, although its water is water, its content varies according to its source and the various substances carried in it, all gathered from the landscape through which they have travelled. This content of knowledge extends far beyond the actual life span of the individual. Flowing through a genetic memory bank, the life encounters of an individual very often throw all sorts of obstructions and diversions into this stream."