EVA PRIEČKOVÁ
Embodied movements, blossoming friendships, Berghain Duets, creating new entities; Eva Priečková and dance for everyone.
Eva Priečková is a movement artist and dancer who refuses the idea of dance virtuosity and perfect control over a trained body, thus making her practice available to virtually anyone. In her work exhibited by Unseen, she invites us in and introduces certain elements of the so-called Berghain Duets. Eva Priečková uses Berghain “as a metaphor for a safe haven, paradise or a mythical place,” with inclusivity regardless of gender, religion or social status at its heart. Eva believes any embodied movement during which we release hormones can be considered dance and employs what could be described as expanded choreographies. What's important is a willingness to open yourself up to the unknown. That's basically all you need to create your own Berghain Duet.
In the last circa 4 years, three of these Berghain Duets have taken place, and Eva is currently in the process of further developing the practice. In this document, she shares both bodily and non-bodily elements of each of the three duets through narratives, descriptions, images, videos, manifestos, drawings and references to various mediums (books, songs etc.), and towards the end shares instructions for creating your own Berghain Duet.
Berghain Duets arise naturally, if a friendship or a relationship between two people blossoms or grows into it. Chemistry, or some form of attraction, is an essential part of Berghain Duets, as well as a willingness to be vulnerable, open and relaxed with one another. Simultaneously, what is also required is a certain level of seriousness and intentionality. "What if you consider your relationship as a practice?"
That all might sound quite abstract as well as difficult to imagine, but, interestingly, the first three steps in the instructions for creating your own Berghain Duet are as follows:
1) Find a buddy
2) Go for a beer
3) Have a chat
What ensues will differ, but in this document Eva Priečková offers us suggestions of different activities that may help us explore the relationship once we’ve established there is some form of chemistry. Go to a nearby forest, a techno club, or an old café. Take a sauna together. Perhaps just stay silent in each other’s company, absorb your surroundings, observe the air and the space between you.
Without disclosing too much at this point, I am convinced that elements of Berghain Duets will seem intriguing to many of you. There’s something very transcendental, yet universal that this practice hints at, moments in the narrative that will seem completely other-worldly, yet somehow very believable. These duets are about intimacy, one that brings the spirits of the people closer together through unjudged, unrestrained, untrained and perhaps often illogical movements. You’ll have to let go of your own self to give way to an entity that isn’t just more than the sum of its parts, but a whole new entity that can only exist through the union of the two of you. Through dance, 1+1 can equal A.
Adam Badí Donoval
BERGHAIN DUETS
BERGHAIN …as a metaphor for a safe haven, a paradise or a mythical place which creates the conditions and support for all people, regardless of gender, religion, or social status…
Between 2017 and 2020, three collaborations entitled Berghain Duets took place. Each one developed through a close friendship and included the subsequent shaping of this relationship into a dance performance. It was not about artificially inserting a concept between two bodies, but rather about manifesting mutual care which develops through physical presence, long conversations, shared viewing of films or cooking. This practice thus becomes automatically open to anyone living in any form of relationship. No special physical ability was necessary for any of these two duets. I mean dance. I believe that any form of movement during which we release hormones can be considered dance. When we open ourselves up to the new unknown, when we surprise ourselves, we break free from the chain of logical evaluation.
We are currently working on the project csakó vs. juhás, in which a writer and psychologist move together. They get up close and personal, and let themselves be pulled forward by the flow of Hungarian music, they embrace, pat themselves with ping-pong paddles and simulate fist fights. I began the process with them at a moment in which they were undergoing a crisis of collaboration. They thus develop the ways in which they are able to “release” their energy so that they might free themselves of skepticism, frustration, sadness or pain.
Maybe care is exactly about that – to create experience for one another. And I believe that this happens when we pay attention, and give time, weight and potential to everything which happens between us.
On the basis of our experience, I share with you the particular practices, both bodily and non-bodily, so that you can try them for yourself.
EVA PRIEČKOVÁ & SAGHAR HOSSEINPOUR: EARTHWORMS ARE CROSSING THE ROAD
In 2017, I collaborated with the performer and choreographer Saghar Hosseinpour. Saghar is an Iranian experimental and independent artist active mostly in Teheran, Berlin and Vienna. She is currently working on her long-term project which focuses on Teheran, mainly the phenomena of overcrowding and the physicality of bodies in public space over the course of everyday situations.
Photo: Mohsen Shahmiri
Autumn 2016.
We are laying one atop the other. We try to closely copy the shape of our bodies so that we fit together. We synchronize our breathing into a similar tempo. It does not always work out, and that’s OK. I feel the weight of your body distributed so that I don’t feel excessive pressure anywhere. You are balancing so that your body does not slip away to any one side. It takes a while for us to harmonize. You are falling into me. Two body widths, the third dimension, which we often forget about, gradually dilates, more and more. From the side, it might look like a honey pie – a fold.
Two layers which gradually seep into one another and succumb to gravity.
Suddenly we are no longer two, but one of two. I hear and feel your breath coming from your nostrils. They are right next to my ear. You start to talk. In Persian.
I enjoy your language like I do music. The pauses, the voice’s tenor, words I could never pronounce. But something very strange is happening. As you talk and lay atop me, I seem to understand more and more of what you are saying. You are remembering a family tragedy, death, sadness. Your intonation does not change, but somehow I understand. After we finish, I ask you whether you were talking about a death in the family, and you look at me half-aghast, half-excited
How do you know?
You ask and I answer.
I just understood. I have no clue how.
…
A few days later we arrange collaboration…
We thought about language and about what is real for us.
Earthworms on the road were real.
Earthworms are crossing the road is the title of our collaboration.
“And my breath would fill your lungs until it felt like your breath
And when you spoke you’d have a voice that was not quite you
And not quite me but something rubbed through both of us.”
(Lucrecia Dalt: Edge Anticlines, 2018)
After a year’s worth of obstructions (communicating with the embassy in Iran), we were invited to Prague to the Hybaj Ho 2018 festival. We met after a year and had one rehearsal. We found out the connection was still there. It hadn’t disappeared. So, we ordered red wine and went to the sauna to practice shared dissolution.
Which can also be one of the common practices. To take a sauna together, if health permits. The sauna is an intimating moment. You see each other only in a towel of sheet, you sweat together, whisper for parts of the discussion, or dip in cold water together. Then you Relax together in a moment when the body releases all the pent-up tension.
“Language is a skin. I rub my language against the other. It is as if I had words instead of fingers or fingers at the tip of my words. A whole activity of discourse discreetly, indirectly focuses upon a single signified. I caress, brush against, talk up this contact.”
(Roland Barthes: Lovers Discourse)
Practicies
A few particular tasks which we practiced throughout the creation of the Earthworms are crossing the road duet.
1. Writing
Question: what is realistic for you at this moment?
Time: 15 mins
Then you share, mutually read your texts out loud and discuss.
2. Laying on top of one another – the fold
One of you lays down on her stomach. She positions herself so that it is comfortable. The other one lays down on top so that she most closely copies the shape of her body. She is also laying on her stomach. During subsequent practice, we can also experiment with the placement of the bodies. It is important to comfortably place the head and body, so that the top body will not fall over.
3. Mutual listening
If you speak different languages, try to communicate with them. If you are physically together, you can use the position of the fold to do that – two bodies on top another. Or you can do the same while drinking morning coffee, as a practice of listening to a voice speaking a different language. If you are far from each other, record a message for each other – the content matters not – it can for example be a poem of a local author, and just listen to her voice, to its color, tone, intonation and other specificities. Listen to the recording like you listen to music. If you pick out meaning, share it with your partner. Spend lots of time together. May your collaboration take place over the span of a whole day. Notice your presence, the manner in which you exist in space. How far apart you are sitting, what you enjoy drinking. When you need silence and when you need to listen to pop.
Photo: Aïsha Mia
EVA PRIEČKOVÁ & FERGUS JOHNSON: WAITING FOR A MAGIC EVGUS TO HAPPEN
A 2016 encounter during the Smash course, Berlin. I think we both found a connection during one improvisation session to the music of Lord of the Rings. We started to imitate a duel. It was like a duel. Our total mobilization during the imitation of the fight led to a sense of play. Peter Grey writes this about play:
“Social play in all animals requires that all tendencies toward aggression and dominance be suppressed. This is especially true in playful fighting, which is one of the most common forms of animal play. The fundamental difference between a play fight and a real fight is that the former involves no intention to hurt, drive away, or dominate the other animal. A play fight between two young animals can only occur if both are willing partners. Anything that smacks of true aggression or tendency to dominate would cause the threatened animal to run away, and the play, with all its fun and opportunity for learning, would end. And so, in the course of natural selection, animals developed signals to let each other know that their playful attacks are not real attacks, and they developed, for purposes of play, self-restraints and means of self-handicapping to operate against any tendencies to dominate or hurt one another in play."
(Peter Gray: Play Makes Us Human I. A Ludic Theory of Human Nature)
We had a lot of fun with it and so we decided to try to collaborate. Over the course of the three-month course Smash (now ROAR) in Berlin, which we took part in during the autumn of 2016, in the evenings we met in the space of a former café which had gone out of business. Towards the end, we engaged in informal sharing where we communicated the outcomes of our movement laboratory. We tried to apply everything we had learned in the three months. And we termed it Experimental Empathy.
Manifesto of Waiting for a magic Evgus and Experimental Empathy movement practice
I think things start with the idea of relation. We are two people. We are two friends. We like each other and we feel connected. We are two people dancing together. The chemistry is good and we produce something from our dance, something worthwhile. This is how we started and I think this is the basis of our work - the foundation.
What do we produce? We produce magic. The simplest things become complex because of their relation to the world. We don’t dance in a vacuum; we dance in space, in time. We dance on a specific day and at a specific moment. We dance with our whole lives in front of us and behind us. Our dance is a nexus: from one way of seeing, all events past present and future radiate out from our dancing.
Each movement, sensation, thought is nestled in this context: it is in relation to the universe. This is magic. Because our chemistry is good, the magic we produce is worthwhile. Framed in the context of our chemistry, each movement, sensation, thought has resonance with the universe.
...
Of course, what I am describing is just being in relation to the other, the other as another being and also the other as the universe. But we go further than that. We frame our relation as work. Perhaps a performance, perhaps research, perhaps a somatic trip.
For the duration of this work we give up our self to serve the work. We serve the work by becoming one with it - in fact Evgus is exactly that: Eva & Fergus. We are the work.
Therefore, the work is: us as a singular being, us in relation to each other, us as a nexal point in relation to the universe.
...
The work can be viewed as a cosmos. It is a word for the work.
By this I mean that we create a world for our bodies to inhabit. It is a dance-world: a world of sensation, movement, thought. We do this so we can explore Evgus. Although we give up ourselves to create Evgus, we still retain our sense of self. We are still active as Eva & Fergus inside of this singular being called Evgus. Despite being inside of the work we still make individual decisions, have sensations, move etc.
Therefore, we view the work as a world, quite simply because this allows us to explore it. Literally through space and time. What is interesting here is that, because the work is essentially just the relationship between Eva & Fergus, but in a specific framework, the cosmos we create is also fundamentally just a relation.
And we relate through thought, sensation, movement. But we also explore through sensation, movement, thought. Therefore, our relation is both the cosmos we inhabit and also our method of exploring that cosmos.
...
What this leads to is the idea of a cosmos of Evgus nestled in the universe itself. With Eva & Fergus as conduits: the link between our world and the world.
Photo: Aïsha Mia
NOW SOME PRACTICALITIES
If Evgus is a cosmos that we both make and explore then the question is how. We choose to use experimental empathy.
We want the cosmos of Evgus to be self-sustained. We don’t want it to rely on an outside score. Therefore, we need to create these movements, thoughts, sensations from within the cosmos. Of course, we could just produce them. We are dancers, it’s not so hard. But that would be Eva producing movements or Fergus producing sensations or whatever. And we want to Evgus to produce movements, thoughts, sensations. At the base of everything is the idea of our relation and our chemistry. Experimental empathy is just a way of encouraging this to grow. It is simply a toolbox of improvisational techniques which allow us to “sync” with each other and produce thoughts, sensations and movements from a shared common ground.
The easiest way of imagining it is like an ongoing game with very strict rules that we invent on the spot and immediately break. It is like when you are a child and you play in a fantasy world with your best friend. But instead of producing dragons we produce thoughts, sensations, movements. And these feeds our imagination so the game continues.
The idea of playing is important because it underscores the seriousness of our work. We chose to give up ourselves in order to serve the work. If practically the work is a game, then we give up our own selves just for a game.
And because the chemistry is good, the work is worthwhile.
Text by Fergus Johnson
EVA PRIEČKOVÁ & ZUZANA ŽABKOVÁ: BODIES IN TROUBLE
In 2010, we started studying together with Zuzana Žabková at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava. In the second year, we muscled our way into the seminars of Daniel Matej focused on a 21st century music repertoire. There, we started our journey across improvisation and we exhaled it in our final performance entitled John Zorn V Nás (John Zorn in Us) at the end of which we hid for 12 seconds while Yamatsuke Eye screamed in the Hammerhead track of Naked City, and then threw out a head of cabbage and of lettuce into the Academy’s courtyard. We considered the feedback of Irina Čiernikova, the dean of the Music and Dance faculty, who asked us which vegetal head was mine and which was Zuzana’s, as the culmination of our studies at the school.
Video: Lukáš Hlavín, Kateřina Konvalinová , Nik Timková
BODIES IN TROUBLE
We have met to dance....
ZZ: I'm eating chips and having a period.
(EVAA fell on the floor.)
EVAA: We failed because of many errors.
ZZ: My acephalic body hugs you.
EVAA: Emotional error during bloody moments.
ZZ: We put the head in the corner. Dirty dancing, Phenomena.
EVAA: I like to eat earth.
ZZ: I can't watch any horror movies.
EVAA: Coming back to earth through the Labyrinth.
ZZ: My pitched voice is too scary.
EVAA: Moon, sun and our bodies in triangle.
ZZ: Their set and rise are exactly the opposite. Full moon cycle. Collective trouble.
EVAA: Collective trouble.
We are most beautiful after a period. Headless, poor and obscure.
After juxtaposing small dances during practicing the piece John Zorn in Us in 2014 we have met to dance this time with girl outsiders, weirdos, girls who wear aluminum hats, girls making long tones and winning beauty contests whispering ‘we failed because of an intellectual error.’ We are touching the folds of the slightly torn hoodie. The moon cup on the floor has been torn by the cat. Her tail. Her nipple. Her head. Poor and obscure. This is becoming very personal. Sperm tastes best after eating a pineapple whereas crisps taste best while having a period. We failed. Bloody moments.
“This is my head and I separate it form my body so that I might say there is my head.”
(Jakub Juhás)
“Man has escaped from his head as a condemned man from prison”
(Bataille: L' appranti sorcier)
Your body won't let you
Just want to move somebody
Body won't let you
You want to feel somebody
Body won't let you
Who, who, who do you talk to?
Who do you talk to?
Who do you talk to?
When your body's in trouble
(Mary Margaret O‘ Hara: Body's In Trouble)
So listen to me, so listen to me
So listen to me, so listen to me
So listen to me, so listen to me
So listen to me, so listen to me
So listen to me, so listen to me
So listen to me, so listen to me
So listen to me, so listen to me
So listen to me, so listen to me
(Tirzah: Devotion)
Excerpts from the journal of Zuzana Žabková. The journal becomes precious material in the process of rehearsal – a memory of bodies and experiences.
A few notes on headlessness, a record of select compositions for improvisation, intuitive notes, a fragment of a poem at the end
Headless
Headless, nipple and tail
Bloody moments, moving in triangle, moon cup, bear hugs
Drawings: Zuzana Žabková
Instructions for creating your own Berghain Duet
Find your buddy.
Go for a beer.
Have a chat.
Do you enjoy it? Do you feel a similar vibe? Do you laugh a lot?
Then go and explore the relationship.
In the street, studio, an old cafe, nice residence, nearby forest, in a techno club, at school, at home.
What is this “thing” which exists between you? In the gap, between your two bodies, your two wishes and pasts and futures?
Either it is empathy or just sympathy or love or friendship.
What if you consider your relationship as a practice? As a form of art practice? What is the art process you share together? What if you don’t need to create anything, just explore, play and experiment with the “thing” which is between you? What would you do if you could do this and potentially get paid?
Would you roll over each other? Would you dance to the Tenet soundtrack together, share you troubles? Cry till it hurts, laugh till it hurts, share feelings and pain and hopelessness. Share visions and dreams?
Would you hug each other longer than usual? Would you melt slowly to the ground and lie on top of each other? Would you tell stories, make them up, whisper bad language?
Maybe you can invent a ritual or song, call for witches and elves. You can draw your tarot or just play Dixit. You can watch sci-fi and then practice the way they say hi. You can invent your hi. You can sleep next to each other, make breakfast for each other, go out with a couple more people and share your “between” among more than two.
But maybe you can just stay silent. Or even alone. Absorb the volume and air.
You can make your own kingdom out of your favorite pieces of random stuff, practice slow cooking and create a kitchen slow-motion choreography, plant some plants and talk or sing to them. Try to sit or lie in different levels of your room, watch space from a different perspective, queer the view. You can stay still and watch the light or dust move. You can practice soft touch with layers of your clothes. You can, and this you definitely can do for many hours, observe your skin, and veins, all your body folds, grooves, wrinkles, their texture and color. If you want to make your private practice more spiritual just use a mirror and observe your face. Geometry, asymmetry, shapes, emotions, tears, memories. Imagine you being a kid again, and how much have you changed? But maybe this takes too much effort. You can rather practice weightlessness, or you can ponder travelling to the moon.
„Body to body, side to side or face to face, aligned or opposed, most often just mixed, tangential, and having little to do with each other. But that’s how bodies, which properly exchange nothing, send one another quantities of signals, notices, winks, or signaletic gestures. A bearing, debonair or lofty, a tensing up, an appeal, a depression, a gravity, a flair. And whatever belongs to the categories of words like youth or old age, work or boredom, force or awkwardness [. . .] Bodies cross paths, rub up against each other, press each other. Take buses, cross streets, enter supermarkets, step into cars, wait their turn in line, sit down in movie theaters after passing in front of ten other bodies.“
(Jean-Luc Nancy - Corpus.)
From Slovak original translated by Vít Bohal
Photo: Leontína Berková
If you need help with the exercises, want to explore any of the methods in more depth, consult your techniques, or if some parts of Berghain Duets are do not hesitate to contact Eva Prieckova directly at eva.prieckova (at) gmail.com.
BIO
Eva Priečková is a movement artist based in Slovakia. As part of her research, she refutes the concept of dance virtuosity and of exercising perfect control over a trained body. She focuses on the phenomenon of movement in everyday life and its development in the community. Her solution is found in the concept of shared and embodied experience, and creative and non-judgmental flow. Through simple instructions, she tries to draw attention to the body’s individual needs and capabilities, stimulate free creativity without a value system and the need to create a dogmatic grammar of movement. The result is a practice which can take the form of regular meetings, walks through the city, workshops, performative lectures and collective recreation. As a performer and choreographer, she is interested in interdisciplinary and experimental approaches, community projects and situations beyond superficial dance performance.
SECONDARY SOURCES
EVA PRIEČKOVÁ
Embodied movements, blossoming friendships, Berghain Duets, creating new entities; Eva Priečková and dance for everyone.
Eva Priečková is a movement artist and dancer who refuses the idea of dance virtuosity and perfect control over a trained body, thus making her practice available to virtually anyone. In her work exhibited by Unseen, she invites us in and introduces certain elements of the so-called Berghain Duets. Eva Priečková uses Berghain “as a metaphor for a safe haven, paradise or a mythical place,” with inclusivity regardless of gender, religion or social status at its heart. Eva believes any embodied movement during which we release hormones can be considered dance and employs what could be described as expanded choreographies. What's important is a willingness to open yourself up to the unknown. That's basically all you need to create your own Berghain Duet.
In the last circa 4 years, three of these Berghain Duets have taken place, and Eva is currently in the process of further developing the practice. In this document, she shares both bodily and non-bodily elements of each of the three duets through narratives, descriptions, images, videos, manifestos, drawings and references to various mediums (books, songs etc.), and towards the end shares instructions for creating your own Berghain Duet.
Berghain Duets arise naturally, if a friendship or a relationship between two people blossoms or grows into it. Chemistry, or some form of attraction, is an essential part of Berghain Duets, as well as a willingness to be vulnerable, open and relaxed with one another. Simultaneously, what is also required is a certain level of seriousness and intentionality. "What if you consider your relationship as a practice?"
That all might sound quite abstract as well as difficult to imagine, but, interestingly, the first three steps in the instructions for creating your own Berghain Duet are as follows:
1) Find a buddy
2) Go for a beer
3) Have a chat
What ensues will differ, but in this document Eva Priečková offers us suggestions of different activities that may help us explore the relationship once we’ve established there is some form of chemistry. Go to a nearby forest, a techno club, or an old café. Take a sauna together. Perhaps just stay silent in each other’s company, absorb your surroundings, observe the air and the space between you.
Without disclosing too much at this point, I am convinced that elements of Berghain Duets will seem intriguing to many of you. There’s something very transcendental, yet universal that this practice hints at, moments in the narrative that will seem completely other-worldly, yet somehow very believable. These duets are about intimacy, one that brings the spirits of the people closer together through unjudged, unrestrained, untrained and perhaps often illogical movements. You’ll have to let go of your own self to give way to an entity that isn’t just more than the sum of its parts, but a whole new entity that can only exist through the union of the two of you. Through dance, 1+1 can equal A.
Adam Badí Donoval
BERGHAIN DUETS
BERGHAIN …as a metaphor for a safe haven, a paradise or a mythical place which creates the conditions and support for all people, regardless of gender, religion, or social status…
Between 2017 and 2020, three collaborations entitled Berghain Duets took place. Each one developed through a close friendship and included the subsequent shaping of this relationship into a dance performance. It was not about artificially inserting a concept between two bodies, but rather about manifesting mutual care which develops through physical presence, long conversations, shared viewing of films or cooking. This practice thus becomes automatically open to anyone living in any form of relationship. No special physical ability was necessary for any of these two duets. I mean dance. I believe that any form of movement during which we release hormones can be considered dance. When we open ourselves up to the new unknown, when we surprise ourselves, we break free from the chain of logical evaluation.
We are currently working on the project csakó vs. juhás, in which a writer and psychologist move together. They get up close and personal, and let themselves be pulled forward by the flow of Hungarian music, they embrace, pat themselves with ping-pong paddles and simulate fist fights. I began the process with them at a moment in which they were undergoing a crisis of collaboration. They thus develop the ways in which they are able to “release” their energy so that they might free themselves of skepticism, frustration, sadness or pain.
Maybe care is exactly about that – to create experience for one another. And I believe that this happens when we pay attention, and give time, weight and potential to everything which happens between us.
On the basis of our experience, I share with you the particular practices, both bodily and non-bodily, so that you can try them for yourself.
EVA PRIEČKOVÁ & SAGHAR HOSSEINPOUR: EARTHWORMS ARE CROSSING THE ROAD
In 2017, I collaborated with the performer and choreographer Saghar Hosseinpour. Saghar is an Iranian experimental and independent artist active mostly in Teheran, Berlin and Vienna. She is currently working on her long-term project which focuses on Teheran, mainly the phenomena of overcrowding and the physicality of bodies in public space over the course of everyday situations.
Photo: Mohsen Shahmiri
Autumn 2016.
We are laying one atop the other. We try to closely copy the shape of our bodies so that we fit together. We synchronize our breathing into a similar tempo. It does not always work out, and that’s OK. I feel the weight of your body distributed so that I don’t feel excessive pressure anywhere. You are balancing so that your body does not slip away to any one side. It takes a while for us to harmonize. You are falling into me. Two body widths, the third dimension, which we often forget about, gradually dilates, more and more. From the side, it might look like a honey pie – a fold.
Two layers which gradually seep into one another and succumb to gravity.
Suddenly we are no longer two, but one of two. I hear and feel your breath coming from your nostrils. They are right next to my ear. You start to talk. In Persian.
I enjoy your language like I do music. The pauses, the voice’s tenor, words I could never pronounce. But something very strange is happening. As you talk and lay atop me, I seem to understand more and more of what you are saying. You are remembering a family tragedy, death, sadness. Your intonation does not change, but somehow I understand. After we finish, I ask you whether you were talking about a death in the family, and you look at me half-aghast, half-excited
How do you know?
You ask and I answer.
I just understood. I have no clue how.
…
A few days later we arrange collaboration…
We thought about language and about what is real for us.
Earthworms on the road were real.
Earthworms are crossing the road is the title of our collaboration.
“And my breath would fill your lungs until it felt like your breath
And when you spoke you’d have a voice that was not quite you
And not quite me but something rubbed through both of us.”
(Lucrecia Dalt: Edge Anticlines, 2018)
After a year’s worth of obstructions (communicating with the embassy in Iran), we were invited to Prague to the Hybaj Ho 2018 festival. We met after a year and had one rehearsal. We found out the connection was still there. It hadn’t disappeared. So, we ordered red wine and went to the sauna to practice shared dissolution.
Which can also be one of the common practices. To take a sauna together, if health permits. The sauna is an intimating moment. You see each other only in a towel of sheet, you sweat together, whisper for parts of the discussion, or dip in cold water together. Then you Relax together in a moment when the body releases all the pent-up tension.
“Language is a skin. I rub my language against the other. It is as if I had words instead of fingers or fingers at the tip of my words. A whole activity of discourse discreetly, indirectly focuses upon a single signified. I caress, brush against, talk up this contact.”
(Roland Barthes: Lovers Discourse)
Practicies
A few particular tasks which we practiced throughout the creation of the Earthworms are crossing the road duet.
1. Writing
Question: what is realistic for you at this moment?
Time: 15 mins
Then you share, mutually read your texts out loud and discuss.
2. Laying on top of one another – the fold
One of you lays down on her stomach. She positions herself so that it is comfortable. The other one lays down on top so that she most closely copies the shape of her body. She is also laying on her stomach. During subsequent practice, we can also experiment with the placement of the bodies. It is important to comfortably place the head and body, so that the top body will not fall over.
3. Mutual listening
If you speak different languages, try to communicate with them. If you are physically together, you can use the position of the fold to do that – two bodies on top another. Or you can do the same while drinking morning coffee, as a practice of listening to a voice speaking a different language. If you are far from each other, record a message for each other – the content matters not – it can for example be a poem of a local author, and just listen to her voice, to its color, tone, intonation and other specificities. Listen to the recording like you listen to music. If you pick out meaning, share it with your partner. Spend lots of time together. May your collaboration take place over the span of a whole day. Notice your presence, the manner in which you exist in space. How far apart you are sitting, what you enjoy drinking. When you need silence and when you need to listen to pop.
Photo: Aïsha Mia
EVA PRIEČKOVÁ & FERGUS JOHNSON: WAITING FOR A MAGIC EVGUS TO HAPPEN
A 2016 encounter during the Smash course, Berlin. I think we both found a connection during one improvisation session to the music of Lord of the Rings. We started to imitate a duel. It was like a duel. Our total mobilization during the imitation of the fight led to a sense of play. Peter Grey writes this about play:
“Social play in all animals requires that all tendencies toward aggression and dominance be suppressed. This is especially true in playful fighting, which is one of the most common forms of animal play. The fundamental difference between a play fight and a real fight is that the former involves no intention to hurt, drive away, or dominate the other animal. A play fight between two young animals can only occur if both are willing partners. Anything that smacks of true aggression or tendency to dominate would cause the threatened animal to run away, and the play, with all its fun and opportunity for learning, would end. And so, in the course of natural selection, animals developed signals to let each other know that their playful attacks are not real attacks, and they developed, for purposes of play, self-restraints and means of self-handicapping to operate against any tendencies to dominate or hurt one another in play."
(Peter Gray: Play Makes Us Human I. A Ludic Theory of Human Nature)
We had a lot of fun with it and so we decided to try to collaborate. Over the course of the three-month course Smash (now ROAR) in Berlin, which we took part in during the autumn of 2016, in the evenings we met in the space of a former café which had gone out of business. Towards the end, we engaged in informal sharing where we communicated the outcomes of our movement laboratory. We tried to apply everything we had learned in the three months. And we termed it Experimental Empathy.
Manifesto of Waiting for a magic Evgus and Experimental Empathy movement practice
I think things start with the idea of relation. We are two people. We are two friends. We like each other and we feel connected. We are two people dancing together. The chemistry is good and we produce something from our dance, something worthwhile. This is how we started and I think this is the basis of our work - the foundation.
What do we produce? We produce magic. The simplest things become complex because of their relation to the world. We don’t dance in a vacuum; we dance in space, in time. We dance on a specific day and at a specific moment. We dance with our whole lives in front of us and behind us. Our dance is a nexus: from one way of seeing, all events past present and future radiate out from our dancing.
Each movement, sensation, thought is nestled in this context: it is in relation to the universe. This is magic. Because our chemistry is good, the magic we produce is worthwhile. Framed in the context of our chemistry, each movement, sensation, thought has resonance with the universe.
...
Of course, what I am describing is just being in relation to the other, the other as another being and also the other as the universe. But we go further than that. We frame our relation as work. Perhaps a performance, perhaps research, perhaps a somatic trip.
For the duration of this work we give up our self to serve the work. We serve the work by becoming one with it - in fact Evgus is exactly that: Eva & Fergus. We are the work.
Therefore, the work is: us as a singular being, us in relation to each other, us as a nexal point in relation to the universe.
...
The work can be viewed as a cosmos. It is a word for the work.
By this I mean that we create a world for our bodies to inhabit. It is a dance-world: a world of sensation, movement, thought. We do this so we can explore Evgus. Although we give up ourselves to create Evgus, we still retain our sense of self. We are still active as Eva & Fergus inside of this singular being called Evgus. Despite being inside of the work we still make individual decisions, have sensations, move etc.
Therefore, we view the work as a world, quite simply because this allows us to explore it. Literally through space and time. What is interesting here is that, because the work is essentially just the relationship between Eva & Fergus, but in a specific framework, the cosmos we create is also fundamentally just a relation.
And we relate through thought, sensation, movement. But we also explore through sensation, movement, thought. Therefore, our relation is both the cosmos we inhabit and also our method of exploring that cosmos.
...
What this leads to is the idea of a cosmos of Evgus nestled in the universe itself. With Eva & Fergus as conduits: the link between our world and the world.
Photo: Aïsha Mia
NOW SOME PRACTICALITIES
If Evgus is a cosmos that we both make and explore then the question is how. We choose to use experimental empathy.
We want the cosmos of Evgus to be self-sustained. We don’t want it to rely on an outside score. Therefore, we need to create these movements, thoughts, sensations from within the cosmos. Of course, we could just produce them. We are dancers, it’s not so hard. But that would be Eva producing movements or Fergus producing sensations or whatever. And we want to Evgus to produce movements, thoughts, sensations. At the base of everything is the idea of our relation and our chemistry. Experimental empathy is just a way of encouraging this to grow. It is simply a toolbox of improvisational techniques which allow us to “sync” with each other and produce thoughts, sensations and movements from a shared common ground.
The easiest way of imagining it is like an ongoing game with very strict rules that we invent on the spot and immediately break. It is like when you are a child and you play in a fantasy world with your best friend. But instead of producing dragons we produce thoughts, sensations, movements. And these feeds our imagination so the game continues.
The idea of playing is important because it underscores the seriousness of our work. We chose to give up ourselves in order to serve the work. If practically the work is a game, then we give up our own selves just for a game.
And because the chemistry is good, the work is worthwhile.
Text by Fergus Johnson
EVA PRIEČKOVÁ & ZUZANA ŽABKOVÁ: BODIES IN TROUBLE
In 2010, we started studying together with Zuzana Žabková at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava. In the second year, we muscled our way into the seminars of Daniel Matej focused on a 21st century music repertoire. There, we started our journey across improvisation and we exhaled it in our final performance entitled John Zorn V Nás (John Zorn in Us) at the end of which we hid for 12 seconds while Yamatsuke Eye screamed in the Hammerhead track of Naked City, and then threw out a head of cabbage and of lettuce into the Academy’s courtyard. We considered the feedback of Irina Čiernikova, the dean of the Music and Dance faculty, who asked us which vegetal head was mine and which was Zuzana’s, as the culmination of our studies at the school.
Video: Lukáš Hlavín, Kateřina Konvalinová , Nik Timková
BODIES IN TROUBLE
We have met to dance....
ZZ: I'm eating chips and having a period.
(EVAA fell on the floor.)
EVAA: We failed because of many errors.
ZZ: My acephalic body hugs you.
EVAA: Emotional error during bloody moments.
ZZ: We put the head in the corner. Dirty dancing, Phenomena.
EVAA: I like to eat earth.
ZZ: I can't watch any horror movies.
EVAA: Coming back to earth through the Labyrinth.
ZZ: My pitched voice is too scary.
EVAA: Moon, sun and our bodies in triangle.
ZZ: Their set and rise are exactly the opposite. Full moon cycle. Collective trouble.
EVAA: Collective trouble.
We are most beautiful after a period. Headless, poor and obscure.
After juxtaposing small dances during practicing the piece John Zorn in Us in 2014 we have met to dance this time with girl outsiders, weirdos, girls who wear aluminum hats, girls making long tones and winning beauty contests whispering ‘we failed because of an intellectual error.’ We are touching the folds of the slightly torn hoodie. The moon cup on the floor has been torn by the cat. Her tail. Her nipple. Her head. Poor and obscure. This is becoming very personal. Sperm tastes best after eating a pineapple whereas crisps taste best while having a period. We failed. Bloody moments.
“This is my head and I separate it form my body so that I might say there is my head.”
(Jakub Juhás)
“Man has escaped from his head as a condemned man from prison”
(Bataille: L' appranti sorcier)
Your body won't let you
Just want to move somebody
Body won't let you
You want to feel somebody
Body won't let you
Who, who, who do you talk to?
Who do you talk to?
Who do you talk to?
When your body's in trouble
(Mary Margaret O‘ Hara: Body's In Trouble)
So listen to me, so listen to me
So listen to me, so listen to me
So listen to me, so listen to me
So listen to me, so listen to me
So listen to me, so listen to me
So listen to me, so listen to me
So listen to me, so listen to me
So listen to me, so listen to me
(Tirzah: Devotion)
Excerpts from the journal of Zuzana Žabková. The journal becomes precious material in the process of rehearsal – a memory of bodies and experiences.
A few notes on headlessness, a record of select compositions for improvisation, intuitive notes, a fragment of a poem at the end
Headless
Headless, nipple and tail
Bloody moments, moving in triangle, moon cup, bear hugs
Drawings: Zuzana Žabková
Instructions for creating your own Berghain Duet
Find your buddy.
Go for a beer.
Have a chat.
Do you enjoy it? Do you feel a similar vibe? Do you laugh a lot?
Then go and explore the relationship.
In the street, studio, an old cafe, nice residence, nearby forest, in a techno club, at school, at home.
What is this “thing” which exists between you? In the gap, between your two bodies, your two wishes and pasts and futures?
Either it is empathy or just sympathy or love or friendship.
What if you consider your relationship as a practice? As a form of art practice? What is the art process you share together? What if you don’t need to create anything, just explore, play and experiment with the “thing” which is between you? What would you do if you could do this and potentially get paid?
Would you roll over each other? Would you dance to the Tenet soundtrack together, share you troubles? Cry till it hurts, laugh till it hurts, share feelings and pain and hopelessness. Share visions and dreams?
Would you hug each other longer than usual? Would you melt slowly to the ground and lie on top of each other? Would you tell stories, make them up, whisper bad language?
Maybe you can invent a ritual or song, call for witches and elves. You can draw your tarot or just play Dixit. You can watch sci-fi and then practice the way they say hi. You can invent your hi. You can sleep next to each other, make breakfast for each other, go out with a couple more people and share your “between” among more than two.
But maybe you can just stay silent. Or even alone. Absorb the volume and air.
You can make your own kingdom out of your favorite pieces of random stuff, practice slow cooking and create a kitchen slow-motion choreography, plant some plants and talk or sing to them. Try to sit or lie in different levels of your room, watch space from a different perspective, queer the view. You can stay still and watch the light or dust move. You can practice soft touch with layers of your clothes. You can, and this you definitely can do for many hours, observe your skin, and veins, all your body folds, grooves, wrinkles, their texture and color. If you want to make your private practice more spiritual just use a mirror and observe your face. Geometry, asymmetry, shapes, emotions, tears, memories. Imagine you being a kid again, and how much have you changed? But maybe this takes too much effort. You can rather practice weightlessness, or you can ponder travelling to the moon.
„Body to body, side to side or face to face, aligned or opposed, most often just mixed, tangential, and having little to do with each other. But that’s how bodies, which properly exchange nothing, send one another quantities of signals, notices, winks, or signaletic gestures. A bearing, debonair or lofty, a tensing up, an appeal, a depression, a gravity, a flair. And whatever belongs to the categories of words like youth or old age, work or boredom, force or awkwardness [. . .] Bodies cross paths, rub up against each other, press each other. Take buses, cross streets, enter supermarkets, step into cars, wait their turn in line, sit down in movie theaters after passing in front of ten other bodies.“
(Jean-Luc Nancy - Corpus.)
From Slovak original translated by Vít Bohal
Photo: Leontína Berková
BIO
Eva Priečková is a movement artist based in Slovakia. As part of her research, she refutes the concept of dance virtuosity and of exercising perfect control over a trained body. She focuses on the phenomenon of movement in everyday life and its development in the community. Her solution is found in the concept of shared and embodied experience, and creative and non-judgmental flow. Through simple instructions, she tries to draw attention to the body’s individual needs and capabilities, stimulate free creativity without a value system and the need to create a dogmatic grammar of movement. The result is a practice which can take the form of regular meetings, walks through the city, workshops, performative lectures and collective recreation. As a performer and choreographer, she is interested in interdisciplinary and experimental approaches, community projects and situations beyond superficial dance performance.
SECONDARY SOURCES
Unseen is an online platform and web archive that presents different approaches to listening and cultivating the relationship between our bodies, space and sound. Through a series of exercises, methods and video guides, we are invited to focus on sound as a tool for relieving feelings of separation and isolation, as a tool for imagining better futures.
Unseen is an online platform and web archive that presents different approaches to listening and cultivating the relationship between our bodies, space and sound. Through a series of exercises, methods and video guides, we are invited to focus on sound as a tool for relieving feelings of separation and isolation, as a tool for imagining better futures.