DANCE REFLECTIONS 011 with Peter and Yari

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

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

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

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

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

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

Music empty five by mobygratis

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 1:22

What are you dancing today, Peter?

SPEAKER_01 1:50

Um I was really taken actually by what Tim was talking about um of being in control or an out of control, maybe being controlled. Uh Tim Spinner, I'm talking about uh in this episode. I am I'm in Trella boy. Um performing at Axel Ebba Konsthal and uh I've been dancing um something I've been calling alongside which comes from the work I do with babies and I'm trying to sort of um be with and uh just listen before acting, maybe, um, or let listening be the action. Um and it's a sounding and movement practice uh where I'm trying to resonate with where I am audibly and physically in the space uh with the gallery view viewers and with the the sculptures in the room, the temperature, with the sounds and here I'm looking out over the sea. So Trellabor is near Malmo. I'm right right by the ocean. What are you dancing today, Yale?

SPEAKER_00 3:59

I'm thinking I'm dancing resting. To rest. I think I'm dancing of also horizontality, I would say.

SPEAKER_03 4:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:12

Uh yeah, like you know how the whole body behave differently when you're horizontal, and I mean, you know, maybe with uh with gravity uh or how some joints might you know relax in different ways or have different pressure. But also the uh reconciliation, the the reaffecting, sorry, the organs that reposition themselves because they're they're suddenly touching, laying, yeah, exactly, hanging in a different way. And the neck also the head, for example, I'm thinking about that, you know, how the head suddenly requires me uh to to use other muscles or or to use more kind of neck masses, more one side and the other, and the heaps.

SPEAKER_01 5:30

Ah I've been performing very horizontally um yesterday, and I'm super aware how how I'm not seeing um like when we're vertical, it's like very attentive. I have a great vision of what's ahead of me, and I can turn quite quickly and get a wider um peripheral vision. Um whereas when I'm horizontal, um I'm not going anywhere, or like my vision is very impaired. I I usually looking at the floor, and I'm open in other ways by being horizontal. I I start to have to tune in to my proprioception in a different way, like where my legs extend to, or where where my hearing and um yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:46

Do you think then uh there is the the relation between control and verticality and horizontality? I mean I'm thinking about uh the desires for control, even if they might even change in uh such a position.

SPEAKER_01 7:06

Yeah, true, true. I mean, definitely when I'm vertical, I'm I I don't know why we don't talk about it more, but like I'm constantly shocked, or or uh or I don't know how to deal with. I think that's more the issue of like standing is such there's so many uh operations in the body that must happen to allow me to stand and stay stable and and to shift weight and not fall over, or not fall over even just standing still, whereas horizontally there's it still exists. I catch myself with my hands, maybe and my arms, but um less so. Um so absolutely the the world of control in a horizontal position is is more is something that is more present, I think I find in myself. Um but that that's a very internal control, right? But also um there's a performativity like outward towards others, of if I'm standing, I'm projecting action and legibility, whereas if I'm lying, I'm performing a sense of submission, um, and a lack of control, a lack of dominance, um which can be done vertically as well, but it's it's more readily there, right? Like there's a way we associate the eyes and the frontality and the verticality as a sort of like um position of power compared to lying down.

SPEAKER_00 9:17

Well, what's about uh the listening? Do you think there's enough uh I mean because visual is very clear, it's higher, yeah, and probably listening. There's also something about maybe listening more. But I wonder if there is also like uh the listening, hearing from a low perspective, from a low yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:41

Uh I mean it's also what you're listening for, right? I think like with a verticality, we've opened our ears to a sort of horizont horizontal plane, so we're sort of reaching out. I mean, it gets very sort of um evolutionary in my thinking, like uh we're ready for flight or fight type um activity. Whereas when I'm horizontal, I'm listening to things which I perhaps wouldn't hear if I was um in that mode of attending the situation in a under like a conventional understanding of meaning and relevance. Whereas on the horizontal plane, I start to perhaps listen to my internal organs more. Um I hear my own breath when I'm uh have my face towards the floor in a different way to how I can attend to it or um cause to attend to it when I'm vertically, vertically uh sort of positioned. Um but what what what do you make of rest? Because do how yeah there's there's definitely a sense of um dropping and letting go. Uh and there's only so many places one can sort of be horizontal and rest and feel safe to rest.

SPEAKER_00 11:39

I mean I must say that the the body also laying down as all another this desires for movement. I'm I'm thinking that finding there also the I think I need more movement when I'm laying somehow, but because maybe I uh because uh because uh as you said, when I am standing, I I have a lot of tasks and and body shifts where laying it's the re the risk or the beauty of laying is that maybe I don't I'm just laying and I do and not active so much. Yes, and the inactivity and then after then it's also not super comfortable, like then I need to move more. Yeah, yeah, and uh sorry, yeah. No, go for it.

SPEAKER_01 12:47

I mean isn't it surprising how like um we you can only stay in one position for a short period of time, like exactly like a movement. I am often struck by that, especially I feel like it's it's something I'm interested in. I think it's something that that we've been exploring as a community for a a while, is the is slowness. I mean, uh I'm sure as a species we've been exploring the slowness for forever, but um the there's a limit, right? Like you I think I had uh my arm up at some point yesterday and had to think of there's a there's a guru or some a yogic that has kept their hand above their head for years, you know, and it's um incomprehensible. Obviously, things their anatomy has now changed and like it has caused um yeah functional difference because of doing that for so long, but you really you really feel time when you start to try and stay in one position for longer than is comfortable, as you say.

SPEAKER_00 14:10

Yeah, longer than what we are used to, because I mean when we stand, it depends on most of the people don't really even really feel so much.

SPEAKER_01 14:23

But I think I think what I'm trying to say maybe is like you just said it now, like what we're used to. So there's like like you know, when people say I was speaking to some people yesterday who who had watched the dance, and they were saying, Oh, I um they were saying, Oh, I can't dance, I'm not very good at dancing, I'm a terrible dancer, and and uh yet their baseline isn't stillness, you know, it's not not moving. Uh not that dance is dances only movement, but um, but that's what we're talking about right now, right? Of like movement versus a position. Uh so there's the baseline is uh what we're used to is is already in in movement. So there's already a relationship to movement and stillness, like a temp temporality, a rhythm, a configure, a physical configuration, a tonality, um, a physicality, or maybe even a performativity that that is a baseline just through all activity. And I think that's really striking to me. As dancers, we don't start from zero and then start adding adding movement. It's not like a blank canvas, it's as though if if we were using the analogy of a blank canvas, it would be as though the the canvas is already moving, it's already shifting. Um and of course, a blank canvas is also not ever blank. Uh it has texture, it has difference and quality of its own. But you you you know what I mean. Uh I'm often struck by that.

SPEAKER_00 16:25

Uh I'm I'm also wondering if uh so uh because it's so interesting, we have the the the balance now, uh is uh the organ of the balance is positioned uh uh inside our here here.

SPEAKER_03 16:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:48

And and I I tried my best to understand is there is a correlation between hearing and balance. Uh and apparently there is really not, although there is a effect, there is for sure there is a some uh uh affection, there is some effect, yeah. But but it's it's it's not uh uh it's not really strong, or it is not about oh, you have more balance if you hear better or less, whatever. So um I'm also interested in in such a question, like how can we explore such a correlation between listening and balance?

SPEAKER_01 17:35

Yeah, I and I think what you're touching on as well is like it's so easy, or it's we're so quick, or maybe this is an element of control as well. Like we we have learned maybe to categorize and um compartmentalize different things, like this is my hearing, this is my sight, this is my taste, this is a chair, this is you know, like there's this activity we're always doing, and trying to put life into a a sort of order, and yet well, perhaps there is a there's a quality of life that is indifferent to any of that, you know, like uh our balance is just is a configuration of multiple um categories that we we have sort of identified and and uh put the majority in, and yet it's it's sort of an assimilation of of multiple things.

SPEAKER_00 18:55

Um yeah, especially with senses.

SPEAKER_01 19:02

I'm often struck with the baby performances I do of like how they are so they they don't have such distinct uh that they're listening now, it's usually like listening and something else, like it's always a little bit of a plurality in the sense making.

SPEAKER_00 19:26

That is somehow it's also reveal how leading and following are reactive both, uh, and uh and there's a possibility for that to be at the same time. Yes, although sometimes you say, Oh, maybe we're not multitasking, but with the kids, it looks we are when we watch kids, or it looks they are, yeah. Just that the the the consciousness is a bit more spread, yes, yeah, they're not focused on one thing, yeah. That's why they can be multitask, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:13

But they're not bound also by these conventions. Chris, I I wanted to say when you said that of um like there's a desire to imagine, well, from myself, there's a desire to imagine that I am a collective, you know, that that my decisions and my experience is an amalgamation of its relationship to everyone and everything that I'm uh a part of. But equally, that's too uh strict. It's obvious, like it's not I'm not uh I'm not as collaborative as I would like to to sort of to set it as like a sort of like distill it into like a I am fully everything and everywhere all at once, because that's not that's not exactly what it is. It's it's this give and take which is constantly in flux and always moving and shifting, and there's this ambiguity um and strangeness that sort of emerges. We sort with Tim, I was we sort of got there in the end. Uh Tim was talking about abstraction and meaning making, uh, and I felt like the there was a desire that we stay in the ambiguous, we stay in the sort of unclear, open, but also not so open that's. We lose uh the sense of what what is happening.

SPEAKER_00 22:11

Yeah, you spoke also about yeah, consciousness that somehow it's one of it looks to me it's one of the primary based for subjectivity to exist.

SPEAKER_01 22:28

And it's we sleep every day talking about rest right like we're constantly doing unconscious activity Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:43

I I also thought, you know, lately I also thought that uh it's such a pity that is uh the final uh the final subjectivity is always up to oh it's it's finally Yaddy, you know. Oh we can be in community, we can be a city, we can be we can we can feel uh we can feel part of like national, whatever it means, uh part of a group, uh part of a of a field, but but then suddenly the more power the most powerful subjectivity is the being. Yeah, we're being um whatever that is.

SPEAKER_01 23:35

Right. I I was actually wondering this is a a question to you and also to anyone listening. Uh I I did these um workshops on composition, and we were working on Zoom um uh as a medium, and it made me actually desire to like I to study composition and specifically like collective composition and performativity, and I thought it would be interesting uh to do it with others rather than do it alone, like constantly studying alone. So I was thinking perhaps we could open up and see if we could find some time to share like maybe three sessions of two hours or something like this just to start. Um and I could use this structure I have of um using Zoom as a compositional tool where I invite us to play with each element uh separately. So we play with the chat and we play with the video and we play with the sound, and then we use that as a way to as a starting point to create um different compositional um uh relationships, and it's so abnormal in a way, it's not a stage, uh, and it's not a it's not a physical body, it's a sort of cyborgian collective uh that I think it actually could give us um a little bit of a distance from our usual um explorations into composition. What do you think, yeah?

SPEAKER_00 25:45

Yes, I'd be super happy. Um I would be super happy, yes, uh to to start uh if I find the time. I I suppose we can find a time, but it depends on so many people, sadly. Because if we are 10 people, I might have less possibility. I don't know, I'm just thinking because to find my time, I maybe have also only a few little spots every week or something like that. Yeah, uh but May I'm a bit more free than April, for example.

SPEAKER_01 26:15

So but I think um like this, um we could do many small studies with different people, you know. Um yeah, so if anyone is interested, um and the dates we find in the beginning for the majority um don't work for everyone, we can find another time and hopefully find another way.

SPEAKER_00 26:44

It sounds great, and it sounds great to explore sort of also uh collective consciousness through composition, and when I'm thinking about composition, I'm thinking also about patterns making as an organizational tool. I mean in nature it's so strong, but not only like generally, like we constantly create uh common patterns or or uh system of thought that are um compositional in that sense. So yes, uh in my yeah, it's exciting, and also the the distance, no, because I mean if we are on Zoom, there is something about distance somehow and proximity to images, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:35

And um I think what's nice with Zoom is unlike in a dance studio, you have the option to mute or turn off the camera and then expose things um quite controlled in a way, or more um analytically, because you you're not uh constantly exposed. So there's this like ability to really break down what is what are we working with and to experiment with it. It's so such a strange form actually being at distance and together at the same time. And and also um I think I think I I think I'm finding like doing these with you and doing the podcast in general, it's such a it's such an interesting and joyful place to to be able to study, to dance, to research that's not um connected with like uh with an economy of like I have to do this uh to to earn money, to to fulfill uh funding um criteria or obligations to venues and that there's a that it's like it's it's free. Like we we we'll make it work as we need and like we were saying about finding dates, you know, like uh we'll it'll you know it should be negotiable because it's so few parties involved compared to most other work. Uh and there's no and I'm not gonna charge obviously because no one's paying, I'm not paying, and yeah, you know, there's no there's no money involved. I might have to get a professional Zoom account. That's fine. That's uh that's a cost that could be fun to try and pay for. Now we're getting into the economic necessities. Yeah, we rarely talk about this.

SPEAKER_00 30:06

I I think we do very often, actually. Every time where there is a glitch of technology, we're like and there is a lot of glitch, definitely.

SPEAKER_01 30:16

Yeah, less today, yeah. It's nice. Well, no, no, well, it's interesting, and that's also interesting, I think, with the form um the gappiness that's that's sort of embedded into these technologies. It it amplifies the gappiness of communication in general, I believe.

SPEAKER_00 30:43

Yeah, may uh it made me think also that with the team you you recorded two times. Um exactly for for that problem, technological problem. And I I experienced also that uh you really had a strong connection, like in the sense that it felt there was there was this experience there, you two, and um you were not really trying to reproduce it, but it was very conscious, and it was also nice to kind of that you were both in the present but also have um a reference of experience that's it's it's was guiding you through that. I'm sure uh you you you you spoke about other stuff totally or part of it or you know, yeah, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 31:53

No, it's um it was really nice, but the I felt like there was a I don't want to say a uh like a friendliness, that's what I wanted to say, but it's not like there wasn't there's no friendliness when I just do it once, but um there was a more greater familiarity because we had done it once and we had also we'd done it once not knowing we were gonna do it again. It wasn't like a rehearsal. We didn't do it with the with the knowledge that this is just a test. We really did it. Um and then it was only after that we were like, okay, none of this is usable. Like literally, you couldn't hear anything. And um and it was yeah, it was really it was fun to be in my position as a host, um having a little bit more information than I usually do. Um usually I I am just like you um trying to figure out what what it is we are gonna do and trying to find the words, and then we'd had all this time apart. I'd even done it on my own uh after after doing it with Tim, the painting, and then so I had numerous experiences with it, and yet I don't know if you remember, but I did it wrong or not wrong, but I forgot this part of keeping the the paint wet whilst filling in the middle of the of the of the of the paper. So uh it was sort of like oh yeah, okay. I did it slightly different, even if I have practiced.

SPEAKER_00 34:00

Dance was so present. I mean uh the the question of craft and dance, um consciousness. Uh I I I I don't know, I just felt uh the division between the materiality and this and the self, the expansion of the self through materialities. It was wow, it was really like yeah, it was a while that I didn't hear so much about dance. That you don't hear about dance, did you say? Yeah, I mean like yeah, it's like uh you know, it's like oh suddenly in other episodes, you know, uh dance becomes maybe something else, dance become art, dance become practices, but in this episode everything was becoming a bit dense, it was very nice.

SPEAKER_02 34:49

Yeah, yeah, true, true.

SPEAKER_01 34:53

I sometimes worry that I'm so dance-centric, you know, yeah that all I think about and talk about and do is is related to dance and it feels quite arbitrary. Um like could we have this conversation about consciousness and control without talking about dance or without talking about?

SPEAKER_00 35:20

I mean maybe it's my reading. Maybe you didn't speak about dance, also. You know, I just want to say I think you did.

SPEAKER_01 35:28

I did. But yeah, maybe not explicitly, but there's something uh I filter everything a little bit through that.

SPEAKER_00 35:40

Yeah, but that's uh because you decided to have a a podcast that has dance in the title, a direction, exactly. No, well, not only the title, but also it's a life yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:54

I I I feel like my name isn't Peter, my name is Peter dances with the that's Peter dances with the bed, that Peter dances with the food, Peter dances with walking. Peter dances with crisis.

SPEAKER_00 36:15

Well, I mean, also dance is also quite, I feel is quite you've been exploring so much more like choreography before. So also dance is like that is so active in your life, like active, active, like so focused as choreography was for so long.

SPEAKER_01 36:34

Uh that's fun for you to say. I mean, I I I I I I for me it never left, but I know um or I get the I get the understanding that when people look at my more choreographic focused work, uh they don't see the dance, whereas the only reason I was working with it was because of dance. So for me it was always dance-related. Okay, Yaddy. Uh thank you again. Um I'll if if people can email me, message me if they uh are interested in meeting up, and we don't have to record it and put it out into the world, but um we'll do some studying together and it'll be more of a collaborative thing. Um people can join us, of course, and discuss after, but we can discuss that when we meet things. Um people are always welcome to come and join us, right?

SPEAKER_00 37:40

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course. Oh my god, yes.

SPEAKER_01 37:44

It's only me and you doing it because um because uh we uh we are slaves to each other. Yeah, no, it's uh it's just a joy. So let's keep doing it.

SPEAKER_00 38:05

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 38:06

Yeah, and all right. You too. See you next week.

SPEAKER_00 38:10

Bye everyone.

SPEAKER_02 38:11

Bye.