les enfants du paradis

Hosni Mubarak stepped down after 30 years of Power

2011-02-11T10:50:00.000-08:00

I have been following Egypt with excitement these days, like so many of us.
It is wonderful to feel the excitement and energy that is in the air.
Democracy Now! and Facebook have been my favorite sources of information.
Movement is movement is movement :-)

what do we do with paradise? - the story of stuff

2009-03-11T16:42:00.000-07:00

just watch the 20-minute video, it will speak for itself...

if the video should be unavailable by now, you can try the original website, where you can also see it with subtitles in many majority languages
http://www.storyofstuff.com/international/index.html

Daniela Swarowsky & Samuli Schielke - Messages from Paradise

2008-11-02T06:05:00.000-08:00

a trailer for the first part of a trilogy about migration - the longing for paradise in ... Europe & "The West" more information at http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=WlIjE1HsiPo

COBRA

2007-09-21T10:50:00.000-07:00

Recently I reviewed untitled/. {COBRA voor bij de koffie} (COBRA for the coffie-table) a conceptual piece that I started in 2003 (for more info, click here)

It's main and central element is that of play. I wanted to create an experience of spontaneous and creative people at play, in whatever way their inspiration takes them. How could this be made possible? How would it be a healthy balance between construction and destruction, and how to make sure that it remains a collaborative effort, where every one gets a maximum range of expressing and action?

I realise these days that is was also a pre-lude and a preparation that lead me to »les enfants du paradis« A successful realisation of COBRA is a state of Paradise, and that this is something I want, as an individual, also as a creator and an artist.

When I re-read the statements of those artists that created the original CoBrA art-movement in 1948, many of them are at the heart of what I think is possible now, it only takes a more thorough and wide-spread change of mind from insight, not force.

That yes, we can live in paradise, all that was originally needed was there. This is in sharp contrast to the state of the planet's human population today (as of 2007) Too many of us live in poverty and terribly hostile life-conditions, without having chosen to do so, which is completely unnecessary and could very easily be helped.
(see for example the section did-you-know? at www.whiteband.org)

first video of 2006 performance in tüzraktér: walking con.sens.us

2007-07-17T11:09:00.001-07:00

performed with members of the audience, somewhere in the middle of the evening. this was the first large-scale performance of the score. all was filmed in near darkness - due to post-processing it is now possible to see more, even though the quality is still very grainy...

more celebration: Dimitri From Paris @ The Mansion, Mexico City

2007-05-19T02:53:00.001-07:00

this is a bootleg video of Dimitri from Paris as he is playing Outwork feat. Mr. Gee's "Elektro" (Joey Negro Remix) at The Mansion in Mexico City.

i find the combination of repetitive hard and syncopated rhythms and spheric chords / organs very attractive. something i would like for a new realization of 'les enfants du paradis' - somewhere in the second half of the evening, approaching trances... liberation of physicality from ordinary restraints. (the question for me is always: what then? and what about the equally liberated aggression, when the physical energy is still meeting obstacles through remaining, yet unresolved energetic blocks?)

another look on celebration

2007-03-13T06:02:00.000-07:00

click here to read an article on celebration and carnival by Barbara Ehrenreich titled "Reclaiming What Makes Us Human" and published online at In These Times.

thanks to Daniela Swarowsky for this tip!
(her friend Samuli Schielke does research on popular Egyptian Sufi celebrations of Mawlids which I understand are not received very favorably by the Salafi Egyptian elites either ... for a gallery of his photos please click here)

Jugendstil - art noveau ( & Co. ...)

2007-03-04T03:12:00.000-08:00

more understandings about paradise and the expression of the human mind/being: i've just returned from Brussels and read more about Art Nouveau (also known as 'Secession' or 'Jugendstil' in German speaking countries) see photo to the left: entry door to the Hôtel Solvay, Brussels, built by Victor Horta

in that book, the contrast between organic forms and technological mass production was presented as a major problem of its esthetic, also that while it sought to appear light and moving (in parallel development to what was presented as a 19th century experience of movement due to increase in level of technology) it remained on a decorative level and didn't yet intervene in dealing with the underlying technology itself.

i realise that i treasure this style as another attempt of the human mind to express itself lightly and with freedom (see the blog-entry on flying).

however, there was a price to pay, as also this art movement was brought forward by the advantage of wealthy over less-privileged who could not afford such a development as easily. (an even more extreme example would be the Rococo or the splendor of Gothic cathedrals compared to the shanty towns that were then making up villages in Europe, or even further back into antiquity...)

in its own right I get to think of the COBRA movement in the Benelux and Denmark, however this was after the more accepting embrace of technological possibilities unhindered by traditional esthetics and the more developed acceptance of corporeality and matter realized in the period erupting after the early 1900's. also, in intention CoBrA was more directly aimed at everybody, not just the elite.

anyway, the theme of flight, or being in between two more consolidated states, continues to interest me, as it makes opening up to possibly new solutions possible, which then can come to appear in the relatively more empty space...

Eloi - the Time Machine

2007-02-01T23:12:00.000-08:00

saw another Hollywood remake from 2002, of H.G. Well's "The Time Machine" (almost not worth the review / comparison: the movie from 1960 was maybe more naive in special effects, but so much more consistent in how it was designed as also in dramaturgy - here iin 2002 there are many special effects and a hardly credible plot)

again, a paradise on the surface (the Eloi), based on horror underground (the Morlocks)....
(the same upper-lower theme as in Metropolis)

more from the Tropics: Brazilian culture

2007-01-29T12:12:00.000-08:00

these days i get to think about working in Brazil.

i find it another very interesting example for the Caucasian / Eurasian quest for paradise: beautiful people, lots of nature, spiritual indigenous people, happy culture (Samba, Bossa Nova) the good life (but for whom, the former plantage-owner aside...)

these days i find Brazilian-created music an indispensable part of entertainment / pop culture in all Caucasian cultures around the globe. here's a typical example of Brazilian rhythms combined with 1960's Anglo-Saxon/Gallic chic:

Mika Kaurismäki explored the grounds for that culture in the North of Brazil ("Moro no Brasil")

Brazilian artist Hélio Oiticica (page of articles in English - link 1 - link 2 - link 3) posed questions about how it comes that the North be in such low esteem as to economy, but so vital for creating the Samba, celebrated in the South of Brazil / Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo etc.

the children of paradise

2006-09-13T23:46:00.000-07:00

i admit there IS something very ambivalent about the performers in Budapest having been dressed in very light and colourful organza and little else. there is about any child of the paradise, whether suggested on Cambodian stone reliefs or in a Varieté-showballet in Las Vegas.

there were important differences though: the dancers were not set up directly to face the audience or dance directed towards them in a traditional sense - when they did mix with the audience afterwards, there was an air of menace and danger in their beauty - in the final dance, there was no prescribed eye contact with the audience, the dancers were left to dance from their own motivation, which they did marvellously and with beautiful abandon, dancing off all the hardships of the project :-) also, the final dance was not the only act happening, there were fire-acrobats and people doing the walking con·sens·us (however, we quickly came to a halt to admire the dancers)

in terms of representation it would have been more clear, if the company had been women and men, one could add of course diversity of race, question body types usually put on stage etc.

(like Steve Paxton appears to have hinted at, in his dance Satisfyin Lover)

paradicsom madarak - birds of paradise

2006-08-20T02:36:00.001-07:00

a paradicsom madarainak szines tollai vannak, feltünőek.
énekelnek, hogy élhessenek. itt vagyok. ilyen vagyok, ebben a pillanatban.

mint táncosok is kibontjuk a sokféle szineinket a mozgásunkban
és táncolunk, ahogyan a madarak énekelnek ha jön az est.

birds of paradise have colorful and extravagant feathers.
they are like this, it is a part of their existence.
when birds sing, it is the same, an essential activity of asserting being themselves. here i am, now. hello there.

as dancers we can also spread our many ways how we as individual beings are able to move. when we dance, we can sing, just as birds do towards the evening.

flying

2006-08-14T00:27:00.000-07:00

(wow it's so cool to be able to sit in an airport and type on this laptop - thank you!)
i realize especially in this upcoming piece, flying is what i'm after, and actually very often in my work. fly away into the air, heaven, paradise, celebrations, a party, happiness, satisfaction, orgasm, utopia, a better balanced world etc.

scene from 'FURT - modern' Dance Unlimited Arnhem 2004

this piece on the music of “Oobe” by The Orb, could be called how 2 fly maybe be a series of duets?? i've had the imagery for quite a while listening to this music for tűzraktér: birds singing for themselves and together at sunset, put into the rhythms and dynamics of the dancers on the rooftops.

* * *
socially speaking, will we all be more like birds, travel more easily, carry less and less weight with us. how will that be possible?
(but given how much lighter this society is already in comparison to the heavy metals of the 19th century (after the heavy upheavals in the 20th century) there can be more light, more ease, enlightment. )

flying is the opposite of escape, this is very real: the wings must be able to carry the weight, the muscles work just at the right rate of gravity and the air stream, enough calories to burn for the trip, etc. knowing / feeling at all times where one’s center is, that of one’s body, limbs, organs, emotions, etc. all the time. to continue to be able to move - be ready to get carried away… and remain sensitively aware!

or as Zen monks would say: you have many ideas, but is your begging bowl well cleaned?

how can my bowl for begging be clean and I still could arrive at all these ideas and motions? how to realise paradise on Earth a little better? (often by leaving it alone...)

in dance this idea of taking off to fly is always very present throughout the ages, something that can be embodied very very literally, and i hope it will become possible in this project to realise yet another successful experience of this!!

to finish, check out Brian Eno talking about his music for airports both on YouTube and get a nice idea about progress :-)

con.sens - dis.sens /and the road to paradise

2006-08-10T06:16:00.000-07:00

"Rather than looking for some stupefying and infantilizing consensus, it will be a question in the future of cultivating disensus." Felix Guattari.
taken from The Ideal City - website of Ministry for Economical Diversification of Western Canada

even though Felix Guattari would have labeled consensus as 'infantile' i find that merely a typical expression of a sentiment that was present in France at that time. consensus need not be stupefying between aware individuals. that is the whole question, what is necessary for the consensus that will allow the greatest range of diversity. because i believe that it is in the presence of the other and in communication that such a freedom can be achieved, so a satisfactory consensus needs to be created.

today i believe it is more clear that both consent and dissent are available and necessary, to be able to make rational decisions, both need to be sensed clearly and understood in a situation. myself i rather look for finding con.sens.us in the situation of the already existing dissent, of which there is already so much and it can severely harm us and endanger survival (just as enforced or normative consensus would...)

so much is standing in our way towards understanding: our characters, our cultural formation like language (meaning codes of speach, movement, imagery etc.) all are very different from each other, whether between two cultures or any two people. how can we find the best possible agreement?

this dissensus is a byproduct of diversity, as the dissenting other, being different, can sense and understand things i myself find hard to understand. if we reach a balance about this, and combine our diverse understandings, both of us will make profit from this.

in a way that could be seen as a historic development, the world struggling every day to realise finding a consensus how each of us can live in her//his course of life on Earth as fully as possible, fulfill this course. this includes animal and plant life, their spirits, the spirit of matter, if you will...

i used to believe that if we'd only be able to dive down beneath all the cultural patternings of our perception and retrieve the seeming openness we have as animals, this would be easier (the old dream of Eurocentric early modernism: "Alle Menschen werden Brüder!"
[alll men become brethren] ...)

but it takes more than that, because all those cultural patterns also have to be reformed (and always are anyway in the course of one generation to the next) to fit the new understandings and realisations.

idea and reality - Ikaros

2006-08-08T16:21:00.000-07:00

one example of mind shattered by matter - trying to fly high, but too close to the sun, the spender of 'good' and the material wings melt, causing precipice. [caught at last by gravity] intention diverging from situation in the moment.

there is a beautiful song that i've found to this at YouTube:
Stereolab - "Fluorescences"

another example, a long treaty with many interesting aspects The Ideal City

[on the positive end, there's the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by the late Douglas Adams with its very own special entry on flying....]

celebration and social dancing

2006-08-01T15:59:00.000-07:00

I realise how important it is to be able to celebrate something together, even in the middle of desperation and depression. it's like giving oneself an empty even imaginary space that could potentially be drawing in reality to follow. like the idea of a more ecologically balanced planet to live on. [if the actual material / energy-balance is negative, it can also bring catastrophy and crashes - the trick is to make sure all resource-balances are such that this taking off to fly will be possible]

the upcoming event I plan for Budapest is to turn into a party where all participate. another beautiful example for celebrating together can be found on the website of Elaine Summers (www.elainesummersdance.com) where she danced Invitation to Secret Dancers with people at Solar House in New York City in 2005.

* * *

it is beautiful to watch how people are able to express their existence in something that free and moving as a (social) dance, everybody making up their own moves to the same music and using it to make living contact with each other as individuals.

as long as this is possible, just like imagining, I believe there is a chance for surviving, because we can manifest something in-becoming, like a moment that changes and fades away, manifested as this particular moment.

like re-discovering the space given by one's joints to move the limbs and how this can increase when one does helpful body-work or massage or stretches that help this. it gives potential and when meeting strength, a very real power that can be used responsibly.

* * *

the last decade up to the present has been so repressive and grim, emphasizing shortage, disaster, uncertainty. les enfants du paradis could give a new impulse to take roots to fly....

imaginations / projections

2006-07-27T01:39:00.000-07:00

freedom - happiness - love - peace
great ideals, and they happen to happen from time to time :-)

I realise that for me paradise indicates a lot of the so called Third World and its inhabitants the Caribbean, Polynesia, to some extent parts of Africa (but that is much closer, so there it's already easier to 'know better')

I know this is imagery rooted in my European-based cultural background, where I grew up and still live, together with Rosseau's ideal of the "noble savage", Levi Strauss' "Sad Tropics" and with all the (racist) implications to be aware of ...

but we are still all potentially children of the same paradise, the planet we live on, in very different ways, and it's not always exactly nice to us (think tsunami's, illnesses, mosquitos etc.) as we are but an ingredient that carves out its existences here.

* * *

I know paradise can also be: sitting in a room on a couch, the balcony doors open, rain dripping outside, opening to gardens in the backyards, trees and bushes, quiet.
this happens here too! :-)

anyway, most of those moments that I recall like that have something open-ended, like a jump between two, against a secure anchor somewhere, feeling safe at the same time, that I won't be harmed

this is something I want to reach in the dancing!

why is it so hard to open up to that?
why are members of a society that deal with such opening marginalized into restrictive patterns, be they shamans, women, tricksters, slaves, foreigners, "different" and the like?
(including artists somewhere in all of that)

START

2006-07-23T10:31:00.000-07:00

this is a beginning of a new project / series.
my aim is to share and exchange thoughts as I believe they can be interesting to others, and maybe we'll get a bit of dialogues / discussions going.

you are cordially invited!