Day 1: 1st July 2014: Καλο Μινα.We begin. Unpacking the paragraph describing the focus of the workshop - namely an investigation of the
choreographic process as series of ‘intimate’ dialogues intertwined with the
everyday. I try to give a context for how I arrived at this proposal - my ever present thought that dance is not a 'thing' that we do, but a process of life, shared - in time and space - a process of life that is at times 'mine' and at others intertwined with the 'me-ness' of others. Hence, dance is not about making a 'work' but a process of creating frames for particular kinds of interactions; interactions that albeit physical-somatic (much of what is not dance falls within this realm as well) are embroiled in the everyday albeit in extraordinary ways. This dialogue is 'intimate' as a direct consequence; a process between two (doesn't have to be two people - but sets of twos) is by its very scale an intimate one, more than two it stops being a dialogue - but a speech. Therefore, in this dialogue, I want to return the 'human' to the choreographic process - human relations in and through movement (not of birds, or cars, or mechanical cranes), insisting on the beautiful ulterior 'sense' of dance which is not necessarily about an exchange of meaning (which for me is tied to representations of power that never interested me) but a sharing of (a) life, beyond narration and representation. 
One by one each participant enters - makes a first mark (much discussion about the choice of words: mark? trace? - listen to the discussion at: Movement traces track ) there is a brief recording which I will try to upload somehow). We delve in it - finding its sensual specificity; until it becomes a kind of knowing. This experience, this knowing, is then shared with another, as a trace not an exact replica of the initial experience (a natural impossibility). As I re-iterate my 'moment' its trace immediately affects you - like a boat in water; the wake of the boat immediately affects its surroundings - the trace is not far from the original event that created it - this is not Warhol. The trace does not disappear - but extends in space in waves, its impacy can be traced as it grates upon sea shores, shifts the soil of ocean beds. The re-iteration for another repositions what is known - making it momentarily unfamiliar -capable of being reconsidered - known a-new. We are surprise how easy it is to remember the process, how easy it is to continue to reposition the known-unknown, avoiding becoming habit. There is no crisis nor dilemma but a constant search that evolve into layers of experience. We repeat the process until we have experienced the traces of many - these now accumulated as further layers of the original proposal. We consider differences and similarities in the manner that each chose to 'pass the trace' - I propose that this is the beginning of a methodology - the choices that condition/frame established the exchange (but there will be more of this throughout the whole lab- not just this initial workshop).
We consider 'sense', the 'sense' of the movement - no referent but evocation. The sense of 'me-moving' different to 'me-being-moved'. We discuss the continuum between giving and receiving movement as an experience of moving (there is no message although the act is full of intention).
I ask them to do homework- to step away from their experience - and see it from outside - as a witness inside each ones mind. And then write it down, what you 'see' 'she' is doing - only from outside - you cannot describe thoughts - the point of view is of the witness not the omnipresent narrator.
Day 2: 2nd July 2014: They walk into the studio again, I ask them to bring to today what is relevant from yesterday - what the skin now contains - not as a memory but as a reactivation of the knowledge gained yesterday. We then begin to address dialogues as such. A metaphor; if this knowing is all you have to establish a relation with another how would you do it. I throw in the idea of inter-independence, you are not structuring the material together - you are treating it as an every day dialogue - a utterance is made, heard, expanded, there may be moments of simultaneity, we aim to engage in shifting between doer and witness in a nanosecond, becoming aware of the ease with which the shift can indeed be made.
The 'she'statement/writing serves various functions - finding words to movement, seeing 'objectively' what my movement evokes, and more complex - if my own material evokes a multiplicity of ideas/images etc. how can we then assume that the audience without the physical insight can arrive at a reductive singular 'statement' about any dance. We finish the workshop with more homework for the first not-mentored lab time. It surprised us how quickly we 'understood' the writing physically....
I proposed that the process of constantly sharing that we have undergone means that in a very short time we have shared signs, symbols, thoughts, our common elements will evolve into a community. This (dancer Maria de Azua concluded in PR after this workshop in 2013) community demands acceptance, humility, compromise (in the Spanish sense of the word - compromiso - engagement /of the Badieu 'faith'-kind) and the acceptance of the challenge involved. We finish the session with the idea that dance does not 'tell' it evokes and that the other is not the antagonist of dance, 'the 'other' is the task of dance. its point of departure and the destination if I can be so bold as to paraphrase Lefebvre.
At the end of the two days what were nine individuals became one group of people walking down Dracou street to share a first post-workshop coffee.
