One metaphor in Maybe Not Me that led to a lot of discussion was the ‘body underwater’. Applying another strategy from theatre, we asked the team to select from a set of images which one expressed how they visualized the ‘body underwater’.
Why do this?
The process of selecting an image invites the artist to sharpen the image they perceive, to see more details.
Comparing them in discussion helps articulate the differences, which sharpens the collective understanding of the meaning.
Discussing the text via images also offers inspiration for the dancer in terms of shapes and sensations
These were the ones chosen :
Jonathan Aiden & Sze Min James
Jonathan was drawn to how the bubbles in his image that surround the figure, completely obscuring it. For him, this matched the sense of being “unclear / made of different stuff / moving oddly” and even “half returned to the beginning” as if the person was dissolving. The same bubbles occur in the other two images as well, but reacting differently with the body. In James’, they evoke the sense of plunging down. The posture here is similar to the one Jon chose. The bubbles n Aiden and Sze Min’s image seem to be lifting the body up – the figure is also facing upwards like it is ascending. Aiden is offered a fascinating choice : to evoke the metaphor with a sense of sinking, or rising, or a neutral suspension.
For the first time, Sze Min added some sound design to Aiden’s improvisation.
Then Aiden challenged Jon to ‘dance’ the poem while he read it.
Aiden’s observation of Jon’s performance was that it conveyed the emotions and psychology of the text strongly; and as a non-dancer, it emphasized smaller gestures rather than dance moves. These ‘autistic gestures’ are more mimetic than dance’s abstract moves. They were effective in conveying emotional state and triggering the audience’s recognition and hence, empathy.
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