Glorious Antinomies – Open-Level Improvisational Dance Practice

Course Description

Summary

To do or not to do?
The decision itself is already a mystery.
Moments of choice are often ambiguous, unstable, even uncomfortable—yet at the same time full of possibility.

This course explores improvisation through the tension between embodiment and disembodiment. For example, imagine standing in a dining hall, unable to decide between a hamburger and a pizza—wanting both, yet unable to choose. This is a positive antinomy of embodiment. On the other hand, if both simply appear as menu items without any personal connection, that is a negative antinomy of disembodiment. When these states intertwine, a decision emerges. Or, choosing neither and simply leaving is also a form of emergence.

Rather than approaching dance as the expression of an individual subject, the class understands movement as something that arises through the relationships among body, environment, objects, and situation. At times the body is deeply engaged; at others, it becomes distant or detached. These antinomies form the ground from which action appears.

Drawing in part on the concept of nonlocality, the course investigates how perception, hesitation, delay, distance, and encounter generate movement. Improvisation is treated as a laboratory where decisions, non-decisions, and unexpected transitions shape the unfolding of dance.

Students engage in structured improvisations, movement scores, and open explorations that develop spatial awareness, timing, responsiveness, and relational sensitivity. As the semester progresses, the practice extends beyond the studio into outdoor and urban environments, engaging site-specific conditions and emergent collective experiences. Particular emphasis is placed on enjoying the journey through which the group gradually forms and transforms into a team over time.

This course is open to all levels.
Students are invited to remain within uncertainty, to explore the in-between, and to allow movement to arise before decisions fully take form.