MIND THE DANCE
More to explore

As part of the - Art from Art - research, I invited Daniela Ponieman to the classes I was teaching with a colleague of mine, Peter Pleyer, at ImPulsTanz^[1] in 2016 summer. I was interested in working with another visual artist to document a dance class, besides Anna Holló, to see similarities and differences in their processes and results.

Daniela is from Argentina, studied Drawing and Painting at the National Academy of Fine Arts in Buenos Aires as well as Photography and Ceramics. She also has moving background, similar to Anna, as she joined Body Awareness and Improvisation classes. Taking those classes she noticed a change in her way of drawing that led her interest to drawing movement, dance and doing abstract works. Since then, she has been exploring the process of drawing and how a line can appear as a result of an intention, a movement or a state of mind.

With Daniela, it was a short process that resulted in two small booklets of drawings. See one of the booklets on the video. The video shows the drawings one by one, commenting on a few. They almost seem like a special “notation” to me.

When I asked Daniela about her interest and desire to make drawings on a dance class, she said:

“I like to draw in dance classes where the focus is on improvisation and creation, without knowing or expecting what I am going to draw. I like to be open to what comes to me and to explore how this multidimensional and fleeting moment that I see can be expressed with a line. I draw a movement, a solo, a duet or the whole group improvising; I draw different qualities, rhythm, sound, space, time, tension, stillness... just to name some of them.”

Our findings are very similar to working with Anna. Although documentation is not the main purpose of Daniela’s drawing, as she is more interested in exploring and discovering things by making the drawings. But she also can see them as some kind of documentation, especially when looking at the drawings after the class. People often recognize themselves or remember moments of the class.

Following the drawings in chronological order, seeing them, talking about them can build a different memory of the lived dances, as if documentation would happen in the dancers body mind after the dance has been danced.