idocde » Editorial
BIG UPDATE! a NEW Symposium and more…
reflections on the 2022 IDOCDE symposium
The April Issue – symposium description is here
The March Issue
The February Issue
The November Issue
making place for making place
Nancy Stark Smith
The May Issue: Onwards with IDOCDE!
IDOCDE Virtual Meetings starting soon!
The December Issue
The September Issue
on symposium scheduling and languaging against the odds
on beaver dams and the 7th IDOCDE symposium
in lieu of transparency, approaching the 2019 IDOCDE symposium
Tracing Forwards –––––– the question of (human) nature
New Year, New Symposium, New Story
Tradition, Evolution and Diversity – Share Your Legacy
updates, updates, updates
... how many hours in a day
The Cassiopeia score and other matters; power, pedagogy, and the imparting of knowledge
revelations, reflections, confessions; post-symposium update
Months Bleed into New Months
Martin's Alphabet
You are here – I am here
Something New
Ashes to Ashes, Water to Words
Le vierge, le vivace et le bel aujourd'hui ... [1]
a fictional season
on beauty: an unexpected debate
What I Did Not Miss This Summer
I Can Not Not Move. Can You?
IN THE SPACE OF STUDY – notes on The Legacy Project and the 2017 IDOCDE Symposium
Scores for Rest
Everlasting Words
what you give will remain yours forever
the limit of the limitless
ATTENDANCE
What can dance bring to culture?
Documentation and Identity – New lives of memories...
Solo thinking does not exist
The Importance of Being [Un]Necessary
Hot Stones Notwithstanding
Documenting what is in a flux
Symposium Preparations Under Way
Moving images are often read as “the truth”...
The Technology Coordinator
Potential for Relationship, Subversion and Emergence
A quantum LEAP to REFLEX
Abundance of Exchange – no me but for you!
Teaching Form[less]?
Questioning it all?
After a few months of ephemerality…
Failing Successfully!
Her sweet boredom…
teaching dance, flying airplanes and surgery procedures
re-creation – by the writing dance teacher
Revisiting Our Reality
The End
Roll the bones!
And now?
Treasure Hunt
News from the Arsenal
Body time & Politics
Morning training opening at K3
Symposium 2013 Vienna
Time is ticking...
"If tomatoes are a fruit, isn't ketchup...
Symposium 2013: Call for proposals
Teaching at ImPulsTanz: Call for applications
idocde meeting Stolzenhagen August 13-17, 2012
More videos please!
Hello… What are you doing here?

Failing Successfully!

 

Have you taken any master class or workshop from Juljen Hamilton, in your life. If so, you have probably heard of this sentence several times:

“Bravo! You have failed successfully!”

This remark is frequently uttered by this one of a kind teacher who definitely walks his talk, and who is able to talk his mind and body in such poetic, fluent and performative ways.

In my interpretation this failing he talks about is about giving things a genuine try, being at work; i.e. researching his propositions, finding sincere and fresh ways to reach those things/places/ideas the master is talking about; but not getting there yet. The understanding is there, the intension and the dedication are so very visible that there is success –somehow embedded but not embodied.

When I read the panel reflections of another master who is for sure able to walk his talk as well, and who is also able to talk his mind and body in such poetic, fluent and performative ways, I thought “Bravo! We have failed successfully!”

Yes, Frey Faust had an amazing recap of not only the Symposium Panel itself but also the whole idea of “panel”ing and also the theme of the 2nd IDOCDE Symposium. Comprehensive, multi-layered, direct to the points, well thought and expressed, mind opening and provoking words of Frey showed us; the whole attempt of this theme- “Teach me (not)!” , the researches presented during the sessions, the writings before and after the event, the ongoing debates were/are actually great attempts! Attempts that are successful. They all show that we are at work.

And we are not afraid to fail! Are we?!

I truly believe this is our strength. Therefore we continue asking more and more questions, trying more and more formats, methodologies, approaches, wordings, moving in and around old terminologies, creating, re-creating; risking to get lost, daring to be wrong, seeking better ways to fail!

Maybe because we are focused on learning and "learning learning". Maybe because we hope to "teach" some others to learn something... Maybe because we are not alone in all this! We, 700 something teachers connected here and thousands who are not yet on this platform, we love failing!

If you agree with me or disagree with me, or have totally different points to make,  join me in the Thinking Together Forum and start brainstorming for our next offline meeting – the 3rd IDOCDE Symposium. There is not much time, just be! You are probably settled in your new schedule by now; the teaching year has started for some of you and you have started floating in your calender and some of you workshoppers since the summer is over you are not teaching for a while… And maybe you are at home reading, writing, farming… What do we know?!

We know that you are out there and we definitely need your triggering, sparkling knowhow. Come along, make your ideas visible to us. Show your work, share your experience… Because all of this is “our legacy”… “We” are the living archive of Contemporary Dance today – whatever that “contemporariness” means?

Really what does it mean? What are we actually teaching? Go ahead and give it a name and jot down your ideas here! We have a long way to go...

 

Defne Erdur  October 10th, 2014

Istanbul - Turkey