17.12.2024 / þ thorns þ

Episode Eight: Asad Raza and Moriah Evans

þ thorns þ

In this episode, Asad and Moriah explore thematic crossovers in past projects and focus in on the language they use to communicate their ideas.

This episode is a conversation between Asad Raza and Moriah Evans. Asad's practice often takes planetary ecologies as a focus, with a strong emphasis on the participatory and the performative aspects of art. Moriah works in and on the form of dance, as artifact, object, and culture, with its histories, protocols, default production mechanisms, modes of staging and viewing, and the capacity of the public to read dance. In this conversation, Asad and Moriah ask each other about their practices, noting that despite their long history of collaboration and friendship, they rarely get a chance to sit and talk about their work in detail. They explore thematic crossovers in past projects and focus in on the language they use to communicate their ideas.

Find out more about Asad and Moriah on our People page.

To the Glossary Asad donates Prehension

To sense something with the body, rather than cognitively.

and Moirah donates Resignation

and Interoception

This series is produced and edited by Hester Cant.

The series is co-curated by Emma McCormick-Goodhart and Martin Hargreaves, with concept and direction by Martin Hargreaves and Izzy Galbraith.

TRANSCRIPT:

MARTIN

Hello, you're listening to þ thorns þ, a podcast where we bring you conversations between artists in relation to concepts of the choreographic

the choreographic can refer to choreography, and to the writing of dancing bodies, but it can also refer to modes of generating and circumscribing movement that do not register as dance, or as art works.

thorns

is produced as part of the Rose Choreographic School at Sadler's Wells. I'm Martin Hargreaves, head of the Rose Choreographic School, which is an experimental research and pedagogy

project. Across a two-year cycle, we support a cohort

of artists to explore their own choreographic inquiries

, and we also come together to imagine a school

where we discover the conditions we need to learn from each other.

As part of the ongoing imagination of the school

Gathering places for teaching and learning. Also, a school of thought is an idiom that suggests the sharing of traditions of philosophical and intellectual practices.

, we are compiling a glossary of words that artists are using to refer to the choreographic

. Every time we invite people to collaborate with us, we also invite them to donate to the glossary which is hosted on our website. There is a full transcript available for this episode on our website, together with any relevant links to resources mentioned.

This episode is a conversation between Asad Raza and Moriah Evans, and it was recorded in a studio in New York. Asad creates dialogues and rejects disciplinary boundaries in his work, which conceives of art as a metabolic active encounter within and beyond the exhibition setting. His practice often takes planetary ecologies as a focus, with a strong emphasis on the participatory and the performative aspects of art. Moriah works in and on the form of dance, as artifact, object, and culture, with its histories, protocols, default production mechanisms, modes of staging and viewing, and the capacity of the public to read dance.

In this conversation, Asad and Moriah ask each other about their practices, noting that despite their long history of collaboration and friendship, they rarely get a chance to sit and talk about their work in detail. They explore thematic crossovers in past projects and focus in on the language they use to communicate their ideas.

The transition sounds you'll hear in this episode are distorted clips from a vocal exercise, which Asad and Moriah did together after their conversation in the studio. Moriah suggested they both scream together.

ASAD

Are you ready?

MORIAH

No.

ASAD

I'm going to count to three and we're starting, okay? One, two…

MORIAH

No, no, I need five seconds.

ASAD

Five?

MORIAH

Okay.

ASAD

Okay. One…two…three!

It is Friday, August 2nd. And we are here in Lower Manhattan, and it's going to be up to 91 degrees today. We were just in the waiting room, where you had those amazing pastries for everybody including our producers in the recording studio. And that put everyone in a great mood. But now we're in this coffin-like space, I have to say. Where the air is completely still, and I can't hear anything except my own voice. And I just thought it's interesting, since you and I are both people who work a lot on the conditions, the space in which things happen, the affect of the body that occurs in different kinds of spaces, to just say, here's the space where this conversation is happening. To let the person who listens to this understand, okay, these were two people on a very hot August morning in New York, sitting in an airless recording studio, which is not hot itself, which is air conditioned, but still, I like to give a picture of that space.

MORIAH

Yeah. And there's two windows. And there's like a beam of sunlight coming into this room.

ASAD

On your side, which is good for you.

MORIAH

Hitting the back of my head and neck. And it’s-

ASAD

-You're getting a lot of photons right now.

So, I guess we should talk a little bit about your work, and my work, and what is in between our work. Which is tricky because, in a way, I know a lot about your work. But at the same time, I never formally ask you about it. I come and see things and then I talk to you about what I'm seeing and stuff. But I don't think I've ever asked, formally, the question, what have you been up to in your work, in your own opinion? Rather than, actually, just me looking at the work and thinking about it.

MORIAH

Well, I think first and foremost, I suppose my ongoing obsession with dancing and the choreographic

. I'm always busy with that, and I've always been busy with that. And the spectrum between the two, and back again.

ASAD

The spectrum between dance and choreography?

MORIAH

Yeah.

ASAD

Interesting.

MORIAH

Like, what are their differences? What are their connections? How's control part of that? How is escape from constraints parts of that as well? I've been on quite a journey, I would say since 2016, when I started all that organ work business, with Figuring. And then on to Configure, with the expulsion technique stuff. And then into like BASTARDS: We Are All Illegitimate Children, kind of looking at Cunningham and Cage and my, kind of, feminist insertion into those discussions of technique and form and structure. And with Remains Persist, I was kind of compiling, I don't know, a lot of embodied research and theorizations about somatics. And how to access the bodies within bodies of any individual persons, and kind of layers of being, that constitute a person or a dancer or a performer.

ASAD

What does that mean, bodies within bodies?

MORIAH

Well, like to me, I work a lot on fragmenting the body as a mechanism to approach the body. I say this all the time, but it bothers me that I say, ‘the body’, as if it's some abstract concept. Which it is. But it's also like, do we even have bodies? How do we proprioceptively understand our bodies? There are neuroscientists that have different wild theories about the body. If it is like connected to the self, or maybe we're just in a massive network of energies that are part of a universal spectrum. But to me, the heart is the body, and it's within the body, like your stomach is a body.

ASAD

So, in a way, the ‘bodies within bodies’ also refers to the organ work phase of your work.

MORIAH

Yeah, and like, I think also kind of an epigenetic understanding of a being.

ASAD

What is epigenetic mean?

MORIAH

I don't exactly know the formal definition of epigenetic, like right now. But it's like, information that is accumulated on a cellular level, in organisms. That then comes to form the present. And it can include the kind of connection between biology and affect and emotional history. It is something I've been thinking a lot about my work. About, like the individual performers, who bring content to the frame of performance, that I create as a choreographer. That these people are present, and all their histories are also present. In how they do an action, or a movement, or a step.

Something that I am trying to work on, when I was mentioning these like layers of being, that are part of a performer's presence. Like, I think about their subject position. Kind of like, their demographic information of how they are identified by a social structure. In terms of like, class, race, gender, sexuality, political affiliations, ideologies, religious backgrounds, things like this. Things that you would, kind of identify, as in, an intake form. It's how you perform yourself for, like a bureaucratic system of social control, or like, I would say an expanded choreographic

frame that we're existing in, in a biopolitical state. And then the self, like your conscious understanding of who you are, like I'm Moriah, you’re Asad. And how all this is, of course, relational. Like these layers of being are not separate from one another, but perhaps you can, like, filter one out, or into prominence. And then thinking about, like, the body as a complex network of the parts of the body that come together.

And then I've been thinking through notions of flesh, like enfleshment. And thinking of fragments of the body. Like bodies within bodies for me, like my elbow is a body, my chest is a body, in and of itself. Like, thinking through the flesh, the parts of the body, that constitute what a body is perceived as, or what a self is. The things that we are dependent upon in order to exist, like I’m dependent upon my lungs functioning. If they don't function, it's over. I think about this layer that I've called stuff, like, and this to me is just like this catch-all category of, I don't know, it can be like your personal baggage that you're bringing into the room.

ASAD

Like the abject, or something?

MORIAH

I don't even think it's abject. I think it can be like your epigenetic information. Like if you're easily scared, or you want to perform yourself to power, because that's the type, you're a pleaser. Or like, maybe you're into disruption as like a, you know, personality trait, and why is that and where does that come from? Your behavioural tendencies, that you may or may not be aware of, that you can and cannot name.

ASAD

Mmm.

And also like, literally like, the stuff that you bring, like the clothes. How much crap? Like, look at my huge bag I have with me. Why do I have to bring all these things with me? Why do I need this and that? And why do I perceive that I need it? So, I want to have it with me. You didn't even bring a wallet today, you told me! So, you don't want to be burdened by stuff. And what is that about? And I don't know. So, I guess I feel like all this information is informing how I would do an action, or how I would do a movement, and vice versa, the people I work with, and my collaborators. And I try to think through some of these layers of information, that condition what is possible. Or that are choreographic

conditions, coming from spaces that are within and beyond, like, my control. Or they're present in a room. I've thought a lot about, like, the biopolitical regimes that constitute how we're present together in social space.

TRANSITION SOUNDS: Asad and Moriah screaming.

MORIAH

In that last work, Remains Persist, I was thinking through the notions of the clinic, notions of the school

Gathering places for teaching and learning. Also, a school of thought is an idiom that suggests the sharing of traditions of philosophical and intellectual practices.

ASAD

Okay, wait, Moriah.

MORIAH

Yeah. Go!

ASAD

Before you tell me what you were thinking about when you made the piece, maybe you could describe the piece.

MORIAH

Oh my God, why? I can't!

Moriah laughs.

ASAD

It's my opinion though, that to simply describe something, actually contains a lot of, what you might call stuff. That comes through, in addition to thinking about it, you know, what you were thinking about. And also, it's helpful for people who are listening to this, who may not have seen it, you know? Maybe you could say something about Remains Persist? Because it's a work that has created a lot of fascination, I think, in the dance and choreography public.

MORIAH

Okay, well, it's a durational performance that last for four hours. And in fact, in some ways, it's more like six, or a whole day, if you include the class portion of the project. Where the public is invited into an organ work dance class, prior to the performance. The public is also invited into this thing called The Resignation Clinic. Where they basically participate in the same structures that the performers go through for four hours themselves, but in a private space.

ASAD

That's so cool.

MORIAH

Like a kind of secluded room, that they are just alone with a, what I call the role in the work, called The Bureaucrat. And they are asked questions and put into a task. So, Remains Persist involves eight performers, I would say four rooms, there are also like elevated platform stages. I collaborated with an amazing scenic designer, Doris Dziersk, who's based in Leipzig, Germany. We designed together these, kind of, rooms where the audience could sit at a, kind of table structure. Or they could turn their back to the room they were in front of, with their eyes, and then they look across to another space. Or, and then they're in a bleacher set up. And the idea would be that they can move and change rooms. So, there are like four rooms.

There's situations in the course of the four hours. You could call the situations, like, certain types of structure choreographies. But these essential situations are that there's a Bureaucrat, who asks questions of the performer, and then the performer does either a resignation study, or a remains study. They get asked questions about the layers of their being, their subject position, their self, their body, their flesh, their stuff. And then they go into a physical dance research choreographic

task. And resignation studies, this is a glossary term I wanted to bring is Like thinking about through and resignation

, like give up and surrender to what is there in the present moment. Except something that is inevitably present, but invisible eyes to surrender.

And for me, I feel like I have become, for a while, I was very interested in the notion of resignation

The act of giving up and surrendering to what is there in the present moment.

. In terms of trying to get away from modernist notions of invention. Or some fallacy of the original. Or even like a claim towards strong version of authorship. And more towards, like, we're all beings in the world, and together. And what information is already there? How do you access that information and do something with it? Share and say something with it? For me, resignation

is adjacent to certain politics of refusal that I feel are very important. In terms of fighting structures of systemic oppression in the world today. Basically, remains came as a consequence of resignation studies. And that remains are just a, kind of, catch-all term for… After we were resigning ourselves again and again, or resigning like, the self to the hip bone, for example. Or the resigning my flesh to my kidneys. Like, that could be a task or something. Or I'm resigning to my heels. Or I'm resigning to my subject position. Basically, after doing that for months and hours and a long time, basically, we found that there was information. There were remains and we called them remains. These remains we tried to then put into different choreographic

structures, different tasks. And then they were also put into language. So this process of naming, putting into movement and then expelling or verbalising.

And also in the work, I was trying to juxtapose systems of rationalisation in quotes. You know, like how social structures organise bodies and beings into things we can contain. And a, kind of, use of language in more freewheeling, expressive territory. Like, what do bodily logics offer us? Versus, I don't know, logics of social control that are part of the clinic, the school

Gathering places for teaching and learning. Also, a school of thought is an idiom that suggests the sharing of traditions of philosophical and intellectual practices.

, the theatre, the social agreements that we are inside of.

And another thing that was important for me with Remains Persist, was trying to create an environment in which the conditions of like, let's call it the dance studio, or the, kind of, watching and understanding and observing that go on in the space of creative practice, could be somehow included in the frame of how I ask people to observe the work. The public was, because of the type of content that is shared, and these kind of weird juxtapositions of these interrogation structures, and then people putting into task, and then usually, but not always, after they do a physical practice, they're then questioned again. It's kind of like a framework for another type of understanding of embodiment.

ASAD

Again Moriah, I think it's amazing to hear you talk about the work in detail. And having been there at the early rehearsals, I had a strong feeling that there was a, kind of, world that was coming into being. Something wasn't immediately easy to understand, but you understood there's a world here. And there's a way for the visitor to become part of the world too, which I think is very interesting. And I really think it's going to be a lasting work. But you know, there's also something, I think, very compelling about this idea of this work process that you, and a whole group of people went through, every day for hours. And I've seen how intense and physical it is. These discoveries feel like something that came, less out of a theoretical thought experiment that you did alone or something. And more like these real discoveries, through this work process of, ‘oh, if we do these resignation

The act of giving up and surrendering to what is there in the present moment.

exercises, we find that there are these remains and we call them remains’. Like the, even the word seemed to have come out of this collaborative process.

So all of that's very fascinating. And it makes the piece, feel like a piece that’s got real discoveries to show you. Rather than just, a kind of, caprice of someone who was sort of like, ‘hey, wouldn't this be cool or wouldn't that be cool’, you know? And I love that about that piece. But I also just wanted to ask you to explain, because sometimes you go a little quick. What do you mean by a new kind of embodiment? Is that something interesting?

MORIAH

Recently, in terms of my ongoing research of the relationship between dance and choreography, I am returning more and more to embodiment. How is, like, a gesture that I’m likely to do, coming from social, familial, cultural conditioning? And how everyone is always already embodied? Like everyone is always already in a state of performance. We are performing every day, like, I'm performing right now. To me, it's just like, inherent conditions of being present. I guess I'm into the, kind of, always already there aspect of social space. And what a being is. What a person is. Often I feel like in my work, I'm really interested in, something I call, the baby quest or the animal quest. Like just trying to be, like being in a state of listening.

ASAD

What does that mean? The baby quest? Or the animal quest?

MORIAH

It’s acceptance. And a, kind of, receptive capacity. I think it's just like being deeply embodied.

ASAD

Okay, interesting.

MORIAH

Outside of a kind of, I don't know, like, just like being.

ASAD

Ah, you mean like quest to be like a baby, or to be like an animal.

MORIAH

I mean, I wouldn't say I'm asking people to be like a baby or be like an animal. A state of presence.

ASAD

Yeah, I understand.

MORIAH

And a state of like proprioceptive inquiry, that is inherent to, I don't know. I think it's inherent to existence. To whatever it means to be alive, which I don't even know. But of course, it's a fascinating question and possibility to practice. Or just, like, interesting to watch someone be present in this activity. Like a state of being. Well, how do you produce conditions where you can just observe humans?

ASAD

This is like what Whitehead calls prehension

To sense something with the body, rather than cognitively.

, i.e. to sense the world around, and internal world of yourself, without necessarily cognitively processing it. You can also cognitively process it, but there's something that happens, kind of, almost prior to cognitively processing your own body, and the world around you, and the world inside you, the world's inside you, which he calls prehension

. Which is, like, before apprehension. And I think that's something that's relevant to your work, because it's, like, a bodily process of prehending, as he says, the world and yourself, that kind of comes before. And it's also interesting to me to think about your work in terms of Karen Barad, and this idea of, like, the ethical epistemal ontology or something. Which is like the collapse of those different levels in a way. Or the, not collapse, but maybe the fact that they were never actually so separable to begin with. The other thing that occurred to me, which I hadn't thought about, is this concept of habitus, that comes from, I encounter it from Pierre Bourdieu, French sociologist. Which has to do with, like, the way the body itself exists in the social world, formed by the social world. And like, inherited from the practices and movements, and things that are going on around you. And I think your work, kind of, looks into that too.

But, I also thought of something interesting, listening to you talk about your work. Which is why it's fun that they asked us to do this, because we don't typically take so much time to delve into these things together, even though we collaborated so many times. When you said ‘what's always already there’. You know? That you're interested in what's already there. And I think that's actually something I'm interested in too. And I'm often working with, just sort of, in some way, kind of, animating or highlighting, or working with things that are already in a space. Or already there. And often remain. What I think, and I never would have thought this until just now, but these are, in a way, like remains.

I mean, even, there's this piece of mine, that people talk to me about sometimes, which is called Untitled (plot for dialogue). Which was in this church in Milan, where we built a tennis court. And the visitors would actually play with these young coaches who I hired to hit with them, and to…The idea was to get them into this meditative zone. Where no matter how good or bad they were at tennis, they would, by hitting the ball back and forth, enter this feeling of relaxation, that I see people have when they're warming up to play a match, but not when they're playing the match. And I always thought, actually, the warm up is somehow very healthy and interesting. And a beautiful kind of moment, because two players who are about to compete for the Wimbledon final, will warm each other up and do this collaborative activity beforehand. Because you have to warm up with someone else, because tennis is dialectical. You can't play tennis alone. To me, that was all about the fact that this church, I didn't know what to put in a 16th century church that was covered in frescoes of St. John the Baptist from, like, 1590 or something. Because it felt like anything I would put in there, would feel like it was fighting the place. Because I was thinking about, well, what is this place? It's a place of spirituality. You know? It's a place where you're supposed to undergo certain kinds of experiences. And then I was thinking, well, how can I produce a spiritual moment? A moment of openness? A moment where you feel like you're a channel? And what would that mean for me, as a person who doesn't want it to, and without making it belong to a particular religion or creed? And that's when the idea of this warmup in tennis occurred to me. Because I find that to be a, kind of, spiritual sounds funny, but I really think that's a beautiful meditative and spiritual moment. And I thought I'll put that in there. But it was because it was already there. You know? And I thought it would be interesting, kind of, in my mind, to anthropomorphise this church a little bit. And thought to myself, the church would be interested to see itself being used this way. To see the purpose that it had, being reached in a completely different way from how it had been in the past.

And you know, this idea you have of things that are always there, things that remain, it's there in a lot of my works also with natural elements. You know? Like in Frankfurt with this piece about diverting the river. The river was there already. I didn't add anything to the space in a way. I mean, I added stuff that was enabling us to divert the river, and channel it through the space. And I added stuff that allowed us to clean, to boil and filter jugs of the water, so people could drink the river water. But like, the main element of the piece that everyone thought about when they went, was the river. Which is actually right outside Portikus already. Because Portikus is on this island in the middle of the River Main, in the middle of the centre of Frankfurt. So again, for me, it was about something that was already there.

And then I have this new one, which I don't think I told you about yet. But it's, I guess when people listen to this podcast in a few months, this will have happened, but at the moment it has yet to happen. I have this project in Barcelona, which is in a power station on the beach, that's, you know, similar to this recording studio we're in. When I first walked in to that space, it was very, very airless, because it had been closed up for many years and there was no open window or anything. And you were in this massive, you know, space, a couple hundred yards long by maybe 30 yards wide, and like about 60ft tall. But you know, it felt dead and airless and like there was no air movement. And it really struck me that we're sitting on the beach, and these waves are constantly coming towards us. And obviously when you're anywhere by the sea like that, you know that the air is also moving, because it's right on the Mediterranean, right across from North Africa. You know, you have this wind called the Sirocco, which is like the wind from North Africa that comes. And it often brings dust. I just thought, like, we need to let that in. And that wind was already there, but it was being blocked.

So the idea for the piece was, is, to remove all the window panes from this power station, like hundreds of them. And that has already been done. And then hang these large, unbleached, undyed fabrics, which are like 60ft by 9ft. And allow them to move. And be animated. Or be choreographed, you could say, by this wind. And so suddenly that this wind, which is already there, but it's just been blowing up against these frosted windows. You couldn't even see out the windows because they were frosted the way they often are in industrial buildings. You don't want to see out, you just want light so that you can work. And suddenly, now you can see the beach, the winds coming through. And what was interesting is, I hung the first three of them up, and the choreography…Everyone kept asking, ‘Well, how many and where? How many and where? We need to know! We need to know!’. I just kept saying, ‘Guys we can't say anything until we hang a couple of them up and look.’ And I actually used a choreography metaphor, I said, ‘Look, these are our dancers, these cloths. And until we see how they dance, we don't know how many we need, and how and where they should dance. And what is the floor pattern? Right? Because we don't know how they dance.’ So we put the first three up a few weeks ago. What was really surprising and interesting to me, was how slowly they moved. Because, I guess, the pieces of cloth are so long or 60ft tall or whatever. The wind was catching them, and they were really moving and undulating, but very slow. And I thought that was interesting, and kind of neat.

So, this idea of being choreographed by nature, by this wind, it was real. It was cool to see that. But anyway, in a couple of weeks, we'll go back and I'm going to hang about 20 of them, and I might take some away. But I thought better to hang a lot, and take away. Although it's still difficult because we have these guys, who are from mountaineering and climbing, who like climb up into the rig. You know? And they're 60ft off the top floor level of this thing, when they're hanging these things. They're, they're roped in, but still it's a little crazy.

MORIAH

That sounds very exciting though, climbing 60ft to hang a 60ft cloth.

ASAD

That part of it is so interesting to see happen.

MORIAH

I mean, I guess something that's really interesting to me is, like, choreographing with the elements, if you will. The kind of readymade of a site specific place. And I think, getting out of this, kind of, human-centric Anthropocene. Turning towards the elements. Turning towards things that are beyond, quote unquote things that we, as humans, can control. I guess in some senses with climate change questions. Our behaviour affects environmental systems we're inside of obviously, but I think how you're collaborating with materials also. And if we think about plot, maybe you want to speak about that a little bit. Like, in terms of your history of practice, in regards to collaborating with materials and with people, I've been very, like, interested in that, kind of, space of the materials you're bringing into, let's call them art institutions and spaces. Where you're getting those materials. And the process of who you're collaborating with. To reframe how those materials are, like, seen or perhaps taken for granted, in the case of like soil or earth. Or even wind, you know? As you were just talking about with the Barcelona project.

But how are you reframing? And then, how do you work with the performers? If we want to call them performers? I mean, you have called them different things in different pieces, right? The cultivators in Plot. The, what was it in the forest work? The mother…?

ASAD

Root Sequence. Mother Tongue.

MORIAH

Root Sequence. Mother Tongue.

ASAD

Caretakers.

MORIAH

These kind of communities that you are creating, from different categories of material. Be it earth, be it the type of experts you have to bring in for the soil. Consultants to make soil. Be it the cultivators, or the caretakers. Or, like, in the case of root sequence, you have Gayatri [Chakravorty] Spivak present. You have someone like me, doing a performance of Episodes and Fragments, within the frame that you've created. And I'd kind of be interested to hear you talk about these, kind of interstitial materials and elements that you bring together, inside of a choreographic

frame.

ASAD

Yeah I mean, I think you said, said it well-

MORIAH

- and let it unfold. Like you just, let it unfold, kind of. You have a light touch.

ASAD

I like to do things. Yeah, I like that, just call it a light touch. I tend to let people do their thing, like a little bit, maybe more. But in a way, with some more recent works, the human person, who is also there as part of the work, which is often a process, such as the river flowing. Or the soil being made, in this show Plot, which you mentioned. Which was my show on Museion last year. We use this piece of mine as the base of the show, called Absorption. Where you make artificial soil out of a lot of ingredients that you collect from a region. So, in that region of the Sud Tirol in Northern Italy, the half German speaking part of Northern Italy, the ingredients were like really easy to find, because there was so much biomaterial. Leaves and branches and grapevine cuttings. And beer barley and by products from the wine, and the agriculture industries. And so, we were able to use all of that together, with sand, and clay, and iron oxide from the water treatment plants, to create this artificial soil. Which then filled a floor of the museum.

But the idea of that show, which was called Plot, was that it would have different chapters, like a novel. And that, the first chapter was just absorption, and some films. And then the second one, bricks were made out of the soil, and created into a sculpture together with Lydia Ourahmane and Alessandro Bava, and his BB firm with Fabrizio Ballabio. And then in the third chapter, it was you, coming to Bolzano with your dancers, and using the whole mise-en-scène as the site for a choreographic

intervention, which was part of also the dance festival of Bolzano. And then the final chapter, we kind of re-broke down everything, and tried to absorb it into the soil again. So, all these transformations and transfigurations of material were happening. And, during the part where it's Absorption, at the beginning and at the end, I had these people, who I call cultivators, who are working to continue to mix the soil together.

So, long digression about the human presence in some of my works, and like the other one you mentioned, Root Sequence. Mother Tongue, when you performed inside of it, at the Whitney Museum here in New York. That piece has these people that I called caretakers. And they are taking care of the trees. But also, objects that belong to them, or with the trees. And like that version of the piece, I just saw it again. It's in a home, the home of Brooke Knight, who's a patron. And the trees are now planted permanently. And all those objects, or a bunch of the objects, are now in this cabin right next to them. And so, it's interesting to see how it can live on. In any case, in all of those projects, as well as the tennis court piece, Untitled (plot for dialogue), where we had these people I called coaches, who would play with the visitors, and they would ask them to hit with them, and try to make it very easy for them to get into that state we talked about. And then finally also in the river piece, we had these custodians who were filtering and cleaning the water, and helping the visitors walk, and get into the river, and walk through the water.

But, I also think that it's interesting to think about the materials, and the agents that are not necessarily only human. And so, in this piece in Barcelona, or in another project which may, or may not be built by the time this podcast is released…I have this pavilion which I'm building on a small river in Cambridge, or in England. And the pavilion is, when you reach it, you kind of take this winding path through the forest. And then you reach this pavilion which is shaped like an ear. And you go into the ear, and you walk into the, kind of, inner ear. And you reach a place where the river is visible, flowing. And the pavilion is shaped in such a way, as to amplify the sound of the water.

So, that project in Barcelona, they don't have an immediate human person, who you encounter. Although, in the Cambridge project, we're also studying the microbiology of the water, as part of the project. And the scientists are using the pavilion as their field lab. And an elementary school is going to use it as their, kind of, field classroom. So there are humans around. But there's not a human interacting with you as part of the work, in the same way as some of the other works. And I think that's just an evolution. In the sense that, I'm sure I'll go and make other works that again, have someone who you interact with as part of the mise-en-scène of the piece, or the dramaturgy of the piece. But I feel it's possible to also make works that are processual and active, that don't have that too. And that's also because, the more attention that I pay to material, you know? And partly with the soil work, I started to see how all this material being produced, all around any city or region, is really somehow fertile. And you can redirect that, and make it move into a different place, and then suddenly produce something.

TRANSITION SOUNDS: Asad and Moriah screaming.

MORIAH

All your, these human people you have, like coaches, cultivators, caretakers, and custodians. People like that assist or something.

ASAD

And all those people can have conversations. Another C word!

MORIAH

Right, they're having conversations with the visitors.

ASAD

Which is also very much part of your work.

MORIAH

Yeah!

ASAD

You know, I think interesting about your work is like, if we look back at Trisha Brown's pieces where she talks to the audience, or Tino's piece, This Situation, or other one where This Progress, we are both, I think, interested in including a certain kind of conversational level of life and experience, into works which don't usually have those, right? Like, usually visual art and choreography do not converse with you directly. But that, kind of, happens in both of our work sometimes. And I just think that's an interesting dichotomy, you know? Like, I don't want to make strange comparisons, but I do think that in film, that happens sometimes. Even though it's obvious, film is usually people conversing, I mean, that's like the basic thing, right? But there's certain films that almost seem like there's narration being used, in a way that's like a conversation directly with you. And I think that, in a way, that relates to some of the stuff that we work on. I remember when I came to your rehearsal at PS1 , MoMA, I think it was Figuring?

MORIAH

Yeah.

ASAD

And there were these moments where you were telling the dancers stuff. ‘Move to this now’ or ‘start that algorithmic exercise’. And I thought those moments were actually really, really interesting and rich, as an audience member. And I remember saying to you, like, ‘those are great, that something really is happening there’. And because it adds this other level, which real life has, right? And in some kind of way, we moved to a place where that level is somehow interesting to include now. I don't really know exactly…I'm saying something that's not so clear in my own mind, because this is really a thought I'm having right now. But I think that there's something about that level, that is somehow…

Even just yesterday, I was at my aunt's house, and I was showing the Olympics to my daughter. The women's volleyball, we were watching, and a commercial came on for some medication. But the first part of the commercial was all these people saying like, ‘Hey, that commercial for that anti-blah-blah medication, is going to come on’. And then the other person was like, ‘Oh, really?’ And the person jumps off their exercise bike, and starts jogging over to the room. It's like some anti-eczema medication. And then, like, a commercial comes on for the anti-eczema medication. Like, then you're inside the commercial. And I was like, this is interesting. Because this is something, like, we almost need this extra level now. The level of, what you might call it, reception or criticism being incorporated into the work, is something that I think, for whatever reason, is interesting, relevant. And maybe more interesting right now, than it was 50 years ago. I think it's there in both of our work.

MORIAH

Yeah. Something I’ve thought a lot about is, like, everything that is used in a performance, must be part of the performance. And I think it goes to, like, this thing of trying to make works more, I don't know like, I wouldn't say exactly participatory, but the encounter with a work of art is inclusive of the witness. Or the visitor. Or the audience member. And like, what is all this, like, cultural practice for, at the end of the day? You know? How do works of art include, and meet, and dialogue with their publics? And how is the public part of what unfolds in performance, or choreographic practice

We don’t have a set definition of this. The aim of the School is to keep what these words refer to as an open question.Short definition

ASAD

Well, I think that's what's very interesting about your most recent work. That there are these workshops, directly beforehand, that the public can do, where they go through the same exercises. Like that alone is really interesting.

MORIAH

Or they can leave the four hours, and go into this other room.

ASAD

Yeah, they can leave during the thing, and go do these exercises.

MORIAH

Yeah, well I’ve done in differently. At Performance Space New York, they could leave during the thing and go do it, because they had the capacity to have a separate room. At MoCA, Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, the resignation clinics happened on a separate day.

ASAD

But I do kind of like that you could even leave right then and there, and go do it.

MORIAH

Yeah, I know, I mean, that was kind of like the ideal frame.

ASAD

That’s the ideal.

MORIAH

But I think that's also always interesting, you know? How different site specific scenarios condition a work.

ASAD

I mean, I would give you a Guggenheim.

TRANSITION SOUNDS: Asad and Moriah screaming and coughing.

MORIAH

One thing I thought about too, that would be interesting to think about, in both…like, in work in general, and I think I see it in your work as well as mine, is like, the use of directed dress with the public. And also a, kind of, opportunity for voyeurism at the same time. When you're talking about the works that remove, like, the facilitator role is removed, in the ‘ear piece’ or in the ‘let-it-in piece’.

ASAD

The fabric?

MORIAH

The fabric work. I think there's like, how is the school

Gathering places for teaching and learning. Also, a school of thought is an idiom that suggests the sharing of traditions of philosophical and intellectual practices.

gonna like occupy this kind of sculpture that you've, I don't know if I should…I don't know what to call it. Like, this structure you're inserting into this space. Like, how are they gonna inhabit it? And how is that inhabitation going to be perceived from those looking at it.

ASAD

Hm.

MORIAH

Um, and I think that kind of voyeurism, like the observation model of engaging with a work of art. And the, kind of, user model of like, ‘okay, this is a structure in which we're inside of. And it's there for, I don't know, use or exchange or inhabiting’.

ASAD

Well, what you're saying reminds me a little bit of this project I did when I first started making my own projects called Schema for a school. When Nicola Lees invited me to do something on my own in Ljubljana In 2015. And I had thought that the school

Gathering places for teaching and learning. Also, a school of thought is an idiom that suggests the sharing of traditions of philosophical and intellectual practices.

was an interesting format to try to put into an exhibition. I also had this idea, that you could have a school where you cook. You start by chopping, and getting some stuff ready to cook, to make some sort of, like, a soup or a stew that you could eat. And then you learn while it's cooking. And then, after like, four hours or something, it's done. All of that is done and you, then you stop and eat. And then that's the how the school

can be every day. That it's on the timing of this, attached to this moment of embodied, you know, consumption of materials that are edible, hopefully. And in Ljubljana we actually collected vegetables from all these different people's gardens, because having a vegetable garden is like very, very common in Slovenia. Like every, almost everyone with a house has one. And so, people were just giving, donating us all these vegetables in summer. And we were making these soups every day. And going through all these learning practices. And I remember also, you were part of that project, when we did it at The Shed in 2018, A Prelude to the Shed.

It's kind of interesting because all of these communities that form, they're not exactly the work, but they are somehow a part of the work. And they're important. And yet, I don't really try to direct them, or to lead them so much, you know? I kind of assemble them.

You did the performance in the home show, where you did this small facial choreographies, sitting on my couch in this show in my apartment. You did the performance inside Root Sequence. Mother Tongue, in the Whitney. You were part of a Schema for a school, where the students liked you much better than they liked me. And then you were also, you know, you did this amazing chapter in Plot, in the soil with your dancers hurling themselves into the dirt. Soil, I should say! I'm sorry, Alex McBratney and Gerd Wessolek, my soil scientists, who will get mad if they hear me say dirt.

MORIAH

I think dirt is a great word.

ASAD

I think it is. We need to reclaim dirt.

MORIAH

Reclaim dirt!

ASAD

Yeah.

MORIAH

Indulge in the dirt!

ASAD

Thank you.

MORIAH

Be with the dirt!

ASAD

Yeah, exactly. Let's do it.

MORIAH

Roll in the dirt! It’s good for you.

Asad laughs.

ASAD

Roll in the dirt?

MORIAH

We were rolling in the dirt!

ASAD

I know, I remember.

MORIAH

Rolling in the dirt is a-

ASAD

It was amazing to see the bodies mixing up with it.

MORIAH

Yeah!

ASAD

And throwing up these clouds of dust, you know? It was really dust breeding. And I think in a way, you know very well, maybe even better than me, about these communities that form. Because in the end, I'm a little bit, like, at a step back from them sometimes, because I'm not always there. But I think that capacity is important. And I guess for me, I don't know if it's like this for you, we're basically just trying to work on things, that we ourselves, feel are lacking in the world. Or that should be there. What kind of thing would I want to walk into a museum? And one of the things I really love, are those moments where you can have an encounter and exchange with another person. So, that's why that's in a lot of the projects.

And in your case, the way I see your work shifting, or slowly you know, evolving, if I think back to my first time seeing your work in like 2009 or something, until now, almost 15 years later, I also see an increased capacity for a world to be constructed. In which, community can kind of be formed. And I think that's really cool. Like the works are like worlds now. And less like a single event or performance. Something like configuring. It's like, a whole thing. With multiple spaces. Multiple levels of participation. Multiple possibilities to move between those levels. And a real sense of, like, discovery for the public. Oh they can see like, ‘Okay, there's a whole thing happening here. I'm going to like, try and figure this out. I got to get into this.’ I hope that evolution keeps going in that direction, because I think that's something people, they really need it more. Like a moment where they can be part of something, and be with other people, to be part of something. And especially if that moment can be inclusive.

That's why our friend Tiffany Shaw, I'm a real fan of Tiffany's thinking about community and coming together, which she calls exilic. In the sense that, it doesn't necessarily include the idea that you're part of a specific community. Like with your work, you don't have to be part of a specific community. You come there and you can be included, and you can be part of it.

MORIAH

And it's literally for everybody.

ASAD

Exactly. I think that that's quite important actually, because a lot of people don't have those kind of spaces.

MORIAH

Yeah. And that's something that like art can offer to the world.

ASAD

Yeah!

MORIAH

And the thing is, I think, every dance that I make, I literally want it to be, that anybody can do it. Literally, that it has a kind of transparency, and its process of making. Okay granted, yes, I work with highly trained individuals, who work very intensely for periods of time with me, to make the thing. But it's also, like, if anyone committed to that practice or process, they also could do it. Do you know? Like, it's kind of virtuosic, pedestrian way or something.

I wanted to offer this word interoception

The ability to perceive, sense, interpret, and integrate signals originating from within one’s body.

. Which in addition to, like, the concentric circles that expand outward. And like, if we're talking about choreographing with the materials of the elements, I think also we should return to, like, the abyss of the internal, and interoception

. Basically, it's an interior, inside the body version of proprioception, perceptually. Like how the organs sense each other, and signal information to the brain, and back and forth. And those kind of, like, feedback mechanisms that are happening inside of beings, in addition to the outside. You know? Like the, kind of, returning to the space of the internal.

ASAD

Oh, I think that's super interesting.

MORIAH

And that's something that Oregon work has been working on deeply. And I think, it's a fundamental, in my opinion, like a feminist organisational structure, against the fellow centric logos, in a sense.

ASAD

Well, I loved the concept.

MORIAH

Like going inside, and inside, and inside, and more and more inside. And the imagination that is required. The speculative somatic imagination that's required to access the inside. And the, kind of, suspension of disbelief of, ‘Oh, I can make my pancreas vibrate.’ That then enables like this externality. But, the point of origin is this inescapable chase of trying to feel, that which you cannot feel, but you can only make the attempt.

ASAD

I like abyss’ and I like the idea that inside the body are organs. And inside the organs are organelles. And inside the organelles are molecules. And inside the molecules are cells. And each cell is also a symbiosis of two ancient bacteria, a mitochondria and the other part of the cell. And inside of each of those are atoms, and inside of each atom is a lot of empty space and a few little particles. And that's the abyss, after abyss, after abyss, that we're talking about.

MORIAH

It's like infinitely divisible and infinitely expandable.

ASAD

Yeah!

MORIAH

And those kind of, like, scales of engagement is pretty fun to, I don't know, to go into. To invite others into.

ASAD

No, I completely agree.

MORIAH

It always takes multitudes to do anything, so.

ASAD

And all of them contain multitudes.

MORIAH

Inside of them, that's what I mean. Bodies within bodies within bodies, like.

MARTIN

Thank you Asad and Moriah for this conversation. For the transcript of this episode and links to resources mentioned, Go to rosechoreographicschool.com. The link for this page will also be in the podcast episode description, wherever you're listening right now.

If you'd like to give us any feedback, give us a rating wherever you're listening to this. Or email us on info@rosechoreographicschool.com. This podcast is a Rose Choreographic School production. It's produced and edited by Hester Cant, co-curated by Emma McCormick-Goodhart and Martin Hargreaves, with additional concept and direction by Izzy Galbraith.

Thanks for listening, goodbye!

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

ASAD RAZA'S WORKS:

- home show (New York, 2015)

- Schema for a school (Ljubljana Graphic Art Biennial, 2015)

- Root Sequence. Mother Tongue (Whitney Biennial, 2017)

- Untitled (plot for dialogue) (Milan, 2017)

- A Prelude to The Shed (Frieze, 2018)

- Diversion (River Main, Frankfurt, 2022)

- Plot (Bolzano-Bozen, 2023)

- Prehension (The Three Chimneys, Barcelona, 2024)

- Unreleased work - Contemporary Art Society