STRANGE FOREIGN BODIES

make thought dance
A research project by Zufit Simon

The text “58 Indices on the Body” by the French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy is a list of sometimes contradictory, short remarks on the human body. The choreographer Zufit Simon, together with the two dancers Clarissa Rêgo and Cary Shiu, who each have very diverse physical characteristics, was inspired by his thoughts for her movement research.

„Why indices rather than characters, signs, distinctive markings? Because the body escapes, is never sure, lets its presence be suspected but not identified. [...] All we have at our disposal are indications, traces, imprints and vestiges.“ The analytical approach of thinking liquefies in a translation into dance – it becomes as concrete as it does ephemeral. „A body is a difference. Since it is a difference from every other body [...] it’s never done with differing. It also differs from itself.“ But a body must always be thought in a relationship – it is also a Mit-Sein, a being-with others. 

Full-length video: https://vimeo.com/1070330630
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...“Nancy’s definition of thought as ‘gesture and experience’, which has made him the favourite philosopher of contemporary dance, seems to have been written expressly for the Israeli-born choreographer, whose older works often stubbornly and cleverly ventured into the spaces between movement, thought and feeling, creating constructive semantic confusion.... The best passages momentarily effect shifts in perception between the body, which has a birthmark here, love handles there and, as Nancy says, is different from all other bodies – even from itself – and as a quasi-neutral sign....”

Sabine Leucht, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 2019