This essay/chapbook is from a collaborative project, “One Thing Follows Another:
Engaging the Art of Simone Forti and Yvonne Rainer,” co-written with Sarah
Rosenthal. The project is comprised of 10 essays—five by each of us—in which
we, through a combination of chance operations and via various genre-blurring
techniques, deconstruct the essay form to examine what we, as experimental
writers with our own relationships to dance, can contribute to the conversation
around these innovative figures in postmodern art.
In thinking through what shape we wanted the
project to take, we decided to each identify five recurring themes in
Rainer’s and Forti’s work, for a total of ten themes; and we also each
identified five personal memories related to dance. We then developed a chance-based process—inspired by a 2015 interview Forti did with Alessandra Nicifero for the Robert Rauschenberg
Foundation, which involved a grid of associations from her life—to
randomly pair the themes with our personal memories. It was around these pairings that we based our
essays.
The theme/memory combination for this essay
was:
- Theme:
The role of listening to collaborators/co-performers in building
connection
- Memory:
My taiko teacher having us incorporate dance into performance
align time, tuned // in to calibrate beats /
to make // an ensemble / dynamically // listen
The
pairing seemed like a fortuitous one, as the practice of listening to and
collaborating closely with others connects naturally to the experience of
drumming in an ensemble. The two topics clearly offered a lot of potential
synergies and convergences, and the chance to explore the roles of sound and
voice, both critical components of Forti’s approach. But that doesn’t mean the
essay came together easily.
From
the outset, I knew I wanted to incorporate a poetic element as a way to lean
into the musicality inherent in taiko, so I began by writing a series of
interstitial poems that run down the center of the page. These serve as a
visual echo of what was, in practice sessions, informally called the “center
line” section of the taiko piece, “Requiem die Tambori,” depicted in the
essay.
The
initial versions essentially broke down a few basic taiko concepts—the ji
(underlying rhythm), kiai (usually improvisatory vocalizations that
accompany the drumming), and soloing, with the final poem describing Forti’s
philosophy around movement. In their original form, the pieces did not clearly
connect the more substantive portions of the essay, or create a cohesive frame
for the topics. Ultimately—as they evolved significantly during the revision
process—the poems have come to serve many functions in the piece. In part they
are tutorials of a sort, offering descriptions of key elements of taiko as well
as insights into my particular experience with the form. They also provide
space, or breath, between the denser prose sections, enabling the reader to
absorb that content. And each one introduces the theme discussed in the section
that follows, eg., the role of vocalization in both taiko and Forti’s work, the
nature of solo work and improvisation, and the dynamics of collaborating with a
group.
Let’s begin to arrange / ourselves as one //
formation in concert / what’s a requiem // if not for / communion /
interjection // of voice, don’t forget breath, centering / where // players,
our parts interweave
In
the essay’s early stages, much of the rest of the text was written in somewhat
standard prose, akin to a traditional essay. I would describe the writing as
serviceable. But for an art form as powerful as taiko, for work as vital and
propulsive as Forti’s with voice, the language and format of the essay were
neither serving the piece nor living up to the dynamism of the subject matter.
How
to resolve this issue? Eventually, I came to the realization that a structural
overhaul was needed. In fact, the structure essentially became the cornerstone
of the piece.
This
essay was the first of the five I wrote for the collection, and my early drafts
reflected my perception that these pieces really needed to look and act like
essays—or what I understood an essay to be. However,
after we each wrote a few essays, Sarah delivered one that was surprising in
format and language, structured in a unique way that corresponded perfectly to
the topic. I was blown away. Her boldness inspired me to push the envelope
further than I’d imagined, spurring me to fuse my experimental approach to
poetry with the essay form, which would potentially result in a richer, more
complex experience for the reader.
So,
after writing the remaining essays using inventive forms tailored to the
content of each, I returned to this one, giving myself permission to shake up
the format somewhat. I converted the prose content into semi-poetic blocks of
text—resembling prose but tighter, more lyrical, designed to do and show more
than tell. And, following an early reader’s suggestion, I dedicated a full page
to each block of text; with this change, each one has more impact, more room to
breathe. Further, each of these vignettes contributes to a running thread that
unspools as the book goes on, doing one of the following: illustrate how various
of Forti’s pieces work, particularly in terms of voice/sound; examine an aspect
of my experience with taiko; or interrogate the history of taiko and the
evolution of women’s roles within it. This intentional, one-per-page treatment
creates a more dynamic structure in keeping with the kinesthetic nature of the
topics at hand. With each new page, the narrative of the essay unfolds and
shifts from one core thread to the next, painting a more complete picture of my
story vis a vis the role of collaboration and listening in taiko and postmodern
dance.
mnemonic, kuchi-shoga: we sing to verbalize // patterns to play
... each mouth its own // chatter / how we learn sticking, mark timbre // and
time
But
the reimagining of the structure went beyond revising the poems and converting
the prose into manageable blocks. To make the form and content truly cohere, I
devised a way to formally enact the practice and performance of the “Requiem”
piece discussed in the essay. I transcribed a score of sorts—in a nod to the
techniques of many postmodern artists—such that each prose block came to
represent a single drum strike from the piece’s “center line” sequence; the
heading for each section—Do, Ko, Ka, Ra, etc.—also
indicates which hand is used for each strike, which part of the drum is struck,
and the length of each hit (following the vocalization method, kuchi-shoga,
typically used to learn taiko pieces). With this construction,
each portrays a discrete observation, memory, or insight, akin to the
moment in which a drum is struck.
a call for invention // adding impact / need a trick to so-re // at will / with as little throat
//
possible / our voices not only for words
Many
of the vignettes offer a snapshot of Forti’s works, walking the reader through
pieces that incorporate sound—especially voice—while highlighting the role of
listening and interacting with participants. And they illustrate how she worked
with techniques like improvisation—also an important element of taiko.
In
alternating between stories of my taiko experience, discussion of art on a
historical and anthropological level, and analysis of Forti’s work, I aim to
show the parallels and intersections of these seemingly disparate topics. These
various layers and contexts eventually converge in the final section,
illuminating the overlaps between taiko and postmodern dance, between my
experience and Forti’s, and between Western art theory and Eastern art forms,
especially through the lens of the female artist—mind, body, and voice.
riffed, in mirroring // cohere / count
out allotted beats to echo // each our own iteration an energy interchange ...
in sync as any sequence // in unison.
Valerie Witte [photo credit: Andrew Hedges] is the
author of a game of correspondence (Black Radish) and The Grass Is
Greener When the Sun Is Yellow (Operating System), co-written with Sarah
Rosenthal. Her latest chapbook, Listening Through the Body: An Exercise in Sustained Coordination, recently appeared from above/ground press. Her
writing has also appeared in literary journals such as VOLT, Diagram,
Dusie, Alice Blue, and Interim. More at valeriewitte.com
