Knowledge, Certainty and Body Positivism

I have recently been looking more into the work of Wayne McGregor. I'm a bit of nightmare in life when everyone gravitates towards someone or something it tends to push me into a completely different direction, so I appreciate I am SUPER late to the party. 

The footage I have seen about his creative process and continuous journey with discovering every single angle of this consciously or subconsciously really reaches out to me.

His idea of mental architecture in the below video on creating choreography has set me off on a cognitive journey through imagery and perspective.


When we relate his ideas to knowledge, certainty and body positivism it brings into line some interesting concepts.

His idea of knowledge undoubtedly grows from a tacit approach.

The first researcher to address tacit knowledge was Polanyi (1966), who said that we can know more than we can tell. According to Polanyi, all scientific knowledge is in fact based on personal experience, which is closer to practical than to theoretical knowledge. (Chergui, Zidat and Marir, 2020)

Looking into McGregor's work with Mind and Movement and his collaboration with the cognitive scientists has been incredible. I feel he is trying to find that magically door to open and bring the tacit knowledge to the front of the mind. 

With the idea of certainty, I can't help but feel the only thing that is certain is that nothing is certain. It's an ever evolving journey with McGregor's choreographic process that is constantly being discovered and experienced through all and everyone lens, however abstract they might appear.

Body Positivism is one of those things that I feel like you could look at and say yay or nay depending on where you look. 

Wayne was curator and choreographer for the everyBODY campaign. Which was a multi-faceted Selfridges advertising campaign celebrating the beauty and strength of the female body in 2016.

(Selfridges, 2016)


(Incredible Machines, 2016)

Looking through the footage that is available, there is undeniably a selection of shapes and sizes representing the female body. To be given this campaign as a place to measure his stance on body positivism would be to definitely see the acceptance of all sizes through his work.

On the other side of the coin, whilst looking through his catalogue of works and promotional pictures, is the aesthetic of the dancer as varied as they are in the above campaign? I'd say not in my opinion, but again, a screenshot of work, is that a reliable source? Unless I am in the audience and see each individual person Wayne McGregor works with, how can I truly know?

I feel with his interest in the cognitive mind and the way in which McGregor creates choreography, he almost looks beyond the physical aesthetic of the body, and toward the physical images created by the bodies instead.

“We celebrate our ability to create machines that move as man, yet we take for granted the miracle that is the human body.”

― David Alejandro Fearnhead

I feel McGregor is the driving force in bridging gap between the two. I can't help but be in awe of the connections McGregor is making between the creative and the scientific. 


Chergui, W., Zidat, S. and Marir, F., 2020. An approach to the acquisition of tacit knowledge based on an ontological model. Journal of King Saud University - Computer and Information Sciences, 32(7), pp.818-828.

Incredible Machines. 2016. [film] Directed by K. Ferguson. London: Selfridges.

Selfridges, 2016. everyBODY. [image] Available at: <https://waynemcgregor.com/productions/selfridges-everybody/> [Accessed 14 October 2021].

 


Comments

  1. MariaOctober 15, 2021 at 9:11 AM

    Dear Charlotte,
    thank you so much for sharing this great post. I truly enjoyed watching "Incredible Machines".
    I believe that in particular female dancers aim to physically please others rather than themselves. Representing an idea of what she is supposed to look like and in exaggeration even acts according to what is socially expected of a woman. It's probably a subconscious process because women basically grow up with gender expectations and comparisons with deceptive body images.

    Maybe it as a reminder that we can make a change in our professional practice by empowering dancers to connect with their bodies ;-)

    Have a lovely weekend. Looking forward to seeing you again :-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Charlotte DavisOctober 15, 2021 at 9:39 AM

      Thank you so much for your reply Maria. I completely agree. I catch myself putting myself down due to my body shape and the feeling that I have that makes me "beneath" others due to the way I look.

      Beforehand, I wouldn't notice but as I now see this is passed on to my students, I call myself out on it and note what my body has accomplished and what it does on a day to day basis rather than the pure aesthetic of it.

      Yes look forward to seeing you and maybe even meeting you one day!
      Best wishes, Charlotte

      Delete

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