gdance video #5

just posted a new video on Vimeo. Check it out.

The Marlow Knows.

gdance, set to A Few words

The other day someone was asking me about how I personally approach gdance (seeing as there are surely infinite ways of doing it.) A couple things came to mind that I thought I'd share.

When I think of guerrilla dance, what comes to mind as the most important factor is the individual. The individual dancing. Right there is all you need to gdance - a human body. You have one of those, and you're golden.
Although I don't think these are always necessary, having set times or places can be helpful. Creating a schedule of when a group can get together is extremely beneficial when people are busy (as we all know.) But hey, you can just have a set time and no set place, or a set place and no set time...or sometimes it's even more fun to just call some friends up and go boogy in a nearby mall *shrug* up to you and your posse.
Don't get hung up on what gdance "should" be. It should be whatever the hell you want it to be: large choreographed routine, the same act over and over, walking slow, dancing your heart out, salsa, ballet, Caribbean, club dancing, and the list goes on and on. The manifestation of guerrilla dance is very dependent on who is doing it.

If anyone has questions about gdancing, I hope my thoughts are helpful. But hey, these are just my thoughts, in no way does this define how anything should be done. This post is more for those who have the heeby jeebies about going out and being a social outcast. ;)

and remember there are others who gdance as well. Find 'em.

Enjoy your guerrilla ways of life. :P

Guerrilla - as a part of another

Today was interesting in how we were asked to come to dance as part of someone's event. This is the first time this group has done this, and pretty cool to be noticed enough to be asked. However, it started making me wonder if we were simply a supplement to someone else's idea. Sometimes it felt a little like we were "tacked on." How should we dance "under"someone else? Especially when gdance seems so much about freedom, or at least it is fairly connected to it.
This feeling was increased by the addition of a nearby D.J. - we not only were dancing there because someone wanted us to, but we were also provided with their music...so their way of dancing? (It's interesting to note that up until recent months, whenever music was used as part of this group, I supplied it. As time has gone on, I've realized the importance of anyone using their music, partly because it's simply more fun to dance to what you know, but also because it helps to deteriorate any sense of a single individual being "in charge.") But does that really matter? Simply because gdance isn't about some agenda, some higher way of thinking, some more logical well-thought out way of approaching life - and definitely not about teaching anybody how to do anything, or higher art. Guerrilla seems less and less as a platform for revolution or telling anyone what to do, and more an opportunity to allow for actions to be taken (to be involved, or not.) So does it really matter who we work with, or in what fashion? As long as we're continuing to simply do, and not start getting greedy: as we gain more attention, not using our opportunities to make others "get" us, or attempting to influence them to become more like us. The desire to influence others is partly self-validation by way of gathering a posse of followers: changing how others think to match so that it fits with what we do. or in other words, validating ourselves and what we believe in by getting others to say "YES! I agree!" As such, gdance almost seems to fit wherever asked to go as long as we stay in line with our simple intention of dancing, unaffected by others' desire to use us to influence their surroundings. Our presence might be doing that, but we on the inside, performing the act of gdancing, not making any effort at causing such an influence.

(Is it even possible to disconnect one's self from attempting to affect others with one's actions? to simply do without agenda to influence?)

Of course, how we are perceived, how we seem to be acting in the eyes of others, that matters too? Do others perceive us to be losing ourselves/our original intention? Selling out? Does this matter if our actions and intent are the same? Will it affect us if others view us in these negative ways? Might we be hindered in some way? It seems as if none of that perception matters if our acts and intentions are in fact staying the same..."pure?"

Club Dancing

This is a slight departure for this blog: I tend to write in direct relation to "guerrilla dancing," or rather, the times when I say "Now I'm going to dance as part of my project!!"

yet, last night something stuck out to me like a sore thumb. I took a trip to a local bar of downtown Columbus to dance with some friends of mine. While we were there doing our thing on the dance floor amidst the bumping, grinding, and awkward shifting of feet most displayed, one person stood out. There was this really short (5 footish), slightly husky, spectacled, semi-attractive guy dancing his heart out...all by himself. On a dance floor where almost everyone is either with a group, dancing with a partner, or if alone is on the side looking for another to dance with, this guy was truly outside of what seemed to be that dance floor's norm. For quite some time though, he just kept going, as if it was the last night he'd ever be able to dance again. It wasn't as if he was dancing - "like no one was watching" - but instead as if he was completely aware of his surroundings, and was simply unaffected: he wanted to dance, his way, and so he did.

Within 15-20 minutes after he began dancing, girls started to approach him. First it was just one, then another, and soon a space had been cleared, he was surrounded by a crowd, and several girls took their turn (sometimes two at a time) to dance with him. Even then, while he did seem to be enjoying himself, his face showed no sign of "yeah! look at how many girls I'm getting, and everyone is watching me!" instead his expression stayed in a place of somewhat of a solemn, internal focus. In a place where just about everyone followed a set of rules, rules that depended on others in just about every case, the one person who was gathering the most amount of positive attention was the one who had little to no dependency on the thoughts, support, or perspective of others - even when he was flooded with all those "power in numbers" social supports. He was never tempted to let it affect him; nothing seemed important except for that moment in which he was doing what he enjoyed; and this continued to be true when the crowd had dissipated and he was back to soloing again.

interesting

(on the side, freewritin' thoughts)

This isn't the first time soloing has happened in this project. I soloed back at Bates for a time and then most recently next to Jimmy Johns. All of which I've written/talked about. However, I never have tackled it head on - with intention to do so. I've never really had a reason to. My knees' pain gave me reason. I'm finding a core of interest in this society thing, and most specifically in the solo thing. It confronts the reality of what we're doing - Guerrilla Dancing - head on. Almost like it strips down the act to its purest form, without any perspectives, opinions, attempts at achieving a goal (which always alters an act) without any desire to make it into anything, but instead letting it breath and just be. Just like the quote from Siddhartha that I'm in love with, "As a result of your seeking you cannot find.....it happens quite easily that he only sees the thing he is seeking; that he is unable to find anything......because he is only thinking of the thing he is seeking...because he is obsessed with his goal." Dancing. It's just dancing, without any goal or attempt to affect/gain the approval of others - because you're going into it with the knowledge people might take to it negatively. You're not expecting any approval - quite the opposite - and even if you thrive on that type of defiance, that's not why you do it (at least not in the context I've been involved in - by myself and with Jasmine). An act beyond the walls of the past, the knowledge of historical /cultural pressures. In a sense, a completely new act. An act without a web of relation and precedence.

Or at least that sounds nice. Don't know if it's really true. :P

"This is your one opportunity to do something that no one has ever done before and that no one will copy throughout human existence. And if nothing else, you will be remembered as the one guy who ever did this. This one thing" - Sam, from the movie "Garden State"

Guerrilla Dance - Solo (pt. #2)

The first people I talked to were viewers of Jasmine's solo dancing.

I talked to one girl who was fairly surprised by the seemingly random act of dancing in the library, a place one rarely finds much more than quiet book reading and laptop typing. Nonetheless, she was quite positive about the dancing. She thought it was gutsy, cool to see, and despite the fact that she didn't really feel like it naturally fit in a library, was glad to have it there. I asked her about the fact that she was going solo, and she simply re-emphasized how gutsy Jasmine seemed. I prodded further to see if she would ever do something similar, and she again talked about guts: how she would only have enough to do it if she had a group of her friends to do it with her.

Soon thereafter, I talked to two other girls who I had spotted looking and laughing to each other about Jasmine. We had a long conversation that touched on many points, but one that really stuck out to me came when I asked about Jasmine's soloing, and whether or not these two girls would ever do the same thing. They both laughed, and voiced how one of them had suggested just that idea, of joining in: "I will if you'll come with me." They decided not to, but it kept this idea of soloing in the forefront of my mind. It was so important to have someone else to stand next to when going against what was established as the proper way to act in a specific setting. (Not that this was a surprise to me. Going against what the majority deems as appropriate is a well accepted difficulty in the life of many humans: ex. high school, media, religion, art in general, etc. but) Why was this so important? Both these girls, and the one I had previously talked to had expressed quite an interest in joining. They all wanted to do it, but didn't have the "guts" to unless a friend was beside them. What strength was there in this extra person? What did a partner offer that was a substitute for their lack of guts? And whatever was holding them back - society, culture, the "norm," rules - was holding them back from an experience that seemed enjoyable to them. They wanted to dance on the staircase of Thompson Library, in plain view of four stories worth of fellow studying students and passerbys. Yet there was some danger they wouldn't risk acting against. An entity of some sort that could hurt them. The joy in dancing wasn't worth the possible consequences.

These consequences...