Disorientation Training
How might anthropologists engage the unexpected?
And how might this engagement be embodied?
This workshop approaches these questions through the vehicle of improvisation—improvisation understood not merely as an object of ethnographic study (as in empirical studies of rituals, games, competitions, performances, etc.), but as an ethnographic practice itself.
Put more simply, how might ethnography be improvised? And how might we bring those “techniques of the body” (Mauss 1934) of such interest to anthropologists over the last century into the realm of method?
In Dwelling in Possibility, dance scholar Ann Cooper Albright (2003) refers to the dual experience of being present "here" in order to be able to imagine what could happen out "there." The “potency” of improvisation, says Albright, entails “a willingness to cross over into uncomfortable territories, to move in the face of fear, of what is unknown… both open to the world and intensely grounded in an awareness of one's ongoing experience.”
Building on Albright’s methodology, participants in this workshop will be asked to suspend—and indeed, disorient—their understandings of space, time, and meaning. We will begin with individual improvisation scores including self-paced warmups, range of movement explorations, and verbal and nonverbal expressions, building toward group activities that will challenge us to flex our improvisation muscles collectively and within our newly-formed community of improvisers. The structure of this workshop allows for participation by people of all ages and abilities (we will improvise modifications and solutions!). Participants are asked to wear nonrestrictive, comfortable clothing and footwear.
Please contact me to facilitate your own disorientation training!