jidhe

jidhe — a rough translation of 'trunk' or 'torso' in Arabic, is an early dance piece exploring the relationship between upper body movements, noise and silence. it is my first step into composition, i.e. an attempt to formalize the unfolding of sounds and body-movements while embracing their ephemerality and spontaneousness. the score of jidhe consists of a methodical and deterministic sequence of pre-defined qualities of movements, but the detailed movements themselves are left undefined. in that sense, the piece is a little bit like a stochastic process, incorporating random elements or degrees of indeterminacy in the unfolding of a deterministic process

it was originally inspired by Erwin Straus' notion of acoustic space: a shared structure of/for listening, at the 'heart of sensuous receptivity' and conjuring all the senses at once. acoustic space is not exclusive to music nor dance, but a polymorphic, virgin, smooth, pathic space linked to sensing— das Empfinden, detached from the idea of a pre-given, functional displacement or direction, inviting a state of 'presence' and erasure of 'self-hood'

jidhe is also a dedication to the works of Steve Paxton and Peter Ablinger

the entirety of the performance is available online upon request. it has been presented over the years in a variety of contexts and versions