As
modern city dwellers, we (except for those who are visually impaired) tend to
rely, almost entirely, on our vision to orient. James J. Gibson, American psychologist known for his research in visual perception,
revealed to us that the environment does not impinge on its observer. It is the
perceiver who negotiates constantly with the incoming signals to determine his
understanding. Among all senses, the vision is particularly good at doing so.
As a result, according to Gibson, we associate a sense of the “self” which the
head. I (my head) and my body (the rest of my body) exist separately, partially
because we navigate with our vision, partially because we can see many other
parts of our body. I would say that this hierarchy of senses is fortified with technological advances and labor
more and more becoming an exchangeable commodity. Our body has been
increasingly objectified and regarded as less noble compared to our head, where
the brain and the eyes reside.
Choreographer Susan Leigh Foster proposed that contact improvisation, meditation,
yoga and the like “conceptualize the body’s movement as a potential conduit to
new ways of perceiving and orienting in the world.” She advocated that “movement
can be tapped to give insight into new dimension of reality.”[1] The same belief is held by Master Bambang Suryono,
veteran dancer and actor of Wayang Wong Istana Mangkune-garan (Javanese
traditional theater in Mankunegaran Palace), who came to Hong Kong in the final
week of May 2015 on the invitation of Tang Shu-wing Theatre Studio.
With its origin dated back to the
11th Century Java with strong Indian influence, Wayang Wong
performances could go on for days in the Palace, telling epic stories of
ancient heroes. The characters are depicted both by the performers’ movements
and voices. Suryono demonstrated how to produce these voice patterns, including
deep throaty voice of giants and other fictive human, screams of eagles and
monkeys, or high-pitch sudden outbursts. Suryono moved very slowly, so slow as
if carefully peeling off layer after layer of messages floating in the air,
taking time for his body to read these messages. While he was demonstrating,
the theater was so quiet that one could hear a pin drop. I don’t have to look
around to know that the invisible flair of his concentration is arresting in
its purest sense. Then, originating from his core and ignited by his breathing,
he let out a sudden scream that resonated in, not the perceiver’s ears but his
torso – you could almost feel a flow of air circulating your body. A beautiful
exchange of the animalistic sensibility that is shared among ourselves, our
ancestors, and our descendents.
Slowness is critical to Suryono
in opening up our body sensitivity. We need to take time for the spine and the
muscles to twist and stretch as much as possible. The more the skin extends and
the more the joints open up, the more environmental messages they take in.
Focusing on the inhale-exhale pattern further enhances the magnitude of the
stretch and channels attention back to the natural rhythm of the body. Suryono
demonstrated a couple phrases of dance, during which he wore masks. Interestingly,
these masks have eyes closed, a refusal to the over-reliance of perception
through vision. The “dance” is not in a conventional sense the display of
formalistic technique, but the contagiousness of an ancient calling to the trust
of body sensitivity and breathing.
Suryono’s
movement tempo embodies Indonesian’s perpetual sense of time, shared by various
Oriental cultures. There is no distinction between the beginning and the end, the
old and the new. The tradition is re-enacted and memorized by bodies generation
after generation, rejuvenated on each performance. It is contemporarized when practiced
by a living body as a life philosophy instead of a formal repetition.
[1] Susan Leigh
Foster, “Movement’s contagion: the kinesthetic impact of performance” in ed.
Tracy C. David, The Cambridge Companion
to Performance Studies, Cambridge: CUP (2008): 46-59
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