The Small Dance (2011) is a collaborative translation from text to movement. The performance is collaborative in the sense that there are multiple translators, but also in the sense that the translators were given open access to dialogue with the author. Beyond dialogue, the author exercised no constraints on the autonomy of these translations. The text for this translation performance is Chris Martin’s long poem, “The Small Dance,” which takes its name from a choreographic technique by dance pioneer Steve Paxton and can be found in Becoming Weather (Coffee House Press 2011). For this performance, the translators are Lydia Bell, Sarah White, Eric Conroe, Erin Cairns, and Colleen Hooper.
above: documentation of performance translation
below: details of video projections in this performance and excerpt from Chris Martin's The Small Dance
A whole system of gravitational muscles, whose action for the most part eludes conscious attention and will, is responsible for assuring our posture: these muscles maintain our equilibrium and permit us to stand without having to think about it. It so happens that these muscles are also those which register the changes in our affective and emotional state. Thus, every modification of our posture will intersect with our emotional state, and reciprocally, every affective charge will bring with it a modification, however imperceptible, in our posture.
—Hubert Godard
19
In the same way
music disturbs
a silence
that never was
We find parts
of ourselves torn into
frays of sonic excess
and others snarled in the convolutions
of an always already
choreographed world
I do a small dance only to find it
enormous
do a so
simple step and end
up staggering in
fury
20
The poor own the clouds
and we love them for it
21
I was out interviewing clouds amassing
the notes of a sky pornographer while patches
of the city subnormalized
by fear of fear like a reef bleaching closed
I took to the streets
looking for a human velocity
feeling disequilibrium
heavy in the abundance
of summer light
the silent apathy
of stars which is neither
silent nor apathetic
I am becoming weather
and
I don’t
plan on doing
it alone
22
Most stay testing the gray
balloon brains of their
enemies
we swell
It’s Sunday a cat erupts
on the nightstand and wine
moves into the socks
Spent the afternoon ogling
mugshots at the precinct
so many torn
out eyes
There was a movie on tv
about dudes blowing other dudes
apart
Outside a quick quivering bird took
refuge in a length of pipe
Being a thing it bursts
into events
23
Sure I was a molecule
accumulating talk
I came to this wanting
to say something
small about being
with you
an awkwardness beneath gasoline
each weird hospitality flung
into the mouth of a passing bird
we woke refurbishing the war a rabbit that blooms
in my ears the man loves art because
he is an egoist in my ears he is an egoist
Today is something thrown and awaiting
purchase