Objects and Witnesses in Dance Improvisation (2020-)
This is an improvisational-compositional-pedagogical project involving solo work, group practice and video-making. Is it possible to have a physical and affective encounter with an “object”? In this project I engage a range of improvisation embodiment techniques for encountering objects as the witnesses of our dance. In this sensuous journey, the space between the inner and the outer worlds of the dancer is approached as a mirror through which the presence of objects can be revealed and expressed imaginatively as an experience of reciprocity and co-creation.
“Reciprocity is the very structure of perception. We experience the sensuous world only by rendering ourselves vulnerable to that world.” These words by geo-philosopher and cultural anthropologist David Abram refer not only to the radical interconnection between humans and other living beings and systems we have learned to call “nature”. They also refer to our relationship with the things around us that carry the earthly signs of aliveness and participate in our perceptual experience. However, we are culturally patterned to neglect the interplay between the perceiving self and the perceived world. What is sensuous about the human-built spaces we inhabit surrounded by objects we approach as “inanimate” carriers of utilitarian functions? Working with touch, weight, axis, gravity, space, and other sensory mediums of improvisational dance and composition, this project aims to explore how the emergence of an intimate relationship with the vibrancy of matter challenges the assumed duality between the human and the nonhuman. Shaping into the body of objects and witnessing their presence and responsiveness can be conducive to the transformative experience of being danced by the movement of becoming. It can be conducive to the sensory realisation that there are no objects but only relations.
ABSENCE/PRESENCE: Solo with a chair
2023
Theatre-dance solo
In the danced encounter with a chair, intimacy and play turn into a fight and the demons of memory are awakened.
Choreography and Dance: Raffaele Rufo
Film: Paolo Parnasi
Project partner: TeatroinStalla (Rome)
METAMORPHIC OBJECTS
2021
Improvisational-compositional-pedagogical group practice
Objects of daily life are engaged as witnesses of our feelings and come to life in the encounter of dance. We too become witnesses of their presence to the point of being danced, to the point of feeling part of a more extensive vitality that exceeds our individuality. We shape ourselves into the material and discover the richness of the space between body and things until we enter such space by touching and breathing it. We are looking for improvisational and compositional pathways that through a somatic approach to breath, touch and gravity can help us to open the window of perception between the feeling of the body and the vibrations of matter.
More info: https://www.raffaelerufo.com/metamorphic-objects-workshops
IS THE CHAIR DANCING YOU?
2020
Video lesson
How does a dance respond to the sensory inputs the body receives from the presence of an object in the proximal space? My aim is to expand the practice and understanding of the duet to also include what happens to my dance, both inside and outside, when I focus my sensory perception and my movements on the presence of a specific object. In particular, I work with a chair focusing on the experience of touching and being touched by it. The key threads of this inquiry is the idea that, through somatic awareness and improvisational strategies, we can engage the chair as a partner in a physical and affective encounter.