I feel compelled to put into sentences some of the lessons I’ve learned through making and performing “No Translation” with Antonia & Artists. Wait... why am I trying to put something called “No Translation” into words? Well, in some ways, this beautiful dilemma is at the heart of the piece... and because life. I’m going to write about life because you can come see the piece for yourself this weekend. Usually I’m hesitant to publicly post things that I write because they consist of my own personal revelations that I assume most people would read and be like, “Oh, Duh, Meredith, it’s about time you figured that out,” but maybe it’s ok to point out the obvious. Here I go.
What drives us to both speak and listen to each other despite tangled, complicated webs of miscommunication? One of my latest theories is that whether we intend to or not, we are always speaking and listening. If we aren’t speaking with our mouths or listening with our ears, we are speaking with our bodies and listening with our eyes. We are constantly taking in sensations galore. This is pretty wonderful. It means that our bodies are doing a lot of work to keep us safe, comfortable, and adaptable within changing environments. As I write this, I am curled up in the corner of the couch in my living room. When I first sat down, my body probably thought, “Brr, it’s cold. Hey Legs, you should fold in tightly to generate some heat and provide a surface for Meredith to rest her journal. While you’re at it, Torso, you should close yourself off, curving over the pen and paper, because journal writing is more enjoyable with privacy.” Later, my housemate Eva sat down next to me on the couch. I didn’t respond, but I definitely took mental note of her proximity and the possibility that she might interrupt my activity. A few moments later, Eva left without saying anything.
Eva and I have a pretty independent cohabitation lifestyle. If we made our living relationship into a dance piece, most of it would be two solos happening simultaneously in the same space. Therefore, it’s pretty safe for me to trust that Eva was not offended by my closed off positioning on the couch, because she probably sensed that I was focused on something that didn’t directly involve her presence. Nothing personal. What if I had unfolded my legs and turned to face her more openly? What if I slid closer to her and rested my head on her shoulders? What if I threw my journal down to the floor, folded my arms, and glared at her? There are an insane number of ways I could have rearranged my body language to communicate with her in this moment. What if Eva ignored me completely? When it comes down to it, who cares what I do if she’s not paying attention to me? If no one is listening communication becomes the obvious, painful lack of communication which isolates the individual trying to speak. But wait, is it possible to really ignore someone who is right next to you? Even if you’re not actively thinking about your neighbor’s presence, they are still influencing your environment, and your body is still responding to that environment.
For example, during dress rehearsal last night, the girls in the space next door were having a conversation that we could hear throughout our run of the piece. That kind of communication was happening passively. You can choose to intently listen to someone or try to clearly communicate something you feel or have to say. You can also focus intently on yourself and ignore your surroundings on a mental level. On a physical level this ignorance is impossible. You can’t make someone or something disappear. You can control certain things about your environment (whether it’s turning a light on, shifting furniture around, wearing a warm coat, inviting a friend to join you..), but you cannot escape space, time, or your physical body, except maybe on a spiritual level... My point is that body language and communication (or miscommunication) are going to happen unavoidably in any relationship between beings in an environment. Therefore, body language matters. In dance, we speak with our bodies. We choreograph strings of movements like a writer strings together words. Good writers can articulate what they’re trying to say in words. Good dancers can articulate what they’re trying to say with their moving bodies. Performers constantly make choices about body language in the same way that you decide to wear a certain outfit for a job interview, smile when you meet someone, or close your eyes to rest when you are safe and sleepy. Our most intimate moments of communication happen when both parties are intently listening, speaking, and responding. Good kissers are active and responsive. Beautiful contact improvisation happens when each dancer is listening and responding honestly in real time to weight shifts and touch.
I could go on and on with these different examples of ways certain people choose to interact with their bodies... The point is that we all have our own ways of communicating and we all have different things to say, hence the vast possibilities for miscommunication. But that alone is too depressing. Instead, I value miscommunication. I value listening even when you might misunderstand. Misunderstanding is awkward and hilarious and painful. The best way to deal with it is to laugh a little and then keep listening and keep trying to speak in new ways. The beauty behind miscommunication is that we are all different. The beauty in being different is that we all have something unique to say, and therefore we all have something to learn from each other. Aww. Moral of the story: Speak, listen, and learn.
And now for a little tangent to finish up. The other day, I was talking with a photographer friend about some recent anxieties I’ve had about pictures/screens/film. It was freaking me out that when we watch a film on a screen, or look at a two dimensional image, we can only see the image from a particular angle. In live performance, on the other hand, each seat in the house sees a different angle of the performance. This situation seems more accurate to life... after all, no two pairs of eyes are positioned in the same head. Then I told my friend about a Butoh exercise that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about for the past couple years. The task in this exercise is to imagine that your gaze wraps all the way around the world so that you are watching yourself from behind. I like this exercise a lot because it lets you feel like you can see everything, like you’re not missing out, like you have a whole, full vision of the world. But this is all within imagination. I was having a bit of a metaphysical crisis over not actually being able look at an object or a person fully, from every surrounding angle. It scared me to think how our real range of vision is so limited.
After this little vent of my visual anxieties stemming from a world that is totally obsessed with two dimensional representations on screens, my friend pointed out another way to accept what I was thinking of as a fault in vision. He brought up trust. Can’t we trust that we know what’s on the other side? I can look at the mug that’s sitting on my coffee table and assume that I know it’s entire shape, even though I can only see part of it. I trust that I know this because I have held this mug, and people buy mugs because they can trust that they are going to come in the right shape. The more I interact with this mug, the more I learn about it, and the more I can trust that it will be what I know it to be the next time I go to use it. Humans are far more complex than coffee mugs, but this process of learning about each other through communication to build trust is maybe not so far off. Phew!
If you relate to anything I’ve just written about, come see “No Translation” this Valentine’s Day weekend... ‘tis a fitting time to think about body language, (mis)communication, intimacy, and relationships...
