CONNOR SCHUMACHER

"THE BODY TALKS, THE BODY KNOWS, THE EXPRESSION OF THE MIND IS THE BODY". BELOW, ROTTERDAM-BASED CHOREOGRAPHER AND PERFORMER CONNOR SCHUMACHER SHARES SOME OF HIS PROCESS MATERIALS WITH DRAFF. HIS WORK LIVES IN PUBLIC, THEATRE AND MUSEUM CONTEXTS, AND CONNOR VALUES DANCE AS A TOOL FOR SOCIAL REVOLUTION. HE'S INTERESTED IN EMBODIED INTELLIGENCE, AND THE IDEA THAT METAPHORS ARE MAINLY BASED IN OUR PHYSICAL EXPERIENCE OF THE WORLD. HERE, CONNOR HAS SHARED SOME OF HIS READING MATERIAL, PAGES FROM HIS NOTEBOOK AND A DJ MIX HE MADE DURING LOCKDOWN.
Philiosophy In The Flesh - Lakoff and Johnson, 1999

​Thinking of our embodied experience and a multitude of intersectional physical processes. How can dance practice bring the body into a state where we are more aware and give space to the fundamental processes of our embodied experience?

< I am not what I say I am + you know it >

Page from my notebook: "Thoughts on form. Life is a performance. The body exists, identity is mythical."
Online Progress is Moving: Morning Rave through Compagnie Theater in Amsterdam. Zoom room opened at 7:45, from 8-9 we danced, and I tried to utilize the virtual background with metaphors and visuals to see if it’s possible to get a state of ecstatic social dance with digital distance.
Social Choreography - Hewitt, 2005
An excerpt from Henri Bergson’s theory on laughter.
The body talks, the body knows, the expression of the mind is the body.

<where oh where is the body? >

Draft page of script for an Embodied Guided Tour, The Fool does Mendini ​(2019), at Groninger Museum, Groningen, NL.
​Notes from DRAFF: Forum on Form, Abbey Theatre, Dublin, November 2019. 

< Reshaping the embodied culture of the public in the present moment >

Metaphors We Live By - Lakoff and Johnson, 1980
My first ever DJ mix. It was my thoughts and feelings, and desire to push myself to move during these weird times. It's dark, with love letters, and it makes me pick my knees up.

< prosecute my posture >

Draft page of an Embodied Guided Tour for gallery Garage Rotterdam. A biomechanical, semi-improvisational system called The Fool guides you through an embodied experience using metaphors based on the body - our first common attribute.
Video used for projection in the performance
Funny Soft Happy & the Opposite (2019). The scene is called 'Support'. 
Page from my notebook: "Childlike design fantasy. A live, interactive embodied installation on wheels. Patent pending."

< can we create an ideal space where we live by the metaphors of the body? >

Page from my notebook: "Science to sociology, to poetry, to metaphors, to language, for the body."
Social Choreography - Hewitt, 2005
Aesthetic is always applied in relation to the ideology it is constructed in. It is subject to the society in which it is made and cannot be separate, pure, or disembodied - just like the mind. Your aesthetic is a part of your social political expression no matter what you do.
Social Choreography - Hewitt, 2005
Holding dance responsible to access it's knowledge in an engaging way for scholars. Hold scholars accountable for finding access to the scholarly nature of dance. 
​Mundo Mendini Catalogue, Groninger Museum
Straightness is a concept. Bringing people closer to artworks to reveal that the things we once thought were straight, are actually made out of curved particles.
Metaphors We Live By (cont.) - Lakoff & Johnson 1980 
​If we used dance knowledge and metaphors as a tool of argument - would it even be an argument any longer? Dance inherently is more about exchanging space and perspective. There is an implicit sense of learning and listening in dance. These are more tools of dialogue or exchange than of argument which is very possessive of physical or conceptual territory.
​More information on Connor and his practice can be found here. This page was published on 7 July 2020.