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A Choice of Medium

Writer's picture: Cliff DansaCliff Dansa

Updated: Jul 23, 2021

I don’t really like to call music and dance “performing arts” because this term implies that performance is the purpose of these art forms. I like to use the term “embodied arts” because it captures the essence of these art forms while leaving room for personal and spiritual exploration to be considered a part of the artistic experience. In the embodied arts, the artist’s lived bodily experience is a part of the work of art, perhaps is the entire work of art. Theater is another art form that fits this description.


In the embodied arts, the artist’s whole being is involved in the process, not just their body, but also their emotions, their awareness, their motivations, etc. The same action, done with a different motivation, becomes a different event. The same body movement, done with a different focus of attention, becomes a different experience for both the artist and the audience. The same note played on an instrument, with a different motivation or a different focus of attention, becomes is experienced by both artist and listeners in a very different way. Although this may sound a bit far-fetched to some people, I have experienced this difference over and over again both in myself and in other artists, in many contexts, but especially while I was studying with Paul Oertel in the eighties.


I find it useful to consider the focus of and motivations behind an artistic expression to be a part of the event, a part of the medium in which we are working. For a painter, changing media—for example changing from acrylic to watercolor—changes the nature of what can be created. In the same way, changing the motivations and the focus of attention behind an embodied arts exploration changes the nature of what can be explored and what can be expressed. I pay a lot of attention to where my attention is and what my motivations are, moment to moment as I practice, and make choices based on how this affects the artistic experience. I do not claim that my choices are the “correct” choices or that other choices are not valid, I am just saying that these are the choices that I make because of what I want to do artistically, just as a painter might choose watercolor over acrylic or oil.


In this blog, I am going to be very critical of certain perspectives about art in the mainstream culture. I am not, however, trying to say that these perspectives are bad or wrong, I am rather explaining why I make the choices that I make. If you ask a watercolorist why he or she chooses watercolor, they might sound quite critical of acrylic and oil, but this doesn’t mean that they think that there is anything wrong with painters who work in these media. Although I am passionate about the choices that I make and I intend to let that passion come through in my writing, I’m not trying to claim that my choices are the only choices that an artist can make and I’m not trying to criticize people who make other choices. I am merely clarifying my perspective and my passion, which tends to diverge quite a bit from the mainstream.


And before I leave this topic, I want to share a story that suggests that this idea of thinking of the motivation and focus of attention behind a work of art as a part of the work is not as far-fetched as it might sound and perhaps not limited to the embodied arts. This is a story from John Daido Loori, who before he was a Zen teacher was a commercial photographer. He was also a fine-art photographer throughout his life.


He had been working on a commercial photography assignment, it had not gone well, he thought that the client was being a jerk, and he left the assignment angry and upset. He decided to stop on the way home in a natural area with some nice rocks to take some photographs. Later, after he had developed the photographs (this was in the days of film), he had a dinner date with a woman friend and asked her to give him feedback on the photos before they went out to dinner.

She opened the portfolio and started flipping through the pages. Before long she was sobbing. “Why do you always take such angry pictures?!” she cried, threw the photographs on the table, and stormed from the room. That was the end of our date. I looked at the photographs, astounded. I had no idea they were going to have that effect on her.


Later that week I showed the images to my creative feedback group and got the same response. (Loori, 2004, p. 121)


He also has a story of encountering, from a distance, a group of skinny-dippers while he was photographing at a stream. He watched them for a minute or two, turned the other way and forgot about them, and resumed taking photographs of the water and the rocks. When asked people for feedback on these photos, everyone talked about how sensual they were.


In addition to reading these stories in his book, I heard Daido tell them at a weekend workshop that I did with him. He was very clear that he felt that the quality of attention that the photographer had when taking a photograph was reflected in the work. And if this quality of attention is reflected in a photograph, it is certainly reflected in a setting where the artist’s embodied experience is an integral part of the work of art.


When we quit thinking about our artistic practice as separate from ourselves, but rather consider it to be a natural extension of ourselves, we are required to bring our whole being to the process, whether we want to or not. There’s really no place to hide, which can leave us feeling vulnerable and exposed, but can also push us to be really honest with ourselves and push us deeper into the mystery of the human experience. This is why I am drawn to do this work and why I approach it the way I do. Compared to putting on a show to entertain people, it is a different experience with different possibilities and different limitations. It is a different medium. It is the medium in which I choose to work.


References:

Loori, J. D. (2004) The Zen of Creativity

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