Composition (and Compositional Thinking)
Nikki Heywood, Performance
I’ve been thinking about this as it relates to improvisation and my own improvisational practice(s): where compositional thinking becomes an approach that actually supersedes ‘thinking’ as such, where the impulse for composition becomes more of a felt ‘sense’ that is attentive and attuned to the many elements that are at play in any given improvisational field or situation; attending to What has happened, what is happening and what could happen simultaneously in an expanded perceptual state.
The compositional impulse that is present in movement-based improvisation attends to:
spatiality, proximity and distance, volume, height/levels, speed of motion, somatic tone, objects, architecture, gesture, line, temperature, intensity to name a few elements.
In relation to sound/musical improvisation the compositional impulse attends to:
Listening, silence, volume, sonic spatiality, rhythm, dissonance, harmony, intuition, risk, complexity and - as Sonya has articulated – counterpoint, polyphony, and more.
With bodies moving or creating sound there is compositional thinking that attends to gaps in space or sound, to entries and exits, to thickening, accumulation, singularity, to duration, to order and chaos, to beginnings and ends, to hiatus/caesura/stillness.
The terminology and description of qualities present in both of the fields of improvisation that I am familiar with – somatic/dance/movement and improvised sound/music -- cross over a lot and it is interesting for instance to apply a term like ‘gesture’ to the creation of sound - something implicit in playing an instrument or producing vocal sound - to include the impulse of the body of the musician.
Likewise the more sonically inclined term ‘listening’ can apply to the attitude/state of being of a dancer who is somatically and cellularly tuned to the field of play. Listening with more than ears.
Across both improvised dance and sound there is the element of ‘risk’ taking. Instantaneous compositional thinking is also about daring to ‘test’ on the spot, to commit to a gesture, or passage of gestures, be it movement or sound (or a movement that creates sound). (And here I am thinking about the ways in which, when repeated, a gesture, a line, a sound or series of notes or textures, which may initially feel wrong can gather energy and impetus, establish a new feel or mode, or be abandoned or over-ridden by another impulse)
Then there is the way in which a dance can think compositionally as a song, or a sonic encounter can become a dance.