PHASE I
Axis Leak - Public Secrets
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What we know is that almost everything "they" told us to believe without question is wrong. Let's look at the evidence. The scientific method is inquiry, rather than statement. This state of asking gradually removes confusion, self-interested deception, delusional or irrational interpretations of reality, allowing us to recognize and take advantage of limitations and potentials.
PHASE III
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Up, down and around
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Even after nearly a lifetime of practice, I am continually discovering missed transitions, or having to reconsider strategy for a changing body. My experience has given me to assume, that ascending and descending patterns are key to alignment issues for most daily movements, especially but not only dynamic shifts and unplanned falls. The meditative practice of certain pathways seems to builds reflexes that could manifest in more integrated, more graceful and less dangerous responses to high intensity situations. When base patterns are efficient and safe, the idea is that more intense versions of them will also be efficient and safe. In this way, repetition might provide the fractal basis for spontaneous adaptations. I think this is the idea behind the Kata in martial arts or “exercise” routines common to dance pedagogy everywhere since the dawn of time.
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PHASE IV
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YouSpace - Creative Lab
Facilitation/Moderation: Frey Faust, Baris Mihci, Francesca Pedulla
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This period in the NC is traditionally a moment to discover, practice, re elaborate and then share your own creative impulses or projects in a protected, informal performance context.
The Creative Lab is a space to explore tools reviewed or acquired during the NC, during your study of the Axis Syllabus or elsewhere. Your project can be performative or more installation oriented. Feel free to liberate your imagination.
If you decide to initiate or lead a project, you will be invited to develop a new idea, develop something you are already working on, or participate as an interpreter or outside eye for another participant’s project.
We will offer some cues or stimulus for generating material or supporting your process, and be on hand to offer technical assistance or counsel on composition.
There will be three “showings”. Tuesday, Thursday will be opportunities for supportive feedback, and Saturday to celebrate the NC, and share our creativity with a wider public.
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Frey Faust
After receiving primary discipline and essential experience under the tutelage of his mother from ages 8 to 15, Frey Faust went on to accumulate an eclectic skill-set including contact improvisation, pantomime, capoiera, aikido, percussion, voice and several modalities of dancing. He traveled across the US, and then to Europe to augment his own artistic study and practice through collaborations with choreographers such as Gina Buntz, Donald Byrd, Merce Cunningham, Nita Little, Ohad Naharin, Meredith Monk, Janet Panetta, David Parsons, Randy Warshaw and Stephen Petronio, to name a few. A two-year stint as artist in residence at the Werkstaat e.V. Duesseldorf (now the TANZ HAUS NRW) allowed him to set the foundation for his pedagogical and artistic vision.
Since then he has traveled the world, teaching and collaborating with like-minded artists. He is the founder and spearhead of the AS International Research Community, the author of the book and the originator of the Axis Syllabus; a scholarly, comprehensive reference system for the use of the human body, through which he aspires to assist his students to deepen their understanding and responsible use of nature's ingenious gift.Besides ongoing research and re-writing his book in preparation for a fourth edition, he continues to find contexts for collaborative art-work, most recently in the science-art project "two among us", with Francesca Pedulla, Papis Ndoye and Davide Francesca, with Mirva Makinen in "The Balance Project", and in "No Compromise" and "Mission Possible" with Anna Claudio Pedone and William Fretas. "
Between 1985 and 2000, my teaching transformed from the ordinary attempt to transmit choreographic ideas to an interest in passing on safety parameters and biomechanical principles. Successes and failures inspired or goaded me to continue to study and try various transmission techniques. In the mid-nineties I decided on a title for this compendium of references, The Axis Syllabus. Syllabus means a kind of grammar or a list and Axis refers to the three dimensions, and also the points around which we turn. The axis implies direction while the planes imply mass and both indicate inertial and momentum mechanics and therefore physio-dynamics. We could call the AS a grammar or lexicon of human physio-dynamics. My aspiration with this work is to develop clear criteria for a rational approach to training the body... the muscles work like this, the joints are more supportive in this relationship, this is how you construct a logical ramp, this is how you get the force of momentum on your side, these are the appropriate moments to breathe in or out. That is the how, but not the what; what kind of jump, what kind of gesture, etc. We share a similar model but we have different shapes and tonicities and these values alter the way we move."