I have nothing to dance, and I am dancing it.

I have nothing to perform, and I am performing it.

I have nothing to choreograph, and I am choreographing it.

photo credit: James Jitsawart

A materialist take on John Cage's conceptualization of poetry, the work is a triptych lecture-performance on dance, performance and choreography in which attention is drawn away from dance as such and towards the social coordinates that frame and construct it. The lecture itself is an assisted readymade, made up of the passages lifted from John Cage's "Lecture on Nothing," but with certain words replaced so the passages pertain to dance, performance and choreography instead of what they used to pertain to, which as music.

Watch the performance here. 

Meanwhile, we've also published the book version of the performance, read the foreword by Angelo V. Suarez below. For copies please leave a message and I shall get back to you shortly.

Accomplishing nothing: a foreword

One thing to say about what you are about to read is that it is a book of dance—that it is a book as dance, in w/c text is choreographed as one wld a body (of text). Another thing to say about this book that is a dance is that it is a trace, in w/c text is the refuse of a reading that in itself is a separate performance. Another thing to say about it is this trace need not be the way it currently is, tho as a trace it cannot be any other way.

What you are about to read is what is left of a lecture—a dance in 3 parts—by conceptual choreographer Donna Miranda, a performance w/ the same title as the book. Given that the work is an intervention into John Cage’s “Lecture on Nothing,” one might as well say it is what is left of what has been left of a lecture.

1st performed in Kuala Lumpur for a residency program curated by Bilqis Hijas, Anna Wagner, & Fumi Yokoburi, sponsored by the Goethe Institut’s Tanzconnexions platform plus Arts Network Asia & the Asia-Europe Foundation’s Creative Encounters program, the work features the performer reading the outcome of Cage’s famous lecture after it has been subjected to erasure & substitution.

The substitution is simple enough: Make the lecture pertain directly to dance, choreography, & performance in the respective sections pertaining to them, by changing words that used to pertain to music or poetry to words that pertain to dance, choreography, & performance. Of course, it is not as simple to execute as it is to state the procedure. Decisions have to be made—a system of equivalences. Silences become pauses. “Silences” becomes “pauses.”

The erasure is a bit more complicated. It is as administratively demanding—in that the choreographer makes decisions—as it is menially painstaking—in that the choreographer blotches out text after text w/ her hand on the touchpad of a computer for hours. Perhaps this is the labor of the organic choreographer, if such a term cld be made: composition that is simultaneously muscular-nervous & intellectual-cerebral.  

One cld say the question of what is to be erased depends on the principle of the inverted triangle beholden to journalists: What is kept is a certain breadth, a horizontality that more or less covers the entire ground of nothing Cage sought to cover. To save the surface, details are the 1st to go. But the more interesting question is not the what but the how much, a question on w/c the what largely depends.

The how much—a vertical question—depends on how long: As most presentation platforms in the economy of global dance machinery (festivals, residencies, etc.) require presenters to conform to a particular duration, this work has been choreographed in such a way that the resultant text conforms to the demanded length of time when read out loud. The text in this book, when read out loud in the speed Miranda reads best w/ clarity to an audience, is worth 15 minutes. 

What has been erased in this current text, therefore, corresponds to what cannot be accommodated w/in those 15 minutes. The next time this work is performed, its length will change depending on what the circumstances demand. More time leads to more text leads to less erasure. Less time leads to less text leads to more erasure. 

What this work accomplishes is occupy time by talking about occupying time, by ventriloquizing Cage talking about occupying time.

This dance has nothing to say, & it is saying it. This performance has nothing to say, & it is saying it. This choreography has nothing to say, & it is saying it. & by saying so this work has said more about dance-, performance-, & choreography-making than most works of dance, performance, & choreography overflowing w/ intended pronouncements in the Philippines do. 

—Angelo V. Suarez

*"I have nothing to dance..." was first performed at Work It! Performance at Blackbox, MapKL, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia last November 2012.