Paper about ideas around the tension bow in dance performance
2006

Introduction
         The idea of the tension bow germinated while watching dance performances: how come that sometimes a simple but well developed idea can gain in a theatre a special dimension? What makes it special and why? In other words, when is the moment an idea becomes embodied within a body in space and time?
         My research and interest lies in the process of watching and experiencing an action on the stage and witness the moment in that process where the idea becomes clear by the gain of the understanding of the meaning of a specific point.
When an idea is a concept that you grab in the instant with no experience in time, it will remain an idea;   but when an idea becomes embodied, physically, it can gain an unexpected meaning and it can speak on an other level. I am fascinated by this process and especially how dance reveals to its self and to the audience member.
         Working with a tension bow in mind is making a performance dynamic, captivating. It is playing with time; how, when and why we can stretch it? When we want to stretch an idea, we have to know what is exactly the idea.  That is why contents and time are inseparable and this is where the tension bow lies. Creating a meaning with dance in a certain time frame is the ability to be in touch with my own intuition to craft the tension bow. Being in touch with my own intuition to craft the tension bow is the ability to create a meaning with dance in a certain time frame.

The Word Tension Bow
There are two words in this term: tension and bow.
Tension
Etymology: from Latin tension-, tensio, from tendere
3.         the way that opposing elements or characters clash or interact interestingly with each other in a literary work
4.         the build-up of suspense in a fictional work, leading to the denouement
5.         how tightly something such as wire, string, thread, or a muscle is stretched
7.         a force that pulls or stretches something
3 a:         inner striving, unrest, or imbalance often with physiological indication   of emotion
 b:         a state of latent hostility or opposition between individuals or groups
 c:         a balance maintained in an artistic work between opposing forces or elements
         (Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary)

Bow
Etymology: Middle English bowe, from Old English boga; akin to Old English bTgan
Date: before 12th century
1a.         something bent into a simple curve
 b.         rainbow
3.         archer
5.         a wooden rod with horsehairs stretched from end to end used in playing an instrument of the viol or violin family
          
Terminology of Tension Bow
The tension bow is a terminology rarely used: typing these two words with the research engine Google, the first four entries are archery, tennis, escalators and music. With this research I attempting to define what is the tension bow in a dance piece, how I integrate this idea in my work and how I see it in other choreographers works. The notion of tension bow is another word for timing and dramaturgy or how are the elements displayed in the time line but the tension bow is also an open notion that I will attempt to define.
         It is a big step to go from a dance piece of fifteen minutes to one of fifty-five minutes. The sense of time and timing gets a completely different meaning. With Compass for Fools I was for the first time really confronted with the meaning and the importance of a long time frame. 
The flow of time is an actor by itself that becomes visible with the proposal and the ideas staged together. Starting from this question, I am looking for the way to organize dynamics in my dance work. To be able to do that, I need to be able to reflect on my work and that means to take a step back. My history is no more no less being emerged in the dance field as a performer.To focus on the tension bow allows me to see what and why is exactly moving me when I see a dance piece and how I can with these information go further and deeper in my work.

Links Between Contents and Time
These two elements, contents and time, are profiling the ideas and the meaning of the dance piece and create together the tone of the piece. The balance of these two components, the time and the contents in their development, is creating a tension bow in the small scale as well as in the entire piece.
The relation between the contents of the piece and the time score, the way they interweave in the development of the dance piece influences and determines the colour and the form of the tension bow. Each work has its own anatomy therefore there are no perfect tension bow either recipe.
        
         The tension can be created by a little story, like in Foi by Sibi Larbi Cherkaoui showing the idea of oppression by two torturers beating a woman, or as an aesthetical emotion, like a strip of light going up and down in Tar and Feathers by Jirí Kylián. Every form has a certain meaning or a reference; it has content. But that depends of the education and referential links of the audience member. One will see a hand like a flower and another one like just a hand with stretched fingers. The connection between contents and form or how to bring different meanings is an aspect I find fascinating in dance theatre.

Ways of Dealing with the Tension Bow
Here are some basic and simple examples I could observe in dance pieces.
-  Long time frame with specific contents and small in numbers. That situation would raise the expectation of an audience member to see what is coming next. I could observe that in Unetsu by Ushio Amagatsu or in the drama play Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett.
-  Long time frame with a lot of different ideas, notion and contents. A recent example could be Puur from Wim Vandekeybus, a non-stop succession of ideas and elements for two hours.
-   Short time frame with many elements. This could be my own tendency.
All compositions of tension bow are virtually possible. Some like to start very strong and then undo the work, some others like to start very slow and go towards a climax. These choices are part of the signature of the choreographer.

Repetition and Rupture as a Meaning Maker
This is one of the famous quotes of John Cage. “If something is boring after two minutes, try it for four. If still boring, then eight. Then sixteen. Then thirty-two. Eventually one discovers that it is not boring at all.” The repetition in time of an element or the variation of a theme can bring a meaning to a scene and to the entire dance piece.
         The choreographer might use some extreme tricks to shake the audience, by stretching time as in The Egg Stand Out of Curiosity” by Sankai Juku, by a sudden strong element like a cow falling from the roof in Z/na by Ohad Naharin, or by going against morale principle as an actor sucking a blooded vagina in Parrots and Guinea Pigs by Jan Fabre. The game of acceleration, rupture, time stretching, changing mode of communication, change of register, is part of the theatre toolbox. The tension bow tool, meaning the awareness of it, is the spine where all the other tools will be organized around. It is the one who is organizing all the others.
          
Choice of Contents
One single element can become the main tool to create a tension. This element then becomes the main support of a scene, or of a dance piece. I experienced that in the slowness and aesthetic of the butoh company Sankai Juku, or more aggressively by the very loud sound of the trombones or later in the piece the amplified sound of a beam filter in Eidos:Telos by William Forsythe, or by the set design in Revolver by VA Wölfl with Neuer Tanz. The articulation and the relation of the different elements, with their meanings and reference trigger the interest of the audience member while watching the development of an idea or a succession of ideas.
        
Linear and Non Linear Way of Working
Working in a linear or non linear method influence the expression of the tension bow.
Some ways of working are explicitly focused on the elaboration of the movements. The method here is making the letters, words, and sentences with the body:  the choreographic language and its musicality. They are given a meaning and a style within the making of the choreographic phrases. The focus is on the choreographic language. The attention is on the dance itself and they are working mostly with a linear method.
         Another way of working is to compose with different elements: material generated by the dancers, text, stories and any other element they might find useful for the making of the dance piece. Dance composers focus their energy on gathering elements and creating tools to generate materials. They may be more focused on the outcome of the concept and their discourse about it. They are working mostly from a non-linear method. There are differences in the outcome when the piece itself is developed in a linear form or worked out from deconstruction and reconstruction method.
         As an example I will put side by side a work of Ji?í Kylián and of William Forsythe.
The first one is working in a linear way, going from the beginning to the end and the second one is deconstructing and reconstructing until the premiere and after. Both have a great sense of the dynamics in the tension bow.
I think that what they have in common is the awareness of the rhythm of a piece created by the in between.

Time Length of a Dance Piece
Each medium has a different sense of timing. For the video artist Nancy More Flude six seconds is a perfect timing for here still images with a phrase broadcasted on the web. For a German programme of television they are doing at random a three seconds cut with fixed camera in a room. For my work at the moment six minutes allow to establish an idea. The performer Mark McGowan pushed a monkey nut along the road for seven miles with his nose, starting at Goldsmiths College in South London and ending at Number 10 Downing Street, where he handed his nut in. This performance took him eleven days. The Indonesian performer Parmin Ras did a performance of dance for three days in Jakarta.
          Jan Fabre with History of tears and Wim Vandekeybus with Puur went to two hours, and Saburo Teshigawara with Kasahana even to two and half hours for a standard theatre performance. Every one is using length with its own specificity, but I could notice that the more mature are the choreographers the longer are their pieces.
 In the Netherlands we can say that the minimum standard in theatre is fifty minutes for a full evening piece

Feeling of Timing as a Performer or Choreographer
I am always intrigued to notice the difference of feeling as a performer or as a choreographer. Usually as a performer I will exhaust an idea much quicker than when I am choreographing. At the same time when the focus is really on the timing and the development of the idea, as a performer I can feel from the inside the right timing for it. This inner timing then becomes very accurate . Again as a performer I can have a different feeling of time when I am improvising in a defined frame, on depending who is watching, what kind of public is there. I could affirm for myself that the onlooker is influencing the work he is watching. Timing is a fluctuating actor in a piece, when the work itself allows this perspective with semi open forms patterns. It depends on the performers and the spectator in the here and now. These ways of approaching time in the work are best done by a framed improvisation, so the dancers can feel the musicality, the timing, the composition, the tension bow. In other words, I would say that time is not a fixed and rigid structure, because the experience I make with it is fluctuating.

Perception as an Audience Member
In the performing art especially, the attention of the audience member is part of the performance itself. In the word attention there is already the word tension. By creating a tension, the maker is stimulating attention from the audience member. This attention can become emotion. Emotion is physicality and that means being touched. When I am touched, I create my own reality; this creates meaning for myself.
All the senses of the audience member are stimulated because performances are always multilayered. One will be more focused on the movements, the other will zoom in the colours of the costume, the third one will be touched by the music, the fourth one will be sensible with the referential system and so on. The meanings and pertinence of all the layers put together will resonate in a certain way and the result will create the tension bow.

Inherent Difficulty Working with the Tension Bow in Mind
The overall tension bow of the piece cannot be seen ahead. The choreographer is busy with the making of the piece with his sweaty body. This means that he is using his thoughts directly in the action in the studio. The concentration is in the communication with the dancers and the realisation of his ideas. Therefore the general tension bow cannot be seen ahead. The choreographer can prepare himself with the idea linked with the tension bow, but the making process is a day-by-day construction. The choreographer has to have the patience to let unfold his work with the dancers before thinking of the general dynamics of the dance work, but he can work with an intuition, realizing that here the work needs a certain dynamic or something else. The tension bow is a sort of invisible tread that accompanies the work in the time line and is actually a dialogue between the movement and the referential contents: from this dialogue the action is created. These actions or statements are leaving resonances in the audience’s mind and one cannot see the result before it is fully created and performed.

Intuition for Timing
Each work has its own anatomy and own necessities. I have first different scenes that have to be articulated together. They all grow at their own rhythm, like different organs that constitute a body during the process. I will make the choice to freeze the timing intuitively, when I feel that time has come. From this point, accents are created on particular parts with the extension of the ideas. If I want the spectator to follow my own exploration, I need to give the time frame for it. Here the time is essential as a meaning maker. When the idea becomes clear, the timing becomes evident.

Tension Bow in Corps à Corps
What is the tension bow in Corps à Corps? In this dance work I see that the tension bow has a linear form from beginning till the end, created by scenes which are not necessarily linked together, but where the contents is aiming towards the same goal, towards an depuration in the movements to arrive to the here and now. This is expressed with a very simple gesture, a hand catching or playing with a drop of water. At this point of the piece we are leaving behind the unnecessary struggle to receive the present moment in its simplicity. The start of the piece is constructed with a casual atmosphere, where the two characters are presented and their relationship established. Scene after scene these two characters, male and female are aiming towards a unity, a common energy, where they become or try to become one single body, energy and thought. Within the piece each scene has its own build up, achieved by a build up of movements, video and sound, and its resolution, symbolised by silence and a single action. The phrasing of the dance itself is like a mini tension bow; it has a beginning, middle and end. The idea of tension bow lies also in the shape flow support at the body level; we are using breath for supporting the tension in the phrasing of the choreography.

Conclusion
I opened a new way to look at dance for myself and this is probably the beginning of a new horizon for my research and my creativity in the dance field. It stimulates my thinking and my creativity.
         How do I put the information in the time line of a work? This is one of a clarified question that comes out of my research. It is the amount of information, given by the performance that will stretch the tension bow in one way or another. When I get immediately what I want as a spectator, there is no tension any more; when I get too little I loose it. How is my interest triggered with what is happening?
It opened for me a vast landscape of potential knowledge and further research like the meaning of time flow.
         My research on the tension bow brought me to another question, which is the opening of a new chapter: How much theatre knowledge a choreographer needs to make a dance work? Theatre has often worked with a dramaturgy. The dramaturgy for dance works differently. How? This is what I will attempt to find out.
         One thought that came to me unexpectedly and opposite in appearance to what is conducted above is: what makes the tension bow a tension bow is the space and time existing between two forms. Everything is a form, every idea has a form. In the empty space, the negative of the action or the form (the non-action or the non-form), is a large part of the body of the work. It sets up the real rhythm and profiles the form. What is happening in the mind of the onlooker being witness of the ‘in between two forms’, like between two notes? In the existing space and time in between forms is where the rhythm of the work and the life of the piece take place. This is probably also a place where the tension bow exists. To be continued.