Creativity & Training
April, 2023
While I don't end up bringing it up often while I'm teaching acrobatic movement, my background is in writing and visual art. For the last 20 years (and thusly long before I started paying any attention to what my body can do), my primary activity has been writing and publishing experimental book-works (both on my own as small chapbooks & through publishers [as in yes, they're available on Amazon]).This can be a bit confusing to people, because I wouldn't necessarily call myself a writer, but I also wouldn't necessarily label myself a visual artist.
The reason I have historically considered myself someone who was working in the form of the book is because the book is a physical structure that provides a context in which disparate elements can come together. When the elements come together poorly the book as a whole feels disjointed and tedious; it becomes a mere grouping of disparate elements with nothing but the binding of the book itself to hold it together. However, when the elements are in communication with each other, if they don't merely illustrate one another but rather allow each other to open up to something stronger, this is when the book works. To consider this further, think about the idea of collage: traditionally, the collage artist gathers bits of found printed material and, using the medium of glue, combines all of these found elements into a single, new work.
The book expands this "container" durationally, allowing one to move beyond a single sheet of paper. One can use many sheets of paper and arrange them in a certain order: this sequencing allows for a new cohesive understanding: narrative. Narrative is not always just "story" or "plot," it can also just be movement. Narrative is (generally) predicated on continuity, a sort of flow that makes the elements work together. Continuity allows the book to feel like "a book" rather than "a collection of unrelated materials." My own books take, as their raw material, written and found text, original and found photographs, diagrams, markings, drawings, various fonts, geometry, colors, etc. When the books are successful they become singular things in themselves: they become books. When the books are not successful they feel arbitrary: they're disappointing in the same way that you might find yourself throwing everything in your fridge on the verge of decay into a soup and realizing that the muted flavors end up canceling each other out, leaving you with a bowl of flavorless mush.
One of the biggest turning points in my life was when I discovered that I could think about the way that I use my body in the same way that I think about using the form of the book. My body is capable of doing many different things, and I can always learn how to do even more. Some of the things that my body can do are pretty cool on their own (walking, doing a handstand, doing a backflip). But in isolation, these "things" lack any sort of continuity; they lack narrative. Finding ways to stay in movement, to sequence these actions that my body is capable of doing into a continuous flow is satisfying because it gives shape to these actions, it provides a narrative.
Narrative can help give meaning to what it is that we're doing. Sometimes this can be hard to understand, because the capitalist imperative of the 21st century primarily wants us to understand functioning in the modern world as a matter of utility. Utility demands that we are constantly acting in service of something. This "something" is generally, consciously or not, capitalism. If we feel like we are not doing something that is "useful," we want to be doing something that successfully distracts us from the fact that we're intentionally not doing something "useful," something that we don't have to think about. This is when we do things like binge-watch Netflix, or play Candycrush for six hours.
Modern living has us so locked into the necessity of the "useful" that we forget that there is satisfaction in something as simple as finding a context. However, if we push too far here we end up insisting that any action requires a useful context. "Narrative" (again, as context, not as "plot") can give shape without insisting upon utility; it can provide ontological meaning. Often what we're missing is meaning that is explicitly beyond the limits of the useful. A self-actualized individual is not necessarily a boon for the late-capitalist imperative, because a self-actualized individual is invested in themselves more than the machinations of capitalism. To be more invested in yourself than the machinations of capital, to me, feels like a way to describe freedom.
I never feel as free as I do when I am capable of creating and executing an acrobatic sequence. It fulfills my creative impulses, it roots me directly inside of my body, and being capable of carving and following momentum is, I imagine, the closest I'll ever come to flight.
Imagine being able to feel like you're flying--and all you need is your body. Sure, it will likely take a level of investment to get to this point, but you're not investing in a volatile economy that doesn't actually care what you feel like: you're investing in yourself. And investing in yourself allows you to open yourself up to a level of self-actualization, a level of meaning, that isn't predicated upon any point of reference other than what you yourself are capable of. And this is a truly magical thing when the world & how it works can feel like an inescapable prison.
The reason that I am truly pedagogically invested in what I have labeled "soft acrobatics'' is that I believe a soft acrobatics practice can give access to a level of continuity and self-actualization that most things in the world fail to provide access to. While I would never insist it is anything other than one potential route among many, having a creative outlet where the only threshold is your willingness to investigate the limits of your body has personally given me access to a level of satisfaction that I feared I would never find in an embodied practice.
Return to Writing
The reason I have historically considered myself someone who was working in the form of the book is because the book is a physical structure that provides a context in which disparate elements can come together. When the elements come together poorly the book as a whole feels disjointed and tedious; it becomes a mere grouping of disparate elements with nothing but the binding of the book itself to hold it together. However, when the elements are in communication with each other, if they don't merely illustrate one another but rather allow each other to open up to something stronger, this is when the book works. To consider this further, think about the idea of collage: traditionally, the collage artist gathers bits of found printed material and, using the medium of glue, combines all of these found elements into a single, new work.
The book expands this "container" durationally, allowing one to move beyond a single sheet of paper. One can use many sheets of paper and arrange them in a certain order: this sequencing allows for a new cohesive understanding: narrative. Narrative is not always just "story" or "plot," it can also just be movement. Narrative is (generally) predicated on continuity, a sort of flow that makes the elements work together. Continuity allows the book to feel like "a book" rather than "a collection of unrelated materials." My own books take, as their raw material, written and found text, original and found photographs, diagrams, markings, drawings, various fonts, geometry, colors, etc. When the books are successful they become singular things in themselves: they become books. When the books are not successful they feel arbitrary: they're disappointing in the same way that you might find yourself throwing everything in your fridge on the verge of decay into a soup and realizing that the muted flavors end up canceling each other out, leaving you with a bowl of flavorless mush.
One of the biggest turning points in my life was when I discovered that I could think about the way that I use my body in the same way that I think about using the form of the book. My body is capable of doing many different things, and I can always learn how to do even more. Some of the things that my body can do are pretty cool on their own (walking, doing a handstand, doing a backflip). But in isolation, these "things" lack any sort of continuity; they lack narrative. Finding ways to stay in movement, to sequence these actions that my body is capable of doing into a continuous flow is satisfying because it gives shape to these actions, it provides a narrative.
Narrative can help give meaning to what it is that we're doing. Sometimes this can be hard to understand, because the capitalist imperative of the 21st century primarily wants us to understand functioning in the modern world as a matter of utility. Utility demands that we are constantly acting in service of something. This "something" is generally, consciously or not, capitalism. If we feel like we are not doing something that is "useful," we want to be doing something that successfully distracts us from the fact that we're intentionally not doing something "useful," something that we don't have to think about. This is when we do things like binge-watch Netflix, or play Candycrush for six hours.
Modern living has us so locked into the necessity of the "useful" that we forget that there is satisfaction in something as simple as finding a context. However, if we push too far here we end up insisting that any action requires a useful context. "Narrative" (again, as context, not as "plot") can give shape without insisting upon utility; it can provide ontological meaning. Often what we're missing is meaning that is explicitly beyond the limits of the useful. A self-actualized individual is not necessarily a boon for the late-capitalist imperative, because a self-actualized individual is invested in themselves more than the machinations of capitalism. To be more invested in yourself than the machinations of capital, to me, feels like a way to describe freedom.
I never feel as free as I do when I am capable of creating and executing an acrobatic sequence. It fulfills my creative impulses, it roots me directly inside of my body, and being capable of carving and following momentum is, I imagine, the closest I'll ever come to flight.
Imagine being able to feel like you're flying--and all you need is your body. Sure, it will likely take a level of investment to get to this point, but you're not investing in a volatile economy that doesn't actually care what you feel like: you're investing in yourself. And investing in yourself allows you to open yourself up to a level of self-actualization, a level of meaning, that isn't predicated upon any point of reference other than what you yourself are capable of. And this is a truly magical thing when the world & how it works can feel like an inescapable prison.
The reason that I am truly pedagogically invested in what I have labeled "soft acrobatics'' is that I believe a soft acrobatics practice can give access to a level of continuity and self-actualization that most things in the world fail to provide access to. While I would never insist it is anything other than one potential route among many, having a creative outlet where the only threshold is your willingness to investigate the limits of your body has personally given me access to a level of satisfaction that I feared I would never find in an embodied practice.
Return to Writing
Mike Kitchell, 2020-2022