While working on this part of the piece in the studio, Alison and I had conversations where I felt we were really trying to learn from each other. After having introduced ideas about translation as something beyond mere linguistic transfer, I wanted to hear what Ali had to say. I wanted to know whether she, as a dancer, saw a relationship between dance and these ideas about translation I was positing, whether that made any sense to her as a dancer, or whether she did not relate. I wanted to learn from her, from the dancer’s experience. It fascinated me; I truly didn’t know what those answers would be. I am not a dancer. It is also interesting that, as a dancer, she is not necessarily used to articulating her practice, putting it into words. So we had to find a way to talk about this; we spoke of it openly, considering our questions and hesitations. We tried to find a language to understand each other. When we talked about language and dance, or the similarities between dance and learning languages, I was surprised by the extent to which there is, in the lingo of dance, elements of “structure”, “form” and other aspects that are analogous to notions we use in talking about language, and even writing. I remember Ali also suggested a way of talking about “accent” in dance, which was, to me, intriguing. Throughout the process of creation it became apparent to me that this was going to be the part of Fluency where my academic self would dissolve, or fuse into a different body, that of the piece, of the other performers, of my own body, in a new way, and dance would lead the way. As a non-dancer I felt vulnerable, afraid but willing to be in that space. It was, on the one hand, a chance to translate the “theory” into the language of the performance, to embody it and transform it into movement. I had never done that before, at least not consciously. It was an opportunity to do something I’m not trained to do and which is not part of my self-definition. I was, as Peter puts it, in “uncharted, changing waters”. Doing this required a considerable degree of trust, for me to believe that they would show me the way. Peter, Alison, Billy, and I were together in this, and I trusted them. Plus, I feel that Ali and I reached a level of empathy and found a way to communicate, which helped me to be able to see my body and push myself. All this helped me go into the unfamiliar space and expose myself to that estrangement, displaced from the spaces and forms of embodiment with which I am more comfortable and which I normally inhabit. That estrangement was also what I desired and looked forward to the most, and one of the most important gifts the piece offered me. As for the relationship between this part and the rest of the piece, I felt in a way that the experience was analogous to that of Peter wanting to become a Nicaraguan. Like him, I was moving into being what I am not. And I saw this happen in the piece in various ways. When Ali is dancing on the basis of Peter’s spontaneous creation in the video, which stands for the “original” of the dance, you can see her inability and anxiety as she tries to “copy” the dance identically (from the video, as she watches it) and fails. I think Peter and Ali found a brilliant way to represent in dance the translator’s psyche. More generally, this productive, generative anxiety is also present in unfamiliar situations of cultural contact, such as the ones Peter sought to reflect upon.
In closing, I would add that this part completed the richness of Fluency, for me, personally, for the piece as a whole allowed me, among many other things, to look for ways to express ideas in embodied form and to see how that unfolds in creating a piece intended for performance.