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Open Gardenia (On Vulnerability)
This article extends the content
email conversation between Romain Big
subscriptions of CQ Folio 2: Contact/Dance
and Steve Paxton Improvisation and Philosophical
links to authors Thinking, published in Vol 42.2,
Summer/Fall 2017.
RB to SP, 04/14/2015, 11:13am
Romain Big is a philosophy teacher,
Hello Steve, dancer, and dance scholar based in
jjooiinn oouurr m
maaiilliinngg lliisstt Paris. He curated and co-edited with
Lisa Nelson CQ's Folio 2: Contact/
I'm a little bit late on my score [of writing you a letter a day] but as I
Dance Improvisation and
was mentioning previously, I'm still in pain with my arm, so it's been Philosophical Thinking, vol. 42.2,
dicult to work. I'm confronted with a form of unemployment that Summer/Fall 2017. A professor
remains very strange to handle. Doing my best, and, well, agrg of philosophy and a Fulbright
readinga little. fellow (2017), he is currently
preparing a PhD in the cole Normale
suprieure, drafting a Philosophy of
I stumbled upon Simone Forti's Handbook in Motion that she wrote
Gestures on the poetics of Contact
in 1974 and I discovered a proposal of hers, which she called Open
Improvisation and the philosophy of
Gardenia. I was quite surprised by the proximity of this score to the movement. He enjoys rolling on the
jam structure in Contact Improvisation: ground and jumping in the air.
cargocollective.com/sharingmovement
The proposal for Open Gardenia had two main points. One, that we
needed an open market place where people could nd each other. Steve Paxton is an inveterate
contactor who is interested in
Two, that such an open market place was especially needed by
improvisation.
those of us who were studying any of the ancient non-Western
music and movement arts that were being oered at the institute. Posted:May 17, 2017
For though we were deeply involved in these non-Western arts, we
continued to work in our own tradition of individual search and
invention. I felt that we reected a larger, grass-root receptivity to more
communal and non-Western musical attitudes and that we needed each
other if we were going to
make any progress towards nding some common denominator base of
operations.

I'm kind of fascinated by the fact that she's connecting the exploration
of non-Western movement forms to the idea of jamming (a word that
she's using later on in the text) and to the idea of creating a space of
co-existence, even more so than of collaboration. This seems at the very
least to be a surprising historical resonance of Contact Improvisation's
frame of work as that of working things out together. Of course the
model for the CI jam might as well be that of the dojo in Aikido where
mixed levels are working the form out. But still I very much enjoy
Simone Forti's idea of nding a common denominator base of
operations, as if indeed the common wasn't presupposed before the
encounter, and only to be found as a result. That instead of knowing in
advance that you are practicing a form (Aikido, or Contact, or whatever)
and guring out how to reach this form.

Another note concerning my current state of handicap. I went jamming,

two days ago, although I still had my arm in a cast, and I had a sort of
epiphany concerning vulnerability.
back to top
Strangely, I felt that I wasn't vulnerable. At all. It seems that, precisely
because I was weak, or precisely because I had a weakness, I didn't feel
I was able to express vulnerability. What I understood by contrast was
that vulnerability requires to have a lot of strength. In other terms, I
realized that the condition for letting myself go was that I possessed
something to let go of. With my arms in the cast, with the emergency to
protect myself or my arm, there was no such thing to let go of.

There's a French philosopher, Georges Canguilhem, who has that very

counterintuitive idea that being in good health is being ready to get sick.
Conversely, the sign of sickness is precisely the fact that you're doing
everything not to get endangered. While health has a form of blindness
to the possibility of becoming ill, and this blindness is constitutive of it.

So I thought: well, here's a good explanation why CI has mainly

attracted well-educated white people in their thirtiesthe vulnerability
that is exhibited in the form is only the mirror image of the good
health or good fortune (mental and physical alike) that they can aord
to display.

But there's also the fact that you've worked with blind people, that Alito
Alessi is doing his work on danceability, etc., so I thought we could
reverse the proposal. Contact proposes a strong approach to handicap
because it doesn't intend to body-build the dancer against all odds: of
course there's a body-building occurring as an epiphenomenon of the
practice, but that's not the point. The point is that you build up your
vulnerability. Which is, when you are handicapped (at least that's what I
am experiencing through the brief window that is opened to me by this
elbow dislocation), what you are being deprived of. You are being
deprived of your vulnerability by your own fears (you no longer take
risks) and by your caregivers (they take care of the risks for you).

This lesson has probably been that of the somatic approaches to healing
for the past century: the idea that, as a therapist, you don't build the
body of your clients against potential aggressions, as much as you oer
them an opportunity, in the relatively safe space of the studio or the
cabinet, to strengthen their vulnerability.

So, those were my insights of today. I'm still a bit confused, sorry for
the lack of coherence, if there was.

I hope you're ne and well, up at the farm.

Bye bye.

SP to RB, 04/14/2015, 5:16pm

Hi, Romain,

I didn't know what Open Gardenia was about. Jams were established to
practice CI. No thought about other types of exploration or
collaboration. They didn't exist in Aikido, either. I found only classes
oered there. Although certainly during the classes one practiced with
both beginners and advanced students.I termed CI practice 'jams'
because of an idea that music had jams for working improvisationally.

Your theory of vulnerability is so twisted it almost makes sense to me. I

wonder if the polarity of vulnerability vs health is useful? Although
exercise is supposed to promote health, I wonder if a better model might
be the immune system. Microbes quickly mutate. Encountering a new
version of a disease with an immune system which is not up to date
might result in illness. Lots of CI jamming allows sampling of a variety of
microbes in small amounts, while exhilarated, and with blood
oxygenated and circulating freely. In this model, vulnerability would
equal sampling your partner's biome, which would hopefully equate to
up-to-date immune system. Which would manifest as a non-ill body. I
don't see vulnerability as an on-o condition. I don't buy that being
strong is more vulnerable than being... vulnerable. It felt that in your
explanation you made some mighty leaps. But it's your epiphany. I guess
there are contradictions in the strong/vulnerable model, worthy of
consideration. But I don't recall CI being put forth as making one
strong Learning to be exible, that is, adjustable, is more the aim.

I'm not against strong; I suspect that CI helps keep the skeleton healthy,
for instance. And the internal organs probably benet from the
massages, of being rolled upon. But I think I prioritize ideas like
potential, availability, awareness, appropriateness. Virtuosity is not the
point; it seems too much focused on mastery of particular skills, sort of
the reward for intense specialization. As for health being the prerequisite
for illness, what an odd idea of health. Sounds more like the denition of
hubris, the pride that goeth before a fall.

Although I didn't know what Simone was up to in '74, her earlier work
and her attitude toward the body, plus the experience of being in her
rst performance with works like The Huddle had a big inuence on me.

Interesting, though, that you went dancing with your cast. And didn't
feel vulnerable. I can't imagine why not. How did you get injured?

yours today,
steve

RB to SP, 04/15/2015, 10:53am

Hey Steve,
Okay: an answer!

First, to the practical question: I injured myself while drilling acrobatic

lifts and I felt on my extended right arm, which resulted into the
dislocation of the elbow. Nasty thing. So kind of while dancing, but it
felt also that it happened because it was something else than being
physically engaged in a conversation, and more acquiring a technique in
a sort of mechanical manner.

Second, about the vulnerability. I love what you mention of the immune
system and the testing, as if we could consider each partner as giving us
the opportunity to ght back, to create a systemic response to their
presence in the dancea bit like a vaccine triggers the antibodies that
will be available for the next attack.

Now what I wanted to say about my understanding of vulnerability was

simply that vulnerability necessitates the voluntary forfeiting of
strength: it's not about being weak, it's about the movement of descent
from strength to weaknesswhich we might call exposing oneself.

If I am a bit feeble, or I if I lack skills, the consequence is that I won't be

vulnerable in those places I don't have strength or skills for. My
experience with the elbow in the cast is that I am constantly protecting
it. So the whole part of my body that was around my arm was focused
on the idea that this part of my body had to be protected. So, as I
needed to be strong for my arm, I forgot to weaken myself for my
partner. It was as if I had built a carapace around my arm, hence no
vulnerability, no possibility of opening to the other, not only because I
didn't want to get hurt again, but mostly because I was too devoted to
the protection of the arm.

What I nd fascinating in Contact is that you're not learning skills

directly, you rst learn ways of being vulnerable or porous to the
environment, and this, in turns, creates the skills, the muscle strength.
The aim is not body-building, or skill buildingit is to oer a safe space
to practice vulnerability.

So my idea was that physical strength or skillfulness or body intelligence

are a consequence of becoming vulnerable. Vulnerability and strength/-
skillfulness are two sides of the same token: usually you are taught to be
strong (body-built) and therefore, you can aord to be vulnerableit
seems to me that CI's proposal, as I received it, was that I was taught to
become vulnerable (sensitive) and therefore, I build up a skillful body
within the empty space opened by that vulnerability.

Is it clearer? I don't know. But anyway, thank you for your long answers
that cheer me up, I'm going to try and move a little.

I hope you're ne and well up in Vermont,

Bye-bye!

SP to RB, 04/15/2015, 12:40pm

hi Romain,

good try. I still wonder about your terms. 'Vulnerability' is one possible
word, but it seems to work against you when placed within this
structure. For instance, I can feel what you are saying about being
strong and giving up some aspects to become vulnerable in the dance.
But But But this posits the valuable vulnerability as the result of an
otherwise invulnerable position in which you feel fortied enough to
allow stu to happen to you. (I might use 'adaptable' there).

Your structure requires the question, what state were you in before
becoming strong? You have left no word for that initial state. Or after you
became injured there you could not aord true vulnerability. But you
were not at your best. So what was that? I think in both those states you
were more vulnerable than the synthetic vulnerability you consciously
produce to do CI. ('Synthetic' seems like a negative word. Maybe, if we
summon courage when we're afraid, we could think of that vulnerability
as 'summoned.')

While doing CI with your cast, you felt that you had a carapace
protecting your cast and elbow. I suppose that that is not just a
metaphor. Your body was actively protective. This is the kind of physical
response to injury which ends up distorting the rest of the skeletal-
musculature to protect injury from vulnerability.

The premise that you have to be 'in strength' to meet a partner doesn't
give your partner credit for respecting your vulnerability. I don't think
one has to be strong or fast or fully-limbed or sighted or hearing or
young or of a certain size to do CI. Your partner can meet you as you
are. In your proposed structure, your partner could only meet you as
you present, that is, as a strong person letting down their guard a little,
in order to control the degree of availability you allow. That doesn't
seem to me vulnerable at all. That would be, in real estate terms, an
'easement,' allowing someone to use your land for a path or driveway,
but retaining legal control.

Epiphanies can be dicult to re-work, but it might be possible to

consider other words and see if they don't better explain this thought
which is currently wrapped up in the _______/strong/vulnerable
construction.
enjoying this discussion. I can't remember it happening before

RB to SP, 04/15/2015, 4:01pm

What do you mean can't remember it happening before?!

Anyhow, I'll give it another try tomorrow.

But I sense there's something around that idea that somehow, CI is

about empowering the weaknesses rather than the strengths.

What I have in mind is the fact that CI is mainly practiced by white upper
middle class people, people from the majority. That conceive of
themselves as the norm. Which makes it easy for them to be vulnerable
because really they are not.

But the fact that also CI has been investigated with people with mixed
abilities, and people from a wide range of ages, indicates that you can
work from an area of (physical) weakness compared to the norm of the
30ish urban dweller in good health.

Maybe there is a connection between the two. Minorities are not entitled
the luxury to be weak. They tend to feel the need to prove that they are
capable of the same athletic feats as the whites.

People with mixed abilities don't play on that ground (their Olympics are
adapted to their capacities, be that because they run faster or slower
than normals). Their handicap creates a self-sucient norm. Hence
they are entitled with the possibility of playing the same game of
vulnerability as the normals.

Being injured, and not handicappedmeaning that my handicap is not a

walk of life, but only felt as a weakness compared to my previous
strength, I nd myself in a comparable situation of that of the minorities:
I feel diminished. (The blind is not a diminished seer, except for those
who can see.) That means that I see my handicap as something I need
to compensate (carapace). I work against my weakness. I make myself
invulnerable.

Strength is not what I need. It's conceiving of myself as an autonomous

mover. Which probably won't happen until I regain my mobilitynot
because I couldn't dance CI without my right arm, but because I know
that I'll have it back in a few weeks.

In the meantime, I'm going to dance with that cast again tonight. Maybe
it will lead to more insights!

Short of one arm and of clarity,

Romain

SP to RB, 04/15/2015, 5:43pm

Hi Romain,

i can't recall having this discussion before, this particular way into
questions of states of being and their structuring.

It's true that CI is mainly practiced by white upper middle class people.
But then these big generalities; "that conceive of themselves as the
norm" leap "Which makes it easy for them to be vulnerable because
really they are not."

Norm: something that is usual, typical or standard. As it happens, white

people are the norm (largest numbers) in the U.S. Upper middle class is
a subset of 'white people,' still a substantial number. There are no
doubts that there are class structures in the U.S. People are called a
class because of similarities. CI was begun with college students and
artists. Perhaps it has remained like that because typically, occupations,
amusements, styles, etc are bounded by class boundaries. Like
breakdancing, croquette, polo, doo-wop song, Mah-jong. Other places
have been colonized by members outside of the original class;
basketball, American football, while whites have learned the blues. And
jazz. And rap. So I also see porous class borders. CI has no class or race
entrance requirements. Maybe if it had been strictly segregated, it would
have been practiced by more minorities.

But you need to do a survey. I totally question the 'Upper' of your CI

norm. I'm not upper middle class. Maybe not even middle class. A major
CI teacher I know was on the street from age 12 or so. I don't know
about the European CIers, but in the US I know few who seem to have
Upper Middle Class money, jobs or addresses.

BUT i just can't see the equation between class and race, and
vulnerability vs. some other state. Please provide a denition of
'vulnerable,' and also what alternate you prefer. 'Condent?' 'Strong?'
'Healthy?' 'Unbroken?' 'Self-assured?'

And I therefore don't understand "Ci is about empowering the

weaknesses rather than the strengths."

CI probably increases physical sensitivity. Not a weakness. It relies upon

and exercises reexes. Not a weakness. It increases circulation and
muscular activity. Not a weakness. It shifts the brain from visual
orientation to haptic. Not a weakness.
I could go on. I think you are pursuing a phony dichotomy. I think the
premise is phony, and the conclusions are labored and meandering.

To go back to the premise you cited, which I can't recall precisely: One
has to be healthy to become ill. This seems to me to be both a huge
generality and a pile of horseshit. For instance, one gets the AIDS virus,
but dies of a subsequent dierent opportunistic infection. One might
have tuberculosis and hemorrhoids and a broken elbow and psoriasis
and pink eye, all at once. And then catch a cold or the u. So what is
health, and what is illness? It is true that often we have periods of
health, and then get a virus or disease. This doesn't imply causality to
me.

OK. That's my most vigorous argument. Sorry if I was too vigorous, but
it seemed time to avoid any ambiguity. Eagerly awaiting your recovery,
so we can move on to other subjects.

RB to SP, 04/16/2015, 12:04pm

Hey Steve,
So, this is quite a hard debate, isn't it.

Let's try and make some denitions. I'll base myself on Canguilhem's
work, The Normal and Pathologic.

I would say that vulnerability in my understanding is something like the

ability to expose oneself to the dangers and promises of the
environment. And similarly, I would dene being in good shape,
being in health as the willingness to expose oneself to the dangers
and promises of the environment.

Conversely, having a sickness or being ill is the lack of desire to

expose oneself It doesn't mean that I am not objectively exposed to
those risks. Having AIDS is being objectively exposed to way many more
risks than not having AIDS. But my point is that: the main symptom of
being sick is that I will be less inclined to expose myself to those risks.
Not having AIDS, I can risk myself into a cold winter day and catch the
u: although I won't go out in order to catch the u, I won't fear of going
out and catch the umy forgetting that I can become sick is part of
what it means for me not to be sick.

AIDS, I grant you, is quite specic concerning that question, since it

directly aects one's ability to become sick. But any illness can be
dened through the limiting of one's tendency to confront to novelty (to
put oneself at risk). If I caught a cold, I'll limit my food to soup to avoid
any further irritation of the pharynx. If I have a dislocated elbow, I'll limit
my locomotion away from slippery ground for fear I'd worsen my injury:
I'll feel more comfort in staying at home, and if I do wander out, I'll
spend more time protecting myself than I would if I wasn't injured.

This idea isn't so counterintuitive after all. But what Canguilhem adds in
his understanding of pathology is that he says: these limitations are
more than symptoms; they are what the illness is. Being ill, being injured,
is not having a virus in your system, or an arm in a cast: being ill is
seeing your environment shrunk to a limited set of aordances. This
limitation is the reason you go and see your doctor in the rst place
(because you notice you can do less, which means you risk yourself
less), and only then can the doctor discover that you have a virus, or a
dislocated elbow, and act accordingly. But these are not the pathologies:
these are the nosological categories in which the pathologies are
diagnosed. Health and sickness are not (only) objective states of the
body, they are also, and primarily, states of the relation between the
bodymind and its environment.

What of the case where a doctor tells you that you're sick, because
something showed up on your scan or in your lab results? Then, as
Canguilhem puts it, the doctor makes you sick, which means that she
gives you the information that changes your behavior and relationship to
the environment.

Why is it so important to point out? Canguilhem, being a doctor himself,

wanted to make sure that what he treated was not a sickness, but a
patient; so he wanted to make sure that what he responded to was a
weakness felt in the system subject-environment, not in a weakness
postulated in the image of what a healthy bodymind should be.

Aaand that's all for the day!

Sending much love,
Romain

SP to RB, 04/15/2015, 5:43pm

Hi, Romain,
The Georgian Choir is great. I love that music.

I have to listen closely to these denitions; And I just feel badly that I
want you to make these issues clear to me in a language not your own.
Especially since I was so hard yesterday. It is just an abrupt style I have.
Though not always. But i do call arguments horseshit without anger or
dismissal.

So I will listen again.

 It is the last of a chain of beautiful days up here. The snow is about 3/4
gone, and with the coming rain, should go completely.

RB to SP, 04/17/2015, 01:07am

Hey Steve!

Just a quick answer to say: as long as we both enjoy the game, don't
worry about being hardit's stimulating. And I know it's part of your
writing style.

As for the diculty of writing in EnglishI take it as a nice challenge. A

lot of my writing rests on my poetic use of the French language. It's
good to see how it passes the test of rougher and atter uses of words.

Always glad to continue this innite game with you,

R

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