Listening to inner landscapes – The Poetic Self

Gry Worre Hallberg, Sisters Hope

Dearest you, we invite you to explore your poetic self; to listen to your inner landscape. To search for the poetic potential that you are.

Through The Poetic Self, it is possible to experience an increased spectrum of possibilities – an expanded field of maneuverability, manifested, for example, through an expansion of what can be sensed, perceived and expressed and how relations can take shape based on the sensuous and poetic aspects of our being. Being rooted in the aesthetic dimension it opens the possibility to be with others in new and more absorbed ways, stimulating interconnected exchange with the self, others and the environment. The Poetic Self is neither essentialist nor constructivist. It is the discovery of new ways to navigate in the world. It is both/and rather than either/or. I understand The Poetic Self and the performative possibilities of it as a third approach, which is best understood as an expansion of our field of maneuverability. Expansion from a point, but this point is not restrictive as it carries the possibility of eternal expansion. Somewhat like the universe, if we subscribe to the Big Bang theory, that is, the universe is expanding from a single point, with an infinite number of coexisting galaxies, an infinite number of parallel possibilities within it. Likewise, with The Poetic Self – a point of departure is chosen out of multiple ones and then externalized and performed. But it is performed over time, and over time it takes many different shapes, which is what I understand as a continuous expansion and simultaneously, a containment of endless parallel possibilities within it. The Poetic Self is not a static method, it is a method of a body becoming and an exploration of the territories of the unknown including that which is normally hidden in the dark.

1) The stimulation of relations based on the aesthetic activation of the sensuous and poetic was of special interest to scholar in aesthetics Max Liljefors as he visited Sensuous City by Sisters Hope and shared his reflection on Facebook afterwards, which later was modulated into this reflective piece: https://www.idoart.dk/blog/enter-the-sensuous-city (accessed 17.10.2019) (Liljefors 2019a). The piece opens with this David Abram quote: “Humans are tuned for relationship. The eyes, the skin, the tongue, ears, and nostrils — all are gates where your body receives the nourishment of otherness” (Abram 2017, ix). Abram is a philosopher and performer who links phenomenology with ecology.

2)  There is a tendency in performance studies to distinguish between essentialism and more celebrated and contemporary constructivist approaches that are perceived to liberate us from the static and false posture of truth presented by the former. As written in my chapter on performativity in my master’s thesis (Hallberg 2009, 32–35):“Within poststructuralism, and in continuation within theory on performativity, the theatrical [is perceived to] portray the discourses that society want to hold us captive within and wants us to believe are essences. However, through the performative act you can escape those discourses temporarily” (Hallberg 2009, 32).  (Original Danish text: “Indenfor poststrukturalismen og i kølvandet heraf performativitetsteorien bliver teatralitet […] et billede på de diskurser som samfundet tvinger os ind i, og vil bilde os ind er essenser, men som man gennem den performative handling kan fravriste sig midlertidigt” (Hallberg 2009, 32). Footnote ‘50’ reads: “Fried Michael in; Absorption and Theatricality: Painting and Beholder in the Age of Diderot, University of California Press (1980). Citeret i Davis and Postlewait (2003), s. 20.” Referring to Postlewait and Davis’ 2003 reference of Fried (1980), I end up concluding that the theatrical framework supports the liberating performative act and thus, that the two do not contradict but instead support each other. In relation to the critique mentioned here see also performance studies scholar Connie Svabo who has developed what she, with reference to Deleuze and Guattari’s schizoanalysis (Deleuze and Guattari [1972] 2004; [1980] 2014), terms a performative schizoid method (Svabo 2016). This, among other things, seeks to escape a constraining essentialist approach that the talk of a ‘self’ in itself seems to indicate. This is a celebration of the fluid, fragmentary – the schizoid. It is against this dualistic backdrop that I find it necessary to clarify how The Poetic Self is neither essentialist nor constructivist; it contains endless performative possibilities, but also expands from a point.

Sisters Performance Method – Sensuous Learning
The Poetic Self Exercise

The Poetic Self is not a fiction. Not a character. It is you. Something that lives within you that you might or might not express in your everyday life. Your inner inherent poetic potential which you explore and unfold. Through these questions we will initiate the unfolding of your discoveries.

Time: What relationship does your Poetic Self have to time? Please, consider time.

Pace: How do you move through time? Are you slow or fast? Looping, spiralling, horizontal, vertical, linear? How do you move through time? What is your pace? 

Age: Does your Poetic Self have an age? Or are you ageless? How do you move through time?

Space: What relationship does your Poetic Self have to space? Please, consider space. Do you mostly travel in your inner landscapes or into the eternal external landscapes around you?

Shape in space: What shape does your body have in space?

Pace in space: How do you move through space? Walking, flying, jumping or sailing? How does your body move through space?

Your sensory body: Please, consider you sensuous body. What is the gesture of your Poetic Self? What is the sound of your Poetic Self? What is the smell of your Poetic Self? What is the taste of your Poetic Self? Please, consider the sensory experience of your poetic body.

Connecting body: Imagine, that you begin to grow roots. Deep roots through the layers in this building into the soil underneath this space. Deep roots. And imagine that all these roots the intertwine. They connect. Please, consider the connecting body of your Poetic Self. How do you connect? When do you connect? The connecting body of your Poetic Self.

Special relationships: Do you have a favourite relationship to anyone? Do they know? Who do you trust in the most? Why do you trust in this person or creature?

Intimacy and distance: How close is close? How far is far?

Mystery: What is your mystery?

Darkness: When do you move into the dark? What is in the dark? What is in the Shadow lands?

Lightness: When do you move into the light? What is in the light?

Balance: What is your balance point?

Secrets: Do you have any secrets? Does anyone know about it? If now – why not? If so – Why? Please, consider the secret life of your Poetic Self?

Traces: What footprints are left after you? What traces do you want to leave behind?

Future: What dreams do you have for the future?

 

As of now there are no more questions for your Poetic Self, but before you come back to this space, please, consider:

• A name for your Poetic Self? Can you name it – Your inner inherent poetic potential – Can you name it?
• And can you visualize it, externalize it? What does your Poetic Self look like, taste like, smell like, sound like – What is its touch? Can you externalize your Poetic Self? See it, hear it, smell it, taste it, touch it?
• And, please, consider a totem for your Poetic Self? Pocket size, smaller or larger. Something that represents your inner poetic life?
• And lastly, please, consider a biography for you Poetic Self. Your Poetic Self biography. The life story of your inner inherent poetic potential – Through past, present, future …