Qigong

QI: Refered earlier to the vapours, to the air and the clouds. Latterly, it has come to mean breath, energy and the force of life. Qi also refers to a connection (and to the act of breathing, sharing the same air) and the interaction between the qis of your own, of environment and that of others. In addition to human qi, it is thought that there is a qi of earth, which encompasses the weather, and that there is a qi of the sky governing space, the most important form of which is the qi of time.

GONG: Ability, skill.

QIGONG: An ancient Chinese art, over 2,000 years old, consisting of numerous different techniques and practices, aimed at maintaining life.

ANIMAL PRACTISES: Qigong includes various ancient animal exercises such as the Five Animals Frolic (tiger, deer, bear, monkey, crane), Turtle and Snake, and Dragon exercises. Their roots lie in a shamanic tradition and an age when animals were considered to be the bearers of messages. When we move as animals, it has been demonstrated that our brain activity and emotional skills change too. Animal movements seem to awaken the heart of reason.

A question and a proposal

Our time has been called the age of global performance; it has been said that performance and spectatorship define us living at the beginning of 21st century. At the same time we are living in an age of ecological crises, and many researchers consider the extinctions of animal species to be our greatest thread.

How would it be possible to find a way out of the performative society, or at least move to its periphery, and change the meaning of spectatorship?

A proposal: Create a performance with non-human actor(s), or create a performance for a non-human spectator. Other than human, as non-human agents, we mean here beings and processes of “nature”: other animals, plants, phenomena of weather, various durational processes. If you wish to share your experiences, you can do it via the Chronopolitics Facebook page. But public sharing might not be the most meaningful way to approach this issue in the performative societies. You can also contact Maus&Orlovski performance collective by e-mail: Enable JavaScript to view protected content.