Paper Tigers
Paper Tigers (german translation below)
In an open space, four individuals come together. Through their interactions and distinctive ways of relating, "Paper Tigers" reflects on their misplaced attempts to establish true connection.
Like the image conjured by its title, "Paper Tigers" delves into the theme of fear. A construct of our minds, a paper tiger is frightening, yet merely an illusion. Whether embodying the tiger or confronting one, the piece examines our responses to fear and the yearning to exert control when in such states—both over ourselves and others.
From this perspective, relationships shift from being collaborative to becoming a zero-sum game—where one must dominate or be dominated. This attachment is inherently unstable, devoid of genuine connection and trust. Everything is precarious, so retaining control becomes essential, thus perpetuating the cycle of fear.
This immature survival instinct, clashes with their deepest inner longing: to return to a place of safety and connection.
Choreography: Matthew Tusa
Dancers: Ioulia Kokkokiou, Anton Rudakov, Matthew Tusa and Verena Wilhelm
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In einem offenen Raum kommen vier Individuen zusammen. Durch ihre Interaktionen und ihre unterschiedlichen Arten der Beziehung reflektiert „Paper Tigers“ ihre fehlgeleiteten Versuche, eine echte Verbindung aufzubauen.
Wie das Bild, das der Titel heraufbeschwört, befasst sich „Paper Tigers“ mit dem Thema Angst. Als Konstrukt unseres Gehirns ist ein Papiertiger furchterregend, aber dennoch nur eine Illusion. Ob wir nun den Tiger verkörpern oder ihm gegenüberstehen, das Stück untersucht unsere Reaktionen auf Angst und das Verlangen, in solchen Situationen Kontrolle auszuüben – sowohl über uns selbst als auch über andere.
Aus dieser Perspektive wandeln sich Beziehungen von einer Zusammenarbeit zu einem “Zero-zum” Spiel, in dem man entweder dominieren oder dominiert werden muss. Diese Bindung ist von Natur aus instabil, ohne echte Verbindung und Vertrauen. Alles ist prekär, daher wird es unerlässlich, die Kontrolle zu behalten, wodurch der Kreislauf der Angst fortgesetzt wird.
Dieser unreife Überlebensinstinkt steht im Widerspruch zu ihrer tiefsten inneren Sehnsucht: zurück an einen Ort der Sicherheit und Verbundenheit zu gelangen.
Choreografie: Matthew Tusa
Es tanzt Ioulia Kokkokiou, Anton Rudakov, Matthew Tusa and Verena Wilhelm
The 4 F’s in everyday life
Paper Tigers theme is my exploration of people operating in survival mode — seeking control over their environment as a reaction to felt insecurity and the relational patterns that arise. This lack of safety often triggers the well-known four F's: fight, flight, freeze, and fawn, as a response
In my research, I found Peter Walker’s insights particularly compelling. He points out that while these responses are rooted in survival, we actually need and use healthier, adapted versions of them in everyday life:
Fight becomes asserting one’s needs
Fawn becomes compromising with others
Flight becomes doing or moving
Freeze becomes being or observing
Interestingly, fight and fawn are opposites, as are flight and freeze.
In a regulated state we vacillate between the poles in a state of calm allowing ourselves to feel safe and open authentically to the outside world.
Paper Tigers background ideas
Paper Tigers
The concept for my latest piece revolves around the Chinese term: Paper Tigers. The theme resonates with my current experiences of the world around me, creating my desire to delve into this psychological phenomenon, which is notably prevalent today.
“Paper Tigers” examines immature methods of interaction, where individuals are consistently stuck in survival mode, dominated by the mindset of "me, here, now." Think an animal out in the wild, its instincts to survive. It's about peoples inherent quest for control to provide the perceived illusion of safety.
In seeking control, life becomes a zero-sum game: I win, you lose. This scenario pits the aggressor against the victim, embodying the mentality of eat or be eaten, win at all costs. As societal beings, we often resort to projection, manipulation, and deception to achieve this. These are the darker aspects of our primal instincts.
Being in a continuous survival mode often stems from past wounds and trauma. Through this self-examination the piece addresses the emptiness within oneself, a void of connection.
As humans, we have evolved the capacity to be prosocial, to expand our thinking for the greater good of the community and beyond. Fundamentally, survival mode lacks the ability to give the essential care we naturally extend to our tribe—the "family" or community with which we identify.
To establish connection, there's an unending search among individuals in survival mode for external sources of love. There is a general misunderstanding that this love is something they can only give themselves. When stuck in survival mode, genuine connection seems unattainable.
It's a scenario of hunting or being hunted, using different tactics to survive. The piece explores these darker sides of human interaction and their complexities.
Paper Tigers
My next project will be called Paper Tigers. It’s from the Chinese phrase 纸老虎 (zhǐlǎohǔ). It refers to something or someone that appears powerful or threatening but is actually weak or ineffectual (Wikipedia).
It’s an interesting theme - scary but made of paper. Who do you know who is a paper tiger?
Today I had a rehearsal with Verena on a duet. There is a short excerpt in the video below. It’s very raw and unworked. A beginning…
The Noticing Exercise
Recently I have been experimenting with a new exercise. It inspired from the field of Authentic Relating, specifically the Noticing Game.
The exercise is best done in pairs, although it can be done alone.
Two roles: One person moves, the other witnesses.
- Close your eyes and take a minute to come into your body, breathe and be present to the sensations in the moment
- Begin to move (eyes open or closed)
- As you move, vocalise what you are noticing, using the phrase “I notice…”
- As a guide speak every 15-20 seconds or when an impulse comes to say something
- The things that you notice can be on different levels:
- Physical: the body, the room, the light, the sounds etc.
- Mental: thoughts going through your mind, where your attention is
- Emotional: The feelings and sensations that come up as you move
- Relational: The energy and space between you and other things/people
As a guide let the exercise run for between 5 and 10 minutes to start.
After the time is up, exchange about your experience, with the witness starting by expressing what they heard/saw and how they personally felt they heard/saw it.
Then swap roles.
I have had some really profound insights with this exercise both, doing it myself and watching and listening to the reflection of others' experiences. I think it is quite revealing that some people find it very challenging and others find it transformative. There is something very connective, vulnerable magical about the practice that is alive in the present moment.
An attempt to define dance
What is dance?
It’s a question that I often get asked in my classes and here is my attempt to answer it! I find it amazing that for someone who has been dancing for 35 years, including professionally, I struggle to give a clear answer to this question!
Take away the labels that people can identify - ballet, contemporary, hip-hop, ballroom - and what remains? Where is the line between movement, acting, performance and dance? They all use the physical body, connect yet are different.
So how can we define dance?
What I do know…
Dance is a physically expressive art form. I know when I am dancing, and when I see it. It can be formal or spontaneous planned or improvised. Concrete or abstract. To music/rhythm or in silence. I see people in a flow or movement. Grace, flow, movement in the moment.
These elements are a part of dance yet they are in themselves not definitive or all necessary.
So as an experiment to create a dance, I set myself the task to do the thing I am doing but as a dance and analyse what happens?
In turning an everyday task into a dance I notice that:
- I use my body
- I become consciously aware of the movement
- Through this awareness I am also in touch with the physical feeling
- The movement becomes defined and purposeful - an intention, yet often abstract. Whether I get the task done is less important than it is expressed in movement
- It does still express an intention
- There is a combination of movements (it continues) with phrasing to it
- Though defined the movement becomes partially abstract in its form and timing.
In needing further impulses, I found out a text describing dance, “Feeling and Form” by Suzanne Langer from 1953. She has a wonderful view of what defines dance, as she analyses all the different art forms. Quoting Laban and other dance philosophers, she links 4 ideas - form, feeling, the real and the virtual
It’s a mouthful, but here is my summary:
Dance is the physical manifestation of virtual emotions that come from a concrete intention, expressed through the initiation of symbolic gestures in movement.
- the physical (in our case) body - it is “real” as it is needed to dance. It creates a visual form.
- an intention - is also “real”. It can be anything: just to move, to play a part, to express an idea or feeling, to tell a story, or to connect with the music or emotion, but it is clear.
- emotion - is “virtual”, the feeling created in the moment. It is considered virtual because it is not the actual experience of the moment. It is a moment remembered, brought into the present.
- the movement - is also “virtual” as in it is representative or simulated - symbolic gestures. It is not normally the actual action, or only the actual action. It ranges from concrete to abstract, giving form.
An example might be:
Harvesting a field - clear intention, using the body, to convey the message I would simulate the movement (eg. cutting or digging, etc) moving on a scale from concrete to abstract, with the feeling of effort, strain, joy, power, exhilaration, etc.
A wounded soul - the intention to show the pain, the suffering. Using the body with closed introverted movements that simulate the movement of a person in such a state, physical tension of the “pain” which is not necessarily be true to express the feeling.
How does this description of dance help?
In being aware of these four areas, it allows me to create, teach and express through dance and understand what is missing or needs strengthening. It helps me to integrate the dance and make it more wholistic. Less conceptually abstract and more real!
As with any model, there must always be an answer to all four areas.
Anyone have other suggestions or thoughts?