Choreographing is “looking with attention” without being concerned with the end result, as the choreographic thing, is a constantly flowing and evolving phenomena.
Being focused on the end result while choreographing, negates what choreography is.
Choreography isn’t about arriving. The notion of progress within a choreographic process, doesn’t lie in the resulting works being created. If the notion of ‘arriving’ emerges when choreographing, it usually means ‘looking’ wasn’t practiced with complete attention. ‘Looking with attention’, is the FIX which allows the FLOW that is movement, to happen in the first place.
Choreography is all but a permanent state. Therefore, there’s no possibility for a state of ‘arrival’ to be present. Ever.
All there is, is a constant movement of looking, listening and learning, without accumulation or fixation of past experiences, and without future ambitions taking the form of a pre-planed process aimed at a finite result/object.
The choreographic process, if looked at for what it is, is in service of nothing else but its own flow. The creator, has the role of facilitator. Enabler. Somewhat unconscious of its own activity, in the sense that there is no perpetuation of a self—of a "me" that is seeking to achieve an end.
That is of course an extremely difficult place to reach and maintain, as the realities of the field, the need to build and maintain a career, the economical aspects of financing and producing the work and the need to make a living as a choreographic artist, are all pushing in the opposite direction. Demanding results, predictable products, recognizable artifacts which are easy to reproduce (repertoire anyone?), catchy themes and concepts etc.
How can one reconcile these two opposing forces? Probably, by simply practicing the same state of ‘looking with attention’, and accepting that the question in itself, is all there is and that the only thing we can do about it, is looking at it with attention.
