Saturation Today the felt experience of decentralization

Life is dense. Signals, demands, truths, and possibilities arrive from every direction. Every post, every message, every voice overlaps with another. Each claim insists, each gesture competes, each fragment presses for attention. Saturation is not chaos; it is the texture of living amid multiplicity.

It is existential: a weariness of being addressed from all sides, a sense that freedom has multiplied without space to explore it. It is psychological: the ache of desires caught in pre-given pathways, the restless pull of possibilities never fully experienced. It is social: every encounter, every connection, every community entangled in overlapping expectations. It is physical: bodies tuned, nudged, monitored, fatigued by the density of life. It is political: power and authority diffuse, contested, present, yet always brittle and contingent.

Saturation carries both weight and possibility. The fatigue of the condition signals not failure, but the absence of space to experiment, to play, to inhabit life otherwise. Each gesture — switching off, appropriating time, speaking, remixing — moves within the dense field, sometimes refusing it, sometimes amplifying it.

Richness resides in the folds of this density. In the overlaps and fragments lie openings: fleeting moments to notice, respond, or act differently. To dwell with multiplicity without collapsing it into performance, measurement, or optimization. To inhabit attention, freedom, and presence without pre-scripted paths. Saturation is not the solution, but richness offers optimism: the field in which creativity, play, and experimentation might emerge, and the whisper of what might yet be imagined.

Saturation today is lived experience: fatigue, density, presence, and potential, all at once. It is the pulse of decentralized life, the feeling of being addressed, and the flicker of possibilities waiting to be discovered.

Power Without Ground

t h e o r y s l o 0 p —

Power Without Ground

Power once leaned on legitimacy — on law, representation, rationality, truth. Today these supports are collapsing. Authority still commands armies, courts, and capital, but its ground is thin, almost spectral. The genocide in Gaza reveals this starkly: governments, NGOs, UN resolutions, protests — all the mechanisms that once conferred legitimacy — are bypassed or ignored. Power persists, but without justification, without persuasion.

This is not weakness but a mutation. Power without legitimacy relies on sheer persistence: on repetition, distraction, and spectacle. It wields the fragility of truth itself, bending its uncertainty into justification. Even populations who know they are being lied to are asked to “choose” which lies to live with. Compliance becomes less about belief and more about comfort — an uneasy coexistence with ungrounded authority.

Decentralization fractures power’s old monopolies, but it also exposes power’s raw violence when no one consents. Authority without legitimacy must be louder, faster, more insistent. It cannot rely on law or order alone, so it occupies timelines, floods feeds, silences dissent. It commands not by being trusted but by being unavoidable.

To understand power now is to see it in crisis, but also in excess. It is simultaneously weakened by the erosion of its ground and made more dangerous by its willingness to rule without it. Power survives not by convincing, but by overwhelming.

The Decentralization of Truth

t h e o r y s l o 0 p —

The Decentralization of Truth

Truth no longer arrives as a single voice, but as a swarm. Every claim is accompanied by its counter-claim, every fact by suspicion, every image by doubt. The authority of truth has been fractured, not because it disappeared, but because it multiplied.

Institutions once monopolized truth: governments, courts, media, universities. Now their statements circulate alongside influencers, algorithms, conspiracy theorists, and anonymous users. The comment section has expanded to the entire world. Participation is not a supplement to truth but its condition.

AI accelerates this decentralization. The line between what is generated and what is reported dissolves. Truth is not absent, but it is unstable, localized, contingent — adjusted to the perspective of the one who searches, the one who scrolls, the one who asks. A new pluralism emerges: every truth is provisional, every truth is contested.

This instability does not weaken power. On the contrary, it sustains it. In Gaza, we see genocide unfold in plain sight. Courts, NGOs, and media issue their truths, but these are ignored, overridden, sidelined. The violence depends on fragmented truths: on some people looking away, on others holding partial belief, on many trusting in nothing enough to act. Power thrives in this fractured field, using the faltering of truth as its weapon.

To speak of truth today is not to defend its purity or lament its loss. It is to recognize its decentralization — truth as swarm, truth as multiplicity, truth as unstable ground where both resistance and domination take form.

Decentralization Today

t h e o r y s l o 0 p —

Decentralization Today

Authority is no longer centralized, even when it pretends to be. Governments, experts, journalists, courts — all speak with voices that no one fully trusts. Their declarations circulate alongside countless others, each comment, post, remix, and critique asserting its place. Everyone expects to participate, to leave traces, to shape meaning. Decentralization is no longer latent; it is performed in the flood of participation.

It appears in gestures of withdrawal: switching off, scrolling past, skipping over, ignoring. It appears in gestures of appropriation: pirating, stealing time, cutting corners, cheating with AI. It appears in gestures of over-identification: the joke-vote for Trump, both cynical and sincere, parody and demand. It appears in gestures of voice: everyone speaking, everyone contesting, everyone remixing.

Truth itself is decentralized. Not lost, but multiplied. A single news story, a court ruling, a historical claim — all circulate amid comment, critique, and counter-narrative. AI intensifies this: generating personalized truths, reflecting the multiplicity of users’ frames. No authority can fully determine what counts as real, and none can fully vanish from view.

Even war is decentralized. Gaza reveals the disintegration of legitimacy: courts, NGOs, rational instruments of order continue to speak, but their speech carries no force. Power asserts itself anyway, feeding on fragments of belief, exploiting the willingness of many to look away. Authority wields enormous violence, but without the stability of trust, its force is brittle, contingent, and volatile.

Decentralization is neither progress nor collapse. It is the splintering of order into competing fragments, none able to fully dominate, none able to fully vanish. It is the condition of multiplicity in which we now live: a field of gestures, refusals, voices, and contradictions where power both fractures and persists.

THE EMANCIPATED DANCER

t h e o r y s l o 0 p —

THE EMANCIPATED DANCER

The dancer is often imagined at the extremes: either as the exploited body, subjected to the choreographer’s will, or as the free spirit, liberated through movement. Both images are too simple. Each captures a partial truth, but taken alone, they flatten the dancer into a single political role — always victim or always escapee. In practice, the figure of the dancer is far less stable. At times, the dancer occupies a subordinate position within a clearly hierarchical structure; at others, they act as an agent of authority, reproducing and enforcing hierarchies over others — apprentices, students, collaborators, or even audiences.

This instability matters. It reveals that domination in dance cannot be reduced to a single, fixed relation — such as choreographer over dancer — nor can freedom be claimed as the dancer’s essential property. Rather, the dancer moves through shifting configurations of power: moments of constraint, moments of resistance, and moments of dominance, often overlapping in a single rehearsal, performance, or career. To attend to the dancer as a political figure is therefore to recognise that domination is multiple, changing form depending on the situation, and that a politics adequate to dance must be capable of confronting it in all its guises.

Historical & Social Shifts

Across history, the figure of the dancer has been positioned within very different regimes of power. In the court ballets of Louis XIV, the dancer’s role was inseparable from the sovereign’s authority. Technique, costume, and choreography were not simply matters of style but of political order, establishing who could appear, how they could move, and in what proximity to the king. The dancer here was both an ornament of power and its disciplined instrument, enacting a form of domination so embedded in ritual that it appeared as grace. The court dancer’s prestige did not negate their subordination; proximity to the centre of power did not mean possession of it.

Modernism recast the dancer in another light: as a vessel for artistic innovation and individual expression. Figures like Isadora Duncan and Martha Graham promoted an image of the dancer as liberated from the strictures of classical form — yet these very innovations introduced new regimes of discipline. Graham’s technique, for instance, became codified and institutionally protected, creating a hierarchy in which only certain bodies, trained in a particular method, could claim legitimacy. Here the dancer could be both a revolutionary against one set of constraints and a gatekeeper enforcing another.

In the neoliberal cultural economies of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the dancer has often been reframed as an entrepreneurial subject — adaptable, self-managing, and project-based. The ideal is not stability but perpetual availability: to tour, to freelance, to shift between genres and collaborations. This flexibility is often framed as freedom, but it is bound to precarity, with dancers taking on risks once absorbed by institutions. At the same time, star dancers or those embedded in elite networks may consolidate significant influence, shaping opportunities for others and determining which movements, aesthetics, or identities circulate as valuable.

These shifts show that the dancer’s relationship to domination is not linear, nor is it bound to a single set of roles. It is a position that can oscillate between submission and command, between marginalisation and authority — sometimes within the same body, the same career, or even the same day.

Moments of Escape

If the dancer’s role has often been framed through hierarchies of command and obedience, it has also been a site of evasion. Not all resistance takes the form of open refusal; in dance, it can emerge as something quieter, embedded in the movement itself. Improvisation offers one such possibility. Even within a tightly composed work, a dancer may stretch, bend, or reinterpret the material — shifting timing, inflecting gesture, altering the weight or tone in ways that the choreography cannot fully script. These choices may go unnoticed by the audience, yet they reassert the dancer’s agency within the choreographer’s frame.

In rehearsal, micro-rebellions can take the form of strategic compliance — doing just enough to appear obedient while redirecting the work’s energy in subtler ways. A dancer might deliberately misremember a sequence, introduce an unintended pause, or reinterpret an instruction in a way that shifts its meaning. Such acts are not always heroic; sometimes they are born from exhaustion, boredom, or playful mischief. Yet they can open small cracks in otherwise rigid structures, making space for the dancer’s own priorities to surface.

Failure, too, can be a mode of escape. When a leap falls short, when a turn unravels, or when a body refuses to produce the desired effect, the work momentarily departs from the choreographer’s control. In some cases, this unplanned deviation is absorbed back into the performance, becoming part of the piece; in others, it exposes the fragility of the choreographic authority itself. Failure interrupts the fantasy of perfect execution that many hierarchies depend on, revealing that domination in dance is never absolute.

These moments of escape are often fleeting and do not necessarily overturn the structures in which they occur. But they matter because they remind us that domination is never total: within even the most constrained contexts, dancers can — and do — find ways to move otherwise.

Moments of control: How dancers themselves reproduce hierarchies

While much discourse casts dancers as victims of choreographic authority, it is equally important to note that dancers can become agents of control, enacting and sustaining hierarchies within the structures they inhabit. These moments complicate the idea of the dancer as purely dominated.

Peer-to-peer hierarchy:
Within companies, rehearsal rooms, or training spaces, experienced dancers often wield authority over less experienced ones — offering “corrections,” setting behavioural norms, or even policing stylistic authenticity. Though sometimes framed as mentorship, these gestures can reinforce vertical power structures, mirroring the choreographer–dancer dynamic in miniature. Apprentices and understudies may find their contributions devalued, with knowledge flowing in only one direction.

Gatekeeping expertise:
Dancers may also reproduce exclusivity through the withholding of technical or artistic knowledge from outsiders, whether consciously (to maintain professional scarcity) or unconsciously (by embedding it in inaccessible language and codes of bodily comportment). In workshops with non-professional participants, a dancer might insist on “proper” technique or demean vernacular movement, subtly reasserting their place at the top of a hierarchy of embodied knowledge.

Audience management:
On stage, dancers exert a unique form of control over audiences — not simply through captivating performance but by directing attention, pacing perception, and structuring emotional arcs. The proscenium and theatrical conventions create an implicit power relation: the audience is seated, silent, and gazing, while the dancer acts. Even in immersive or participatory contexts, the dancer often decides the parameters of engagement, setting the limits on how close, how involved, and how disruptive the audience can be.

Internalised discipline:
Having been trained within regimes of strict bodily control, dancers often internalise these norms and apply them to others — from policing posture and deportment in daily life to reproducing certain aesthetic ideals on social media. In these cases, the dancer becomes not only a bearer of movement but also a carrier of disciplinary power.

These moments reveal that domination is not a one-way street between choreographer and dancer; it circulates through the entire ecology of dance, with dancers both subject to and complicit in its reproduction. The same embodied skills that make a dancer capable of subversion can also make them effective agents of discipline.

Political principle: The dancer as a figure of domination’s mutability

The dancer occupies a singular position in political thought: they are at once a subject of control and an active agent in reproducing or transforming that control. Across history, the figure of the dancer has been bound into shifting regimes of domination — from the rigid hierarchies of court performance, through the disciplinary demands of modernist technique, to the precarious self-entrepreneurship of neoliberal cultural economies. What makes the dancer politically potent is not their subjection alone, but the way their position is never static; it mutates in accordance with the structures in which they move. The same plié or arabesque can be an act of deference to royal authority, an emblem of artistic mastery, or a commodity for global circulation, depending on the social field in which it is performed.

This mutability means that domination in dance cannot be reduced to a single, fixed relationship — such as choreographer over dancer, or state over artist. The dancer’s body is a site where multiple forms of control intersect: institutional, aesthetic, economic, interpersonal. Sometimes these forms align to reinforce one another; at other times they collide, creating tensions that open up new possibilities for action. For instance, the improviser may reject the authority of set choreography, only to be captured by market demands for novelty; the classical soloist may appear autonomous on stage while bound to punishing rehearsal regimes.

If we take the dancer seriously as a political figure, then a politics attentive to dance must adopt a similarly mutable approach to domination. It must resist the comfort of locating oppression in a single identifiable place and instead follow how it travels between bodies, institutions, and practices. Such a politics would not only name domination when it comes from the top down, but would also confront its subtler circulations — in the peer-to-peer enforcement of norms, in the internalisation of disciplinary ideals, in the quiet reproduction of exclusions. The dancer reveals that domination is not merely an external force to resist, but an ever-shifting field in which we are always, in some way, moving.

Closing: The dancer as a shifting figure

The dancer is never fixed in place — neither permanently free nor permanently captured. They move through the unstable terrain of power much as they move through space: with steps that can follow a pattern, break from it, or blur the line between the two. To see the dancer clearly is to resist the temptation to anchor them in a single political role. Their subordination and their authority are not separate states but positions they may occupy in quick succession, sometimes in the same moment.

This shifting quality does not make the dancer politically irrelevant; it makes them essential. They show us that domination is not a monolith to be toppled once and for all, but a mutable, circulating force — one that can be embodied, resisted, and enforced by the same person across time. In this sense, the dancer becomes a living diagram of political life under conditions where power is diffuse and mobile.

Attending to the dancer in this way means refusing to search for the one relation that defines them. Instead, it calls for a politics as agile as the body it studies: able to recognise domination in all its guises, to notice the small deviations that make space for agency, and to remain attuned to the ways authority can be both escaped and reproduced. The dancer’s continual movement reminds us that political life, like choreography, is never settled. It must always be rehearsed, improvised, and reimagined — step by shifting step.

NO I AM NOT A CHOREOGRAPHER

t h e o r y s l o 0 p —

NO I AM NOT A CHOREOGRAPHER

Introduction: The weight of the label

The title “choreographer” carries with it a heavy load of expectations: authority over creative decisions, authorship of artistic work, and legitimacy within institutional and professional hierarchies. To be called a choreographer is to be recognised as a maker who directs movement, who shapes meaning through dance, and who holds a position of leadership within the field. These associations have been historically tied to the centralisation of power and the enforcement of norms regarding who may create, what counts as dance, and how value is assigned.

In recent years, however, there has been a notable trend among dancers, movement artists, and creators to resist or refuse this label. Many express a preference for describing themselves as “just dancing,” as “movement practitioners,” or as participants in collective, non-hierarchical processes. This refusal can be a deliberate political gesture — a challenge to the traditional gatekeeping functions of the choreographer role and an embrace of fluidity, openness, and shared authorship.

Yet this widespread reluctance to claim the choreographer identity also raises important questions. What does it mean to refuse this title in contexts still deeply shaped by institutional power? How might such refusal serve to both resist and obscure dynamics of domination? And what space remains — or must be made — for politics that address power beyond the terms of authorship and authority?

Refusal as resistance

Refusing the label “choreographer” can be a powerful form of critique against entrenched hierarchies in dance and the broader arts world. The title often signifies a concentration of creative authority—a single figure shaping and directing the work, whose vision defines what counts as art and who is included or excluded. In this way, the choreographer role is embedded within a system that privileges individual authorship, institutional recognition, and clear lines of command.

By rejecting this title, many practitioners challenge these normative power structures. This refusal can be an explicit political statement against the gatekeeping and centralisation of authority that the choreographer role traditionally embodies. It opens up possibilities for practices that are more horizontal, collective, or fluid—where authorship is shared, decisions emerge through collaboration, and the boundaries between creator, performer, and audience become porous. In doing so, refusal aligns with wider movements in contemporary art that question fixed identities and hierarchical modes of production.

Several artists and collectives have articulated this position clearly. For example, the collaborative dance company [insert example, e.g., Rimini Protokoll or Chunky Move] emphasizes shared creation processes where leadership is distributed rather than centred. Similarly, testimonies from dancers who identify as “movement practitioners” rather than choreographers often highlight the political importance of maintaining openness and resisting categorisation. For these artists, refusal is not mere modesty or avoidance; it is an active resistance to dominant modes of artistic control and a refusal to be confined by narrow institutional definitions.

Refusal as limitation

While the refusal to claim the label “choreographer” can function as a critical resistance, it can also operate as a shield—sometimes unintentionally—against political accountability and deeper engagement with the complex structures of domination within dance and the arts. When the response to questions about power, hierarchy, or exclusion is simply “I’m just dancing” or “I’m not a choreographer,” the door closes on collective dialogue about how authority circulates and how inequalities persist.

In this way, the trope of “just dancing” can be weaponized, functioning as a rhetorical barrier that dismisses or deflects critique. It allows practitioners to evade responsibility for addressing issues such as gatekeeping, access, and the reproduction of norms. This dismissal can silence those who raise concerns about power imbalances, effectively positioning the refusal to engage as a form of privilege that protects the status quo.

In my own research experience, this dynamic became painfully clear. Within a project where multiple co-researchers participated, some repeatedly referenced their credentials as “dancer” in contrast to my position as a “choreographer.” This not only marked a division of legitimacy but also limited space for collective reflection on domination and power. The refusal to identify as choreographers was often accompanied by an assumption that dance practice alone was inherently “just enough”—an assumption that foreclosed opportunities to question or intervene in existing hierarchies.

Such experiences highlight the ambivalence of refusal: it can open space for political experimentation but also risk shutting down the very conversations needed to build more equitable and conscious practices. Recognizing this tension is essential if refusal is to become a productive gesture rather than a defensive retreat.

The ambivalence of refusal

The refusal to claim the label “choreographer” embodies a fundamental ambivalence. On one hand, it can be profoundly liberating—offering a break from entrenched hierarchies, opening space for fluid identities, and fostering collective or non-hierarchical modes of creation. It can serve as a powerful critique of authorship, authority, and the institutional frameworks that have long governed dance and the arts.

On the other hand, this same refusal can impose limits. It risks becoming a fixed position that closes off deeper political engagement or forecloses opportunities for accountability. When refusal solidifies into a protective boundary, it can inhibit the very conversations and collaborations necessary for meaningful structural change. This dual potential means refusal is never simply a stable identity or stance; it is a political gesture that carries tension within itself.

To navigate this ambivalence, refusal must be approached as an ongoing process—one that demands continuous reflection, critical dialogue, and willingness to revisit its implications. It should not be a final refuge but a provisional move within a broader political practice that remains attentive to power in all its complexities. Only then can refusal contribute to a dynamic and accountable politics of dance and creative practice.

Toward accountable refusal

Refusal of the label “choreographer” holds significant political potential—but to realize this potential, it must be paired with explicit commitments that prevent it from becoming a retreat or a block to collective action. An accountable refusal embraces not only the rejection of hierarchical authorship but also a proactive engagement with the multiple forms of domination that shape dance and creative practice.

This means fostering spaces of collective care and solidarity, where questions of power, access, and exclusion are addressed openly and inclusively. Refusal should be accompanied by ongoing dialogue that welcomes critique rather than shutting it down—recognizing that accountability is not about fixed identities but about relationships and responsibilities within communities of practice.

Politically generative refusal also involves recognizing the diverse positionalities of practitioners: acknowledging how race, gender, class, and other axes of power intersect with artistic roles. By doing so, refusal can become a tool for building coalitions that move beyond individual identity claims toward shared commitments to equity and transformation.

In short, refusal is most powerful when it is not an endpoint but a starting point—a gesture that signals openness to rethink and remake the terms of creative and political engagement. Only by keeping refusal accountable and connected to care can it contribute meaningfully to dismantling domination within and beyond dance.

Conclusion: Refusal as movement, not destination

To refuse the title “choreographer” is not to find a fixed identity or final refuge but to engage in an ongoing negotiation with power, identity, and creative practice. Refusal should not be mistaken for an endpoint where questions of authority and domination disappear; rather, it is a gesture that moves within and against these structures—sometimes expanding possibilities, sometimes confronting limits, and always inviting reconsideration.

This continual movement means that refusal remains open and unsettled. It calls for vigilance against complacency or defensive closure and demands a readiness to engage with critique, care, and collective responsibility. In this way, refusal becomes a dynamic political act—one that refuses to be pinned down, that resists simplification, and that embodies the complexity of living and creating within shifting fields of power.

Ultimately, the refusal to claim the choreographer label is best understood not as a declaration of innocence or separation, but as part of a larger, ongoing process: a movement that challenges hierarchies while recognizing its own tensions; a practice that resists domination while remaining open to transformation; and a politics that insists on dialogue, accountability, and continual remaking.

EXPANDED CHOREOGRAPHY UNCHOREOGRAPHED

t h e o r y s l o 0 p —

EXPANDED CHOREOGRAPHY UNCHOREOGRAPHED

Introduction: The question of authorship in expanded choreography

Expanded choreography, as I understand and practice it, is fundamentally an opening of the dance form—a deliberate loosening of fixed categories, hierarchies, and boundaries. It embraces dance as a plastic, mutable material, shaped not only by the individual human body but by collective processes, relational dynamics, and even non-human agencies. This approach foregrounds multiplicity, emergence, and fluidity, inviting movement and meaning to be co-created in ways that resist singular ownership or definitive form.

Such a conception radically challenges conventional ideas about what choreography is and how it functions. Traditionally, the choreographer has been understood as the central authorial figure—an individual who directs, shapes, and ultimately claims ownership over the work. This role carries with it authority, decision-making power, and legitimacy within institutional and cultural frameworks. It is a role deeply embedded in hierarchical structures of artistic production and cultural value.

The tension arises when these two visions collide. How can the figure of the choreographer, with its implicit demands for authorship and authority, coexist with an expanded choreography that strives for openness, collective participation, and decentered agency? Is it possible to embody both the role of choreographer and the ethos of expanded choreography without contradiction? Or does claiming the choreographer title inevitably reinscribe the very hierarchies and exclusions that expanded choreography seeks to undo?

This question is not merely theoretical. It is a practical and political dilemma facing artists today who wish to push the boundaries of dance while also navigating existing systems of power and recognition. It demands critical reflection on what it means “to choreograph” in a landscape where dance is no longer solely the product of a singular creative genius but a fluid, evolving process shaped by many forces.

In this text, I explore this paradox and its implications—both through a critical lens on prominent figures often heralded as pioneers of expanded choreography, and through the lens of my own practice, where the tensions between naming, authority, and openness are laid bare. Ultimately, I ask: can choreographers choreograph expanded choreographies at all?

The traditional choreographer and neoliberal logics

Despite the radical ambitions of expanded choreography to open dance to collective, fluid, and non-hierarchical forms of creation, many of its most celebrated figures continue to operate within traditional models of authorship and authority. These choreographers, often hailed as pioneers of innovation, remain embedded—whether consciously or unconsciously—in structures that uphold hierarchical control, individual branding, and the commodification of creative work.

In the context of neoliberal cultural economies, the figure of the choreographer is frequently positioned as an entrepreneurial subject, whose name functions as a brand and whose artistic identity is a marketable asset. This branding consolidates personal recognition and often sustains careers through institutional funding, international tours, and media visibility. While this visibility can amplify the reach of expanded choreographic practices, it simultaneously reinscribes power relations rooted in individual authorship and proprietary control over movement material and creative direction.

Such consolidation runs counter to the stated ideals of expanded choreography, which emphasize the decentralization of authority and the sharing of creative agency among multiple participants—human and non-human alike. The ethos of fluidity and openness risks being undermined when the work remains tied to a singular named choreographer who ultimately retains decision-making power, curates the narrative, and controls access to resources and legitimacy.

This tension reveals a persistent contradiction: expanded choreography’s political and aesthetic project to unsettle hierarchical modes of production frequently coexists with neoliberal imperatives that valorize individual achievement and clear authorship. The choreographer’s role as an authoritative creator can thus function as a stabilizing force within otherwise experimental and anarchic artistic forms, tempering the radical potential of expanded choreography by anchoring it to familiar systems of power.

Understanding this dynamic is crucial for critically engaging with expanded choreography today. It challenges us to question not only the formal innovations of choreographic practice but also the institutional and economic contexts that shape who gets to lead, who is credited, and how creative labor is valued. Only by naming these contradictions can expanded choreography move toward genuinely transforming the politics of authorship and authority in dance.

Expanded choreography as plastic and collective

At the heart of expanded choreography lies a profound shift in how movement, authorship, and creative agency are understood. Rather than viewing choreography as the product of a singular, authoritative creator imposing form on bodies, expanded choreography embraces plasticity—a quality of malleability, openness, and continuous transformation. It recognizes dance as a collective process shaped by a multiplicity of forces, including human bodies, social relations, environments, technologies, and even non-human agencies such as sounds, objects, and spatial dynamics.

This approach dissolves rigid boundaries around who choreographs and what counts as choreography. Creative agency is distributed across participants, materials, and contexts, inviting unpredictability and emergent outcomes rather than fixed compositions. Movement arises through interaction, improvisation, and negotiation, often blurring distinctions between maker and performer, subject and object, individual and collective.

In this expanded frame, the act of “choreographing” is less about authorial control and more about cultivating conditions for movement and meaning to arise. It becomes a practice of facilitation, collaboration, and responsiveness—where the choreographer’s role, if named at all, is partial, provisional, and embedded within a wider ecology of influences.

Such a reimagining poses significant challenges to the coherence of singular authorship. If choreography is plastic and collective, can the traditional figure of the choreographer as sole author still hold? Or does the very notion of “the choreographer” become anachronistic—out of step with the complex, multi-agent processes that define expanded choreography?

This question invites us to reconsider not only artistic practice but also institutional recognition, funding models, and cultural valuation. It demands new vocabularies and frameworks that honor multiplicity and shared creation rather than individual mastery. Without this critical rethinking, the ideals of expanded choreography risk being co-opted or diluted within familiar hierarchies.

In this light, expanded choreography challenges us to envision choreography as an open-ended, relational process—one that unsettles fixed categories of authorship and authority, and foregrounds the collective, contingent, and dynamic nature of movement-making itself.

The paradox in my own work: ‘PETER’ as self-titled exploration

In grappling with the tensions inherent in expanded choreography, I have turned to my own practice as a site of inquiry. The works collectively titled PETER serve as both a personal and public exploration of the paradoxes embedded in choreographing within a framework that resists singular authorship.

PETER is not merely a series of performances; it is a conceptual and physical space where authorship, identity, and agency are in constant flux. The title itself—PETER—functions as both the name of the work and the author, collapsing the distinction between creator and creation. This self-naming practice intentionally foregrounds the act of naming as a performative gesture, inviting reflection on the implications of authorship in a context that seeks to decentralize authority.

The installations and performances that constitute PETER are characterized by their openness and inclusivity. They are designed to be inhabited, altered, and co-created by participants, challenging the conventional boundaries between performer, spectator, and choreographer. Materials accumulate over time—papers, objects, recordings, and interactions—becoming part of the work’s evolving narrative. This accumulation embodies the ethos of expanded choreography: a practice that is emergent, collective, and resistant to fixed interpretations.

However, the very act of titling these works as PETER introduces a contradiction. By naming the work after myself, I reassert a form of authorship that the practice seeks to dismantle. This tension is not a flaw to be resolved but a critical point of engagement. It serves as a mirror to the broader field of expanded choreography, reflecting the complexities and contradictions inherent in attempting to decenter authority while still operating within systems that valorize individual recognition.

Through PETER, I do not offer a resolution to this paradox but rather an invitation to engage with it. The work becomes a site for questioning the very structures it inhabits, a space where the act of choreographing is both a practice of liberation and a confrontation with the limits of that liberation. In this way, PETER embodies the ongoing negotiation between the desire for openness and the realities of authorship within the neoliberal contexts of contemporary dance.

Reimagining authorship: toward a distributed practice

Confronted with the paradoxes of traditional authorship in expanded choreography, it becomes imperative to explore alternative models of creating and claiming work. Reimagining authorship means moving beyond the singular figure of the choreographer as sole originator toward a distributed, networked practice that acknowledges multiple contributors and agencies.

This distributed approach recognizes choreography as a collaborative, relational process, where authority is shared and creative input emerges from the interactions between performers, collaborators, environments, and even non-human elements. Rather than imposing a fixed form or message, the choreographer’s role can shift toward facilitation, curation, or stewardship—cultivating conditions for movement and meaning to emerge collectively.

Such a practice challenges institutional norms that prioritize individual ownership and authorship, calling for new frameworks of recognition, accountability, and value that reflect the complexity of contemporary dance-making. It also invites ongoing critical reflection on power dynamics within creative processes, ensuring that the distribution of authority does not simply replicate exclusion in new forms.

This vision aligns with expanded choreography’s foundational ethos of plasticity, multiplicity, and openness. It demands both artistic experimentation and political commitment—embracing uncertainty, difference, and shared responsibility. Reimagining authorship in this way holds the potential to transform not only how dance is made, but how it is understood, supported, and valued within wider cultural systems.

Conclusion: Toward a rethinking of choreography and authorship

Expanded choreography calls for a fundamental rethinking of what it means to author movement. This is not a call for the abolition of authorship—after all, the act of naming, shaping, and guiding remains a vital part of creative practice—but rather a demand for its transformation. Authorship in expanded choreography must become porous, relational, and provisional, recognizing that no single figure can fully claim ownership over the complex, multi-agent processes that constitute dance today.

Such a reimagining requires embracing paradox: the choreographer as both a presence and a partial absence; an authority that decentralizes itself rather than consolidating power. It means valuing multiplicity and collective agency without dissolving responsibility or care. Importantly, this transformation must be understood within the political economies and institutional contexts that often seek to co-opt and commodify artistic innovation.

To resist neoliberal logics that insist on singular branding, ownership, and market-driven visibility, a politics of choreography must foreground transparency and critical self-reflexivity. This includes acknowledging contradictions, interrogating how authority is distributed, and creating structures that support collective creativity while remaining accountable.

Expanded choreography’s promise lies in its openness—to difference, to emergence, and to new forms of relationality. Its challenge lies in refusing to settle for comfortable myths of the solitary genius choreographer or the neat closure of fixed authorship. Instead, it invites ongoing negotiation, critical dialogue, and a politics that is as plastic and mutable as the dance it seeks to unleash.

In this spirit, the question “Can choreographers choreograph expanded choreography?” is not a call for negation but an opening—a prompt to rethink who choreographs, how, and to what ends. The future of choreography depends on our willingness to hold this question in tension, embracing the complexities of authorship as a site of creative possibility and political transformation.

Expanded Choreography’s Provocation Is Not That “You Cannot Dance,” But That You Cannot Be the Only One Dancing

t h e o r y s l o 0 p —

Expanded Choreography’s Provocation Is Not That “You Cannot Dance,” But That You Cannot Be the Only One Dancing

Expanded choreography unsettles traditional notions of dance by challenging the idea that movement is the property of isolated virtuosity or singular authority. Its provocation is not a denial of the capacity to dance, but a radical insistence that dance is inherently relational — a collective, participatory act that cannot be monopolized by any one body, style, or institution.

This perspective calls into question hierarchies embedded in classical and contemporary dance cultures that elevate the trained, the formally recognized, and the institutionally validated dancer as the central figure. Instead, expanded choreography reveals how these hierarchies produce exclusions, gatekeeping access to the very definition of dance itself.

The insistence that “you cannot be the only one dancing” foregrounds dance as a site of shared agency and co-creation. It affirms that movement, creativity, and meaning emerge not through solitary mastery but through the interplay of multiple bodies, voices, and perspectives. This challenges the myth of the isolated genius choreographer or solo virtuoso dancer, demanding instead a recognition of dance’s communal, political dimensions.

Importantly, this provocation is not simply an aesthetic or formal innovation; it is a call to politicize dance practice. If dance is always already social, then questions of who gets to dance, how, where, and under what conditions become inseparable from broader struggles over power, inclusion, and domination. Expanded choreography thus invites us to see dance as a terrain of contestation — where entrenched hierarchies can be disrupted, and new possibilities for collective authorship and participation opened.

Yet this politics must be vigilant. The demand for inclusivity risks becoming another form of control if it settles into rigid norms or definitions. Expanded choreography’s provocation therefore also warns against finalizing what dance must be or who must participate. Instead, it calls for an ongoing openness — a refusal to allow any one vision of dance to become hegemonic.

In this way, expanded choreography offers a vital model for art and politics alike: not the solitude of individual freedom, but the messiness and power of collective becoming. It insists that to dance is to be with others, and that no dance can exist in isolation.

One response to “Expanded Choreography’s Provocation Is Not That “You Cannot Dance,” But That You Cannot Be the Only One Dancing”

ppp

August 23, 2025
Counterarguments to Expanded Choreography’s Provocation
1. The Value of Individual Mastery and Artistic Vision
- Artistic excellence often requires years of disciplined, individual training.
- Singular authorship can lead to innovative, cohesive artistic statements that collective processes may dilute.
- Historical precedent: Many groundbreaking works in dance (e.g., Balanchine, Graham, Forsythe) emerged from strong individual visions.
2. Practical Challenges of Collective Creation
- Logistical difficulties: Coordinating large groups can hinder spontaneity, precision, and artistic coherence.
- Quality control: Collective processes may prioritize inclusivity over technical or aesthetic rigor.
- Decision-making: Consensus-based creation can slow down or water down artistic direction.
3. The Role of Institutions and Standards
- Institutions preserve and transmit dance traditions, techniques, and histories.
- Standards ensure quality and provide benchmarks for skill development.
- Gatekeeping as curation: Not all exclusions are unjust; some serve to maintain artistic integrity or safety.
4. Risks of Relativism
- Anything goes? If dance is defined purely by participation, the distinction between dance and other movement forms may dissolve, undermining the art form’s specificity.
- Loss of craft: Without standards, the depth and complexity of dance as a discipline could be eroded.
5. Political and Social Naivety
- Collective processes can be co-opted by dominant voices or ideologies, even within “inclusive” frameworks.
- Not all participation is empowering: Forced or tokenistic inclusion can be as oppressive as exclusion.
- Utopian assumptions: The idea that collective creation inherently disrupts power hierarchies ignores how new hierarchies can form within groups.
6. Audience and Reception
- Audience expectations: Many viewers seek virtuosity, clarity, and intentionality, which can be harder to achieve in purely collective works.
- Accessibility vs. depth: Highly participatory works may sacrifice depth for accessibility, limiting the potential for transformative artistic experiences.
7. The Myth of Pure Collectivity
- Even in collective processes, leadership and influence are unevenly distributed.
- Authorship is never fully shared: Someone always initiates, edits, or frames the work, even if implicitly.
8. Cultural and Contextual Limitations
- Not all dance traditions value collectivity over individual expression (e.g., classical ballet, flamenco, certain ritual dances).
- Cultural appropriation risks: Expanded choreography’s emphasis on participation can lead to superficial engagement with traditions not one’s own.
9. Economic and Professional Realities
- Career paths: Professional dancers and choreographers rely on recognition of individual skill for employment and funding.
- Market demands: The dance economy often rewards star power and clear authorship.
Reply

Comment Cancel reply

Expanded Choreography: Anarchism Not Democracy

t h e o r y s l o 0 p —

Expanded Choreography: Anarchism Not Democracy

Expanded choreography challenges the traditional frameworks of dance by pushing beyond fixed forms, institutional authority, and singular definitions of what dance is or who gets to dance. Rather than simply broadening participation or promoting inclusivity in a democratic sense, expanded choreography aligns more closely with anarchism — a politics of decentralization, mutual respect, and the refusal of imposed hierarchies.

While democracy often implies majority rule, fixed procedures, and formal representation, anarchism emphasizes ongoing negotiation, fluidity, and the dismantling of power structures that enforce domination. This distinction is crucial for understanding the political potential of expanded choreography.

Emma Bigé’s analysis in Danser l’Anarchie shows how postmodern dance collectives such as the Judson Dance Theater and Contact Improvisation embody anarchist principles. These groups reject centralized leadership and institutional gatekeeping, instead cultivating collaborative creativity where authority is dispersed and participants co-create the rules and forms of engagement. This anarchist approach refuses to settle on a final, fixed definition of dance, embracing openness and multiplicity.

This political stance disrupts the dominant hierarchies in dance that privilege trained bodies, choreographers, and formal institutions. Expanded choreography exposes how these hierarchies exclude many forms of movement and many bodies from being recognized as legitimate dancers. But crucially, it does not simply replace one centralized authority with another; it insists on a continual process of decentralizing power and redistributing agency.

In this way, expanded choreography refuses the idea of dance as a product of majority rule or fixed democratic norms. Instead, it invites us to imagine dance as an ongoing, anarchic process — a shared practice where differences coexist without domination and where authority is always provisional and contested.

This anarchic model offers a powerful challenge not only to how dance is made and experienced, but to how we think about politics and community more broadly. It asks us to consider how collective life can be organized without hierarchy, how cooperation can emerge from difference without coercion, and how freedom can be realized in the ongoing refusal of domination.

In conclusion, expanded choreography’s provocation is not that “you cannot dance,” but that “you cannot be the only one dancing.” This is a call for collective becoming grounded in anarchism — a politics of openness, multiplicity, and shared agency that resists closure and domination in all their forms.

GABRIELLA, a performance for the dead of night.

Den Kosmiska Havsträdgårdspassagen
PETER, undead Living Documents
PETER, DANCE DANCE HISTORY
PETER, the plague
PETER, raum
PETER, 1987-2017
PETER, in labour for consideration
PETER, (6mins)
PETER, Fuck you!
PETER,(20mins)
LYN, A performance for the dead of night
RACHEL, A performance for the dead of night
GABRIELLA, A performance for the dead of night
The great beyond project,
PETER,(Bearly there)
PETER, (Reflective Nebular)
PETER, (48 hours)
CV

GABRIELLA, a performance for the dead of night.

GABRIELLA, A performance for the dead of night, Stockholm(SE) 2015

GABRIELLA, a performance for the dead of night, is a 45minute solo performed by Gabriella Ax Tripsiani, starting at 5.30am outside Zinkensdamms T-bana. Gabriella and Peter explore being in the world when the world sleeps, through walking, exploring, moving, touching, listening, meditating, embodying and existing.

During the solo performance you are guided and walk in silence through the streets. Stopping to spend time with and encounter the city at night through a short performance in the dark.

In 2016 we will to have a performance every month, check here and facebook for information.

Peter Mills, artist PETER is exploring how we exist in the world, using reformulation Peter devises alternative form through which to understand the body’s, a person’s activities and place in the world. Peter met Gabriella Ax Tripsiani first when they were performing a energetic, fierce, momentous performances within the fabulous Francine Agbodjalou’s “the foxy dance dance” show, then again when the pair danced in Paloma Madrid initiated collective performance which rattled the establishment at Doch university. Gabriella and Peter next met at Stockholms’ Anarchist book fair when they started to engage in conversations about creation, performance and anti-capitalist solidarity. This project now has allow them to further this conversation and make actual some of the ground they wish to venture together. Both are excited to share and give the gift of this experience they explore.

GABRIELLA, a performance for the dead of night is the first in part in a series of solos. Gabriella Ax Tripsiani, Rachel Tess, Lyn Bentschik, and PETER are all apart of the series of solos for the dead of night, exploring existence in different places and parts of the city. We hope you can attend and follow our journeys.

The project is nonfunded and has no production house, an Indy project made for and by artists. We only perform when we have a large enough group to join and we ask for donations to support the project, process and artists.

Performance/choreography: Gabriella Ax Tripsiani
Concept: Peter Mills