How to draw a good line
The name of this proposal emerges from a conversation; it was spoke by a Japanese dancer, as a group of us spoke about our experiences, memories, and questions at the intersection of Chinese calligraphy, dance, and martial arts. This conversation is part of a film I am currently finishing, which documents a process-based gathering a group of Chinese and Japanese diaspora women artists living in Vienna, wherein we play with the writing, copying, interpreting, translating and reading of a 4-word poem by my late grandfather. The writing and reading is transdisciplinary: we move with water, brush, ink, sand, and the gestural vocabularies of martial arts and contemporary dance. My intention in gathering us together to make this film was to explore language as a technology of energy circulation: specifically how practising Chinese calligraphy cultivates ‘qi’ vital energy. My grandfather’s poem that we copy in different modes throughout the film can be translated literally as “what, place, writing, sound”, but indirectly, one might also hear the question “do you read me?” In repeating the question of his poem, the actions of writing and reading move us through the continuation of a flow of energy, echoing from his words. The questions that emerge from this process entangle diasporic experiences across generations and geographies, in fragmented and disjointed modes of understanding. As we learn to read together, we explore how language is embodied in a form of writing that is always also drawing, and how this might offer different forms of meaning. I propose to show clips of this film interspersed with a lecture performance describing the process of working together, my background research on qi cosmology, and how this connects with my ongoing study of the internal martial art of taijiquan. I would invite a discussion of 10-15 minutes after a 30 minute presentation. In terms of relevance to the Forum’s stated research sub-themes, my proposal finds resonances with: The relationship between inscription and body The relationship between verbal and non-verbal modes of articulation The relationship between text and materiality Text as texture (including visual, sonic, haptic textures, etc.) Thinking beyond and within language Suspension and suspending as artistic operations Elasticity, gravity, and floating, either as objects of research or as epistemic metaphors