The meshwork metaphor invites to perceive entities, lands, and knowledges as entanglements contributing to each other’s continuous formation. We all can be perceived as
hives of activity, pulsing with the flows of materials that keep us alive[1]. Within
this approach, any knowledge is considered indivisible from the material, corporeal
reality, and the entire world is infused with meaning.
The meshwork approach is built on the notion of animacy reclaimed from the anthropological ground towards indigenous readings. For example, it is inspired by and corresponds with “indigenous place-thought”. Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe scholar Vanessa Watts describes Place-Thought as “a theoretical understanding of the world via a physical embodiment”.[2]
Following this approach within choreographic practice entails both perceptual and practical consequences. It becomes a tool affecting work organization and mode of collaboration. Thus, meshwork choreography is about the collective process of becoming attentive and critical. It sensitizes to the value of co-inciding, underlining the role of emergent outcomes and relational skills. It asks to acknowledge the richness of embodied, situated knowledges, nurturing the dialogue and affirmative critique between different knowledge-holding entities and communities through collaborative work.
[1] Tim Ingold, Materials against materiality. ‘Archeological Dialogues’, 14, 2007.
[2] Vanessa Watts, Indigenous place-thought & agency amongst humans and non-humans (First Woman and Sky Woman go on a European world tour!). ‘Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society’, 2:1, 2013.
[3] Vanessa Watts, Indigenous place-thought & agency amongst humans and non-humans (First Woman and Sky Woman go on a European world tour!). ‘Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society’, 2:1, 2013.
[4] Sarah Ahmed, Queer Phenomenology. Orientations, Objects, Others, Durham-London 2006.
The meshwork approach is built on the notion of animacy reclaimed from the anthropological ground towards indigenous readings. For example, it is inspired by and corresponds with “indigenous place-thought”. Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe scholar Vanessa Watts describes Place-Thought as “a theoretical understanding of the world via a physical embodiment”.[2]
“Place-Thought is the non-distinctive space where place and thought were never separated because they never could or can be separated. Place-Thought is based upon the premise that land is alive and thinking and that humans and non-humans derive agency through the extensions of these thoughts.”[3]
Following this approach within choreographic practice entails both perceptual and practical consequences. It becomes a tool affecting work organization and mode of collaboration. Thus, meshwork choreography is about the collective process of becoming attentive and critical. It sensitizes to the value of co-inciding, underlining the role of emergent outcomes and relational skills. It asks to acknowledge the richness of embodied, situated knowledges, nurturing the dialogue and affirmative critique between different knowledge-holding entities and communities through collaborative work.
“To co-incide suggests how different things happen at the same moment, a happening that bring things near to other things, whereby the nearness shapes the shape of each thing”.[4]
[1] Tim Ingold, Materials against materiality. ‘Archeological Dialogues’, 14, 2007.
[2] Vanessa Watts, Indigenous place-thought & agency amongst humans and non-humans (First Woman and Sky Woman go on a European world tour!). ‘Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society’, 2:1, 2013.
[3] Vanessa Watts, Indigenous place-thought & agency amongst humans and non-humans (First Woman and Sky Woman go on a European world tour!). ‘Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society’, 2:1, 2013.
[4] Sarah Ahmed, Queer Phenomenology. Orientations, Objects, Others, Durham-London 2006.