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Rethinking Performance
Posted by Joseph Riggio on Sunday, May 04, 2008Everybody seems interested in performance ... if not their own than that of others.
For some the fascination begins with the extreme performance of elite performers like Olympic level athletes, for others it can be the outstanding performance of renown entrepreneurs and investors, for others the master-class mental performances of world-class chess players are what catch their attention, yet for another group it will be the day to day performance of making a life worth living ... but regardless of the specifics what we’re talking about can be thought of as an aesthetic consideration
Folks,
Howdy ... I’m almost feeling like I have a head cold, all full up with something that I can’t quite get clear. Yet in this case I know that the experience I’m having has much more to do with ideas than anything else. I’ve been rolling around in ideas for days, weeks, months ... or maybe more correctly years. Most of this time the ideas have flowed pretty well ... and to a great extent that remains true for me. Yet there I find myself tending a new crop of ideas about some ideas I’ve had for a while. And these new ideas are iterations and referential to a lifetime’s worth of old ideas.
Specifically, I’m finding a few things that stand out:
What seems so significant to me now has to do with the way the ideas are coalescing into some new form. I cannot speak to it yet, but I sense that it will have a form that I can speak to very soon. I already have some sense of where these ideas are going, I’m pretty darn sure of where the ideas have been drawn from that are in the process of coalescing, and I can even speculate on where they could end up in the short-term. What I cannot do yet revolves around a common language that would express what seems to me to be new ideas, although I am perfectly ready to accept that they are more likely revisited ideas that are expressing in a new way.
What I’ve been putting out, the aspect of these ideas that has been accessible to me for the last couple of years at least, has been around the idea of performance as an aesthetic consideration. Most folks are looking at performance from an analytical position, seeking to quantify the components to create a impact on the total performance experience. This would be anti-aesthetic in my opinion.
The primary distinction of the aesthetic consideration begins with the perception of the wholeform experience, perceiving the entirety of the experience as a singularity as opposed to a set of linked fragments.
Beyond the perception of the wholeform experience operating from the aesthetic consideration the perception of either “well-formedness” or “ill-formedness” of the experience becomes obvious.
Well-formedness and ill-formedness are expressions of the pattern inherent in the experience and the context that the experience occurs within.
My simple take on performance as an aesthetic consideration lives inside of the idea that the aesthetic consideration resides in the sensual experience of pattern ... both pattern as resonant and dissonant forms. Thinking about form as the primary consideration ... the wholeform experience, how the entirety operates ... positions the performer in a different relationship with performance.
Instead of considering fixing the aspects of the performance that are somehow wrong or not working, the performer who operates from the aesthetic consideration operates in regard to the wholeform experience, which resides beyond any specific aspect of the performance ... in this way of operating intention informs actions and overrides analysis.
We can say that we’re discussing the concept of intentionality here. This concept has been at the heart of my thinking since at least 2002 when I began my research for my doctoral dissertation. In fact the concept of intentionality became the central concept of my dissertation. [If you’re interested you can read more about this in my full dissertation “Towards A Theory of Transpersonal Decision-Making in Human Systems”, which you can purchase from Amazon.com.]
What I’ve been putting my attention on has been getting these ideas together in a a coherent form and then out in some way that makes sense independent of the entire historical context in which they were fermented. The basis of what I’ve been doing has been rooted in literally centuries of material dating back to the early Greeks. I know that the culmination I’ve been moving to, must stand alone before I’ll be able to express it in a way that relieves the sense of stuffiness I’ve been experiencing. So I’ve been dancing around the absolute center of the idea until very recently. Now I’m much, much closer and sense I’m closing in on that expression that will pull it all together for me.
Joseph Riggio
Princeton, NJ
P.S.: There’s still time to get in on the Intentional Performance program in Denmark this July. If you’re reading here ... you’ll probably be thrilled to be part of what we’ll be doing there ... go ahead download the brochure Intentional Performance.
PPS ... we are also still offering the entire Intentional Performance program for only $1750 when you attend both this program and the 2008 MythoSelf Facilitator’s/Trainer’s Intensive Training ... that’s a full $1000 off the Intentional Performance program fee!
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Dazed and Confused …
Posted by Joseph Riggio on Thursday, May 01, 2008Moving beyond the limits ...
Leaving behind what no longer works has been a long hard road ... and yet so utterly satisfying in every drop of sweat, blood and tears shed.
Now I find myself more and more embracing and being embraced by the aesthetic ... residing in aesthetic arrest ... and finding my performances expanding in ways unimaginable ... only possible in an imaginal way ...
Howdy all,
Some folks have been noticing that I’ve been appearing infrequently here on my blog ... at least based on some private emails I’ve been receiving. Well there are a bunch of reasons I could give, or I could sum them all up and say that I’ve been overwhelmed with the amount of things to be doing ... but it all becomes meaningless because regardless of what might be going on in my life or yours we all do what we decide is imperative for us to be doing. Simply I haven’t been called to be writing so much here lately ... and I’m beginning to think I understand a bit more why.
Let me start a bit earlier back than where we are right now. First of all I think we all want to live lives full of meaning and purpose ... to be in the flow of the cosmos knowing we are standing in a position well suited to us and where we can make an impact of some kind based on our unique potential ...
It was 1969 and I was most assuredly Dazed and Confused ... when Led Zeppelin debuted the tune with that same title on their premier album Led Zeppelin after Jimmy Page, who IMO was the greatest blues-rock guitarist of all time, reworked a version of the same tune from an earlier group he played with, the Yardbirds. The tune was originally written by a folk singer named Jake Holmes in 1967. It’s a dark tune about what sounds like a bad relationship or maybe an evil woman if you listen to the lyrics closely. But what Holmes said about in a 2001 interview was this:
“The song’s about a girl who hasn’t decided whether she wants to stay with me or not. It’s pretty much one of those love songs.”
I was ten years old when they released that album and that song. When I first heard it I was probably closer to twelve years old and it was 1971. The world around me was dazed and confused ... it was literally in a cultural, social upheaval ... war was raging, rioting had transformed the country and more specifically the city I lived in, politicians had lost virtually all their credibility ... the chant all around was a combination of “Down with the establishment!” and “Question Authority” ... I was a child of revolution, not an external revolution like civil war, but an internal revolution of the mind ... of values ... of everything that represented stability in the world as I knew it to be.
So I listened ... John Paul Jones driving the tune with that compelling, entrancing, exquisitely simple descending bass line ... Page with those ethereal sounds as he bowed his guitar ... John Bonham supporting the pulsing rhythms on drums ... and Robert Plant with that hauntingly pained vocal ... it was mesmerizing long before I heard the words. Literally it was a song title and a soundscape to me and for me ... a way beyond the limits of what I saw, heard and felt going on around me ... maybe even a way out.
The question of course would be, “A way beyond what?” ... “A way out of what?”
The simplest answer I could possibly offer would be, “A way beyond and out of the position of being dazed and confused ... beyond and out of the roiling circumstances surrounding me.”
As I’ve said this wasn’t, isn’t, about the words ... the lyrics ... nothing particularly profound there IMO ... true and honestly raw maybe ... but not profound. It was a purely aesthetic experience ... something that drew me in and opened up to me another position of perception. That sound drew me in and restructured how I saw the world around me, what I heard in what was being said, how I felt about it all ... even that which I myself couldn’t express ... couldn’t even point to ... and yet knew as well as I know my name that it was so ... aesthetic arrest.
At the time I was a committed fan ... listening to Led Zeppelin the way my children today listen to the bands they too find transport them as well. I must say I don’t get it, I don’t get the same experience of being transported by what they are listening to as they do, yet I do get that they are ... transported and beyond the limitations of the present.
And now we are back again ... to the present. I’ve made more than one comment about the idea expressed in the phrase, “Be Here Now” and all such nonsense pointed to being in the present ... in this space and time we occupy, e.g.: The Power of Now ... like where else can we be?!!?!? Of course we’re all here and now!
Yet many people recognize that they are not available to what is here or now ... what is present in this space and time. In essence they are in another space and time ... a fabrication that they impose on this space and time. It’s not a question of operating with a consideration of alternate space and time being present ... or calling into this space and time the consideration present in other space and time possibilities ... but the imposition on this space and time of another that doesn’t belong or fit.
This then becomes the essence of this dialogue ... the fit ... or as I prefer, the fit and match ... of things. Another way to call this out would be as the pattern of things. Pattern resides at the core ... the heart ... of the aesthetic position. When the pattern is recognized in the sensual experience the veil of the aesthetic has been drawn.
The challenge with all of this ... the aesthetic position ... has to do with the unspeakable nature of it. The aesthetic position cannot be spoken ... nor can it be written ... and therefore I have chosen more and more to remain silent.
I find myself drawn by the pull of the aesthetic. I’ve said clearly that the work I do resides in the aesthetic ... neither scientific or psychological, neither rational or irrational ... maybe non-rational, it’s not even philosophical ... although it’s most definitely informed by all of these and contained by none of them. I follow the pattern to see where it leads. Try selling that to a client who thinks they are paying for results!
Yet ... this is where I am ... embracing and embraced by the aesthetic. I am positioning myself more and more to hold this position ... for myself and for those who seek something of the same ... aesthetic arrest ...
Best regards,
Joseph Riggio
Architect and Designer of the MythoSelf Process
Princeton, NJ
I am stepping outside of the contained position this summer .. stepping into that place where the aesthetic reigns ... and yet connecting it to the place where we live in our ‘ordinary’ lives as well ... Intentional Performance ... it will be exciting to see who’s ready to let go and show up ... all I can promise is that I’ll be there and no where else.
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