Over time, however, otium began to fade, swept away by a world that is almost exclusively based on economic exchanges. Leisure time, whether fruitful or not, was degraded because the totality of available time had to meet the demands of commercial utilitarianism. The trade, "negotium" - "nec otium", denied otium. Utilitarianism has been engraved as a basic yardstick in all spheres of life, there has been an instrumentalization of thinking, social relations, of the world. Nature and other living beings have been degraded into a source, a material that we can arbitrarily shape, use, abuse.

Moreover, our society has developed horror of boredom, this is particularly true for the art (and spectacle) market. However, effects of the long time to the spectators are surprising. Looking at the same loop for a long time brings pleasure and wakes up curiosity. After a certain while, the perception becomes sharper and the gaze more sensitive to detail and to slight changes, each loop becomes a small surprise because it is not always completely the same or because there is another detail that was not noticed before. The magical effect of repetition is stretching and bending the perception of space and time. It makes us feel the time stopped and we are drawn into a single, present moment. Suddenly, an escape from the loop seems impossible, a change to another loop is perceived as being brutal or violent; from inside of the moving body and from the point of view of the spectator as well. 

Still, the main challenge seems to be on the side of the moving body : after a certain time, the body becomes tired due to stereotypical charge and each repetition becomes more and more painful. In order to minimise the pain, the original loop starts to mute, to divert, to differ from the original, independently of the dancers’ will. Therefore, our research focused to a possibility to find a „sustainable movement“ that could be kept for a very very long time. And that wouldn’t be banal… (to be continued in the next blog)