so, i was reading up on parkour (you should check it out- very interesting philosophy). and i stumbled across "contact improvisation," a dance technique said to have a loose tie (and i emphasize loose) to parkour (i think because of the "improvisational nature of interacting with another"). here are some videos, one serious and one mocking... (maybe you may have trouble deciding which is which) no, not to be disparaging, but you can see how contact improv leaves itself "open" for abuse (in MANY ways).
... i think about this in the context of "push hands" (tui shou) practice in taijiquan... i also think about this in terms of everyday interaction with people, particularly, but also objects... a person/object only appears as it is because of our expectations of how to interact with it/him/her... the ways in which we interact with our environment are largely determined by culture. even in "interaction contexts" with the explicit goal of "freeing us" from culturally determined interaction schema, there are rules. without those rules, there is potential for damage and abuse (also potential for a lot of ridiculous, frivolous behavior)...
as an exploratory tool, perhaps even as a therapeutic tool, to determine one's relationship to space/others, i think it would be interesting... however, as with everything, to play the game, you've got to know the rules... note in the first video how there is this subtle struggle between two individuals because neither is clear where the motion is going, who is in control... (common problem in push hands, at times...)
i would say most "interactive" arts "reassert" a new "naturalistic" order/relationing: note the tie between contact improv to "physics" (i.e., learning how to be a body in motion, or a body at rest), and the tie between parkour and hunters in africa (who, without any "gym equipment" have developed lithe bodies, solely in response to their natural environments).
we are always in relation to space, to others... reasserting the potential for new interactions MUST be accompanied by new rules for those interactions. a common failing of the western mindset is the assumption of a tabula rasa, a blank slate for "unprogrammed contact." but this does not exist. objects/people are ALWAYS produced in context. fetuses "appear" in a biological context, the womb, influenced by countless minute forces/fields that are INDISTINGUISHABLE from it: gravity, electricity, etc...
tui shou, or push hands, is a highly structured activity, because it is designed to train a specific kind of sensitivity in a specific kind of "stance." if you engage in any kind of "relational" activity, always be aware of what you are doing it for, what is the purpose, what are the rules... be wary of any "art" which proposes a "natural" state; while it may be "natural" in the sense of more healthy/efficient/etc., it IS a reprogramming, and you should be aware of its boundaries. simply "trusting" in the naturalness of anything is bound to make you: 1) narcissistic/egotistical (if you are performing this "art," then things are "right"); 2) incompatible with "true" contexts...
this goes, by the way, for zen, zazen... while the object of zen practice is "enlightenment," it too is a specific cultural practice. zen masters like dogen were poignantly aware of this (thus his question of "what is the object of sitting?"). as long as you are aware of the context of any activity, and as long as you align yourself with that context, the activity doesn't "fill you", you "fill" the activity...
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