Frey Faust

The right to move

Interview by Claudio Marrucci, English translation by Yunia Fernández Róldan.

If there was a new French Revolution we would probably need to add to the famous terms of Liberty, equality, fraternity, the word “movement”. This is the incredible and innovative vision of the world which Frey Faust presents to us. He has become the person who has made public in the whole world “the movement”. The launch of his book “The Axis Syllabus: Human Movement Analysis and Training Method” will be made in Italian by Castelvecchi, a Roman publishing house. This is something unique in Italian language: people usually write and publish in other languages more used and extended globally or, at least, extended in Europe, such as English, French, German or Spanish. In special way when we talk about the Axis Syllabus’ community, which forms every year more than two thousand dancers from different nationalities, because of workshops and internships that take place in Italy, Spain, Austria, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Russia, Ukraine, New Zealand, Australia, Brazil, Canada, the US… With the exception of a publishing house on-demand that has published the book in English and that reflects the international diffusion of the book-object but not the purpose of the book-product, the publisher Castelvecchi is the first one, globally speaking, which points to a reality widespread consolidated, offering a simple but efficient service: translation. In fact, in this globalized world where everything is one click distance, passing a sheet of paper, smelling a book, losing in the ancestral sounds of the reader’s mother tongue…are values that cannot be neglected in benefit of Google Translator or the applications of computer linguistics and translation. Translating is more an art than a science so, what happens is something inconceivable for sociologists and linguists: l’italiano vive, l’italiano esiste, l’italiano r-esiste . Besides this, Italian language can enshrine the visible head of the Axis Syllabyus, better than English does, with a laurel wreath, finding strenght out of what always has been its weakness: its extreme marginalization and its large provincialism. Apart from that, as Faust teaches us, dance is, first of all, dynamism, mutation, transformation of weak spots into strong points and vice versa. And who knows if we, good Italians, who are also good dancers (at least from the Bismark era, who accused us of flirting too much with our French friend-enemy), we will be able to change the rythm. And who knows if Faust’s book will help us to restart our dynamics.

Frey Faust is an American dancer who lives in Berlin. He received his first dance lessons under the tutelage of his mother when he was 8 years old. He was part of the second generation of Contact and accumulated different skills, including pantomime, capoeira, aikido, percussion, voice and several modalities of dancing. He has worked across the US, Canada, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Oceania, collaborating with artists such as Gina Buntz, Donald Byrd, Merce Cunningham, Nita Little, Ohad Naharin, Meredith Monk, Janet Panetta, David Parsons, Randy Warshaw and Stephen Petronio.

What is dance? 
Dance is probably... well i see it as a sophisticated evolutionary tool for the advance of the human body-form... I think its an interactive technology with the process of evolution. I think that theory bears out because dance and music were born together with the effort to create languages, in fact dance and music were synonymous with language, and we could say that these are the first cultural evidences of the dawn of intelligence, in other words the conscious interaction with the environment. Aside from an important past time, and a very good way of educating the nervous system, but also a good way to socialize, in other words for the individual to find their relationship with the group and vice versa, its also an invitation to relatively non-competitive forms of interaction. And I think dancing profoundly critical cultural value which is endangered. When you look it up in the dictionary, dancing is a mute, physical art-form that uses motif and concept much like music does, using the human body as its primary vehicle.

Is dance innate or is it cultural?
I think its structural... the beating of the heart... the brain's collection and coordination of rhythmic signals from the mayo-fascial sensors... the binary construction of the body that immediately establishes rhythm through movement... our re-delegation of the arms to gesture, or communicative symbolic behavior... Dance is a kinetic language, a vital cultural expression that provides us with a way to discuss and understand things that we cannot articulate any other way without losing something in translation. We can use linguistic torsion to re-associate the expression of the moving body/mind There is the spectator view, and the point of view of the person dancing. If you are inside the body moving its very difficult to express what is happening in words, because there are so many things happening at once. Your body can express the complex amalgam of emotions with no inhibition, but linguistic descriptions parse and simplify emotional states into concepts. Unfortunately, our fluency in this language has been lost with the demise of older religions, the advent of the judeo-christian era, during which dance was demonized and people were prohibited from dancing. However, the rebellion against the oppression of the church left young artists also free of their older heritage as well, and no longer shackled to the expectations of ancient dogma, each individual was allowed the freedom to develop their own "dialect". Unfortunately much of the dance that is presented to today's passive western public is hermetically cryptic. If the public is educated to "appreciate" abstraction, they will invent their own story or perceive their own significance in the work. However, my experience with ceremonial dances is that the isolation of an audience member who is trained to make up a "meaning", cannot compare with the power of a collective understanding of and response to gesture. The freedom for invention and personal expression notwithstanding, I think we have lost something valid and precious, which would allow renewed access to the intellectual, social and health benefits of dancing to young and old. Perhaps we need to consider finding a way to preserve and enhance these traditions with a modern sense of individual dignity. To sum up, yes, I feel dancing is innate at this point, because this activity has probably had so much to do with the current evolutionary state of our physiognomy... its a fundamental activity, that has its rightful place as a popular cultural practice, rather than only the province of an exclusive, marginalized and little understood gladiator caste. I think its a birthright, not because when we are born we know how to dance. We have to learn it the way we have to learn every other skill pertinent to our society. Its a birthright in the sense that dancing is an ancient legacy, an intrinsic inheritance. As Ken Robinson said in his powerful speech on creativity, dance education should be part of regular educational curriculum... because, as he says, arent we are all born with a body? http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html

How can the study of movement engender respect for others? I think any time you feel something, it can serve as the basis for empathy. If I feel pain that raises the likelihood that others feel it as acutely. If I feel my dignity is compromised, then I can understand why others feel the same way in similar circumstances. unfortunately this awareness can also give rise to a wide variety of means for making people feel humiliated or oppressed. However, when you start to move, to cultivate awareness, to appraise more accurately, to make more informed choices about the efficient management of your resources, you become more able with the use of rhythm. You sense of the environment becomes more fluid. Your adaptive skills grow, your confidence grows, and with that confidence, the confidence to meet other people, the confidence to take in... to share. The understanding that our learning process means going from the state of not knowing to knowing engenders interest in that process as others move through it. These are all potential aspects of the cultural practice of dancing. Because it involves the acceptance of our body, the vehicle for our souls, an expression of our character... the lens through which we relate to the world. So when it becomes aware and sensitive, we are able to interface in a more precise and delicate manner. We notice body language faster, we see things coming sooner, we start to question and measure and evaluate: this food, no.. that chemical.. no I dont think so.... that publicity... skeptical.. this is right, but not now... this is wrong... maybe sometime. It is pretext for questioning dogma, for thinking critically. It is the pretext for a more sophisticated social behavior.







Claudio Marrucci