Crip-Time-Travel

Marseille.

I have done some pictures sitting on the “Sessel” of my room, which I re-organized to be looking towards one of the 2 big windows, to sunbathe. The room is bright and spacious. The mattress is good, and hard enough to avoid further back pain.

I try to go slow, even though I always want to go fast. One of my favorite songs is from the 80´s movie, Streets of Fire, and I think that even the title is “Nowhere Fast”.

I´m learning to respect my crip time. To sunbathe from a room, without creating further frustrations about “not being out there” all the time. My Saggitarius nature surrendered to my Taurus rising. Me learning to listen to my body signs. Rest, stretch, walk, and do less. There is an abundance in slow-pacing, even though you learned otherwise.

I tend to compare my time with other people´s time. Generally, in a way that is damaging to my health. Sometimes all that is needed is a phone call, and a well-intentioned friend asking: have you been at the beach? If I were you I would be all the time at the beach. I completely forget that this friend has other crip issues (no fatigue) and that they are not used to having so much on their plate as I do, therefore, their self-care is daily. And I do need extra. I need breaks. I need to compensate for having worked 7 to 12 hours daily for months last year, and I´m not even mentioning the personal issues I had to deal with.

I feel that this research on crip time goes beyond the artistic interest and connects to healing. Healing as a regular practice, not a goal to be reached. I do not intend to reach a place of non-disability. I intend to understand myself better so that I respect my boundaries. I wish to be able to work in a way that is accessible to me. I do not want to be one more artist who adds to the actual trend of talking about and working on the topic of healing. By just understanding my crip time the healing can occur. Maybe I can take you with me on this journey. Maybe you too can stop for a moment and ask yourself if what you are doing is compensating for possible damages done to the body.

I know, of course, I know this: taking breaks is a privilege. It is not always possible, for financial and other reasons too.

But crip time is not about taking breaks only. Crip time is a perception of Chronos which is neither chronological nor cartesian.

Following that friend´s phone call, I decided that, indeed, I needed to find a way to go to the beach. I searched at Google maps and saw that the closest one is 3 km away from the place where I´m staying. Easy peasy, you can do it! Plus points for doing that 20-minute daily exercise recommended by a trusted doctor. Meanwhile, I said to myself “I return home taking an Uber” and, through that, a way to calm down my chronic fatigue was found, and the fear of not being able to make it disappeared.

#criptime #tanzpraxis #tanzrecherche #danceresearch

Crip Time Observations in Research

"(...) when I narrate something through stories, I narrate something that is set within the chronological time-space, but that moves within the time-space of a fictional time" (A. Giostri)

But I, as a disabled person who lives the reality of daily brain-fog, and symptoms that make me experience time differently - my own crip time - I wonder: do we need to tell a story chronologically, or make it extremely clear to the audience when we are using time gaps, moments where Cartesian logic is not followed? Or is this a choice made a long time ago, when art took the molds established as more connected to reality measured through Cartesian theory? I remember a film I watched many years ago called Amnesia, where the main character had short-memory amnesia. The plot developed so that what was happening became clear after some time - not in the exact scene of the event. In other films - Donnie Darko, for example - the sense of the film, as well as the notion of the time narrative, were changing (for me) as I re-watched the film, my perception of it being very different the third time around than the first. If we consider that cinema is something that has been "fixed" (that is: the film I saw for the first time is the same film, from the same recording edition, the first time I watched it) and that, even so - even without being there that "magic" of the present moment of theatre and dance that allows one performance to differ from the other, even if it is the same script - what I watched of Donnie Darko the first time was different the third time, we can think that the notion of time established by the narrative of the story depends not only on who tells it but also on who receives it.

Sobre narrar em diferentes tempos, ou: vivo meu crip time. (English in the next post)

„(...) quando narro algo através de histórias, narro algo que se estabelece dentro do espaço de tempo cronológico, mas que se movimeta dentro do espaço de tempo de um tempo ficcional” (A. Giostri)

Mas eu, como pessoa deficiente que vive a realidade do brainfog diário, e sintomas que me fazem viver o tempo de forma diferente – meu próprio crip time – me pergunto: precisamos contar uma história de forma cronológica, ou deixar extremamente claro para o público quando estamos utilizando gaps de tempo, momentos em que näo se segue a lógica cartesiana? Ou será esta uma escolha feita muito tempo atrás, quando a arte tomou os moldes estabelecidos como mais conectados à realidade medida através da teoria cartesiana? Lembro-me de um filme, que assisti muitos anos atrás, chamado Amnesia, onde a personagem principal tinha amnesia da memória curta. A trama se desenvolvia de tal forma que, o que estava acontecendo, ficava claro depois de algum tempo – não na cena exata do acontecimento. Já em outros filmes – Donnie Darko, por exemplo – o sentido do filme tal como a noção da narrativa de tempo foram se alterando (para mim) a medida em que revi o filme, sendo minha percepcäo do mesmo muito diferente na terceira vez do que na primeira. Se considerarmos que o cinema é algo que foi „fixado“ (isto é: o filme que vi pela primeira vez é o mesmo filme, da mesma edição de gravação, da primeira vez que assisti) e que, mesmo assim – mesmo sem haver aquela „mágica“ do momento presente do teatro e da dança que permitem que uma apresentação difira da outra apesar de ser o mesmo roteiro – o que assisti de Donnie Darko na primeira vez foi diferente da terceira, podemos pensar que a noção do tempo estabelecida pela narrativa da história depende não só de quem a conta, mas também de quem a recebe.