Thorne podcast: Counter Encounters

This episode of the Thorne podcast by the Rose Choreographic School is a conversation between the three members of the curatorial and research initiative Counter Encounters, Laura Huertas Millán, Onyeka Igwe, and Rachael Rakes. Together they engage forms of anti and alter ethnographies in cinema and contemporary art. https://rosechoreographicschool.com/publications/thorns-episode-five#thorns-episode-five-transcript

Rachael: “And also, going back to what you both mentioned about the double distancing of cinema, that by producing something that appears as representation, or is supposed to be representation, you're actually like taking twice away. First by recording it and then by showing it and having that live as the archive. You're taking double agency away perhaps from the original enunciation , because it is archived. And so, what are the possibilities outside of that, by not following that framework of archive as we know it?” (…)

Laura: “Yeah, and perhaps without wanting to sound arrogant, but I have the impression that being a filmmaker has so much to do with being a choreographer, even more than perhaps being a theatre director. Because in a way, cinema is such a microscope, every tiny event becomes a monumental happening. And, in that sense, whenever I get into a situation of filming something along with people, it becomes a situation where I have to understand how my body is vibrating with these people, or how we can connect in a way that goes beyond words. It has so much to do with our body language. And if you have the camera in your hands, it has a lot to do also with finding the tempo, the rhythm of a scene, there is a sort of vibration that you have to tune in your filmmaking during the recording moment.”