Dancing with equine partnersTHE POSSIBILITY OF RELATIONAL ART FOR RESPECTFUL ENGAGEMENTS WITH HORSES - AND OTHER ANIMALS?

Victor J Krawczyk, PhD Candidate, University of South Australia, Magill Campus, AustraliaJoAnna Mendl Shaw, The Equus Projects + Onsite NYC, The Ailey School, Fordham University, New York, United States.

Introduction An overview of relational art

Dancing with horses in Hovdala Castle Forest

Maintaining good relations between horses and human company members1. Working organically 2. Keeping the horse interested

Final thought and respectful engagements with other animals

Acknowledgements and selected references

Overview of relational art “An art taking as its theoretical horizon the realm of human interactions and its social context, rather than the assertion of an independent and private symbolic space” (Bourriaud, 1998/2002, p. 14).

Félix González-Torres (American, 1957–1996). "Untitled" (Portrait of Ross in L.A.), 1991. Candies individually wrapped in multi-coloured cellophane, endless supply.

Dancing with horses in Hovdala Castle Forest

Tal Adler (standing) of The Equus Projects played the role of the Swedish military gentleman in this interspecies performance. Jonas Wictorsson (seated) of Kilten Kultur was Alder’s main dance partner and played the role of young squire.

Carlye Eckert (squatting) of The Equus Projects with Manno showing interest in her.

Dancing with horses in Hovdala Castle Forest

There’s never a moment where we are trying to imitate horse behaviour or have circus tricks or anything of that nature. It is more about translating the horse relationships into human relationships and seeing how we can integrate these two things.

- Jessica Martineau, dancer.

Carlye Eckert at work with Manno for Håstdans på Hovdala (i.e., The Hovdala Castle Project).

Dancing with horses in Hovdala Castle Forest

Almost like with people, to know the horse’s limits. To know what makes them angry, what makes them anxious, what makes them scared. To know how far I can push, and when to, I have to stop and respect that. Because that’s the horse that I’m working with. I think it’s respecting their personality.

- Tal Adler, dancer.

Dancing with horses in Hovdala Castle Forest Bourriard (1998/2002) believes that through relational art “the role of the artist is no longer to form imaginary and utopian realities, but to actually be ways of living and models of action within the existing real [world], whatever the scale chosen by the artists” (p. 13).

Maintaining good relations between horses and dancers

Horses share social characteristics and needs with humans, use similar nonverbal communication language modalities to attain these needs, and can choose members of other species as friends. Because of this, they are able to come together with humans through a co-created and understood embodied language, potent in its ability to create relational meaning, and compelling affective forces (Argent 2012, pp. 115-116).

Video link to Equus: https://vimeo.com/47783377

1. Working organically Usually when I ride the horse I try to dance with my horse and act with my horse, that is it’s a constant dialogue, it’s a constant shaping his body with my body, and this added a third element which was a human relationship between me and the dancer.

- Francesca, equestrian.

They are moving in some type “somatic attunements and attentions that are partly about uncovering and discovering what bodies can do, and partly about taking control of them, creating and making senses of bodily kinetics” (Maurstad, Davis, & Cowles, 2013, p. 326).

2. Keeping the horse interested …the horse has nothing on, no halter, no rope, no saddle, no reins, nothing. And in that scenario we are usually in what's called a round pen, which is a small pen that we build with stakes and rope to give sort of a perimeter to the horse's area. And that's actually the scenario that we enjoy the most because we don't have anything to directly manipulate the horse. You really just have to rely on your horsemanship skills and how connected you are to the horse. And you have to rely on their natural curiosity to get them to interact with you and to dance with you.

- Hannah, dancer.

Final thoughts and respectful engagements with other animals

Two questions were asked:

1. Can Bourriaud’s conception of relational art be extend to the interspecies performance, viz. the work of the Equus Projects?

2. Given the work of The Equus Projects has been found to be relational in nature, how do members of the company, particularly the humans, attend to creating good relations with their equine partners?

Humans in the company they have an embodied experience of the emotions, mind and sheer physicality of these animals, which help to engender respectful engagements, relations.

Can these embodied experiences within the frames of relational art be carried to other contexts to create less exploitative relations with other animals?

Acknowledgement and selected references

Acknowledgements:

Animal Public Conference Organisers, The University of Melbourne, The Equus Projects + Onsite NYC, Human and Non-human Animal Research Participants, PhD Supervisor: A/Professor Monica Anne Hamilton-Bruce (The University of Adelaide and Queen Elizabeth Hospital) and PhD Supervisor: Dr Gilbert Caluya (University of South Australia).

Selected References: Argent, G. (2012). Toward a privileging of the nonverbal: Communication, corporeal synchrony and transcendence in humans and horses. In J. A. Smith & R. W. Mitchell (Eds.), Experiencing animal minds: An anthology of animal-human encounters. New York: Columbia University Press.

Bourriaud, N. (1998/2002). Relational aesthetics (S. Pleasance, F. Woods, & M. Copeland, Trans.). Dijon: Les presses du réel.

Chaudhuri, U. (2014). Introduction: Animal acts for changing times, 2.0: A field guide to interspecies performance. In U. Chaudhuri & H. Hughes (Eds.), Animal acts: Performing species today (pp. 1-12). Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.

Maurstad, A., Davis, D., & Cowles, S. (2013). Co-being and intra-action in horse-human relationships: A multi-species enthnography of be(com)ing human and be(com)ing horse. Social Anthropology, 23(3), 322-335.