Quantify the Void: Performative failure in dance as a point of departure towards understanding humanity and mortality / Candice Spykers (2022)

In this Practice as Research (PaR) my objective was to translate loss as something that is both an expression and an experience of failure. My aim was to understand failure not as an end, but rather a point of creation, in this way exploring how the choreographic can be both a metaphor and methodology for dealing with loss. This PaR explores my own definition of failure in relation to the loss of my father. It dismantles my personal experience of grief by exploring failure on a micro level as disease within the body, as well as dis-ease in the execution of movement. Aligning with the ‘Theatre of the Absurd’, I used impossible tasks (performative failure) as a point of departure for understanding mortality and resilience. I also explored failure on a meta level by looking at its relationship to ego. Following American, post-modern artists such as John Cage and the artists of Judson Dance Theatre, I explored how relinquishing control (or failing to choreograph) by use of task-oriented procedures, improvisation and chance, can allow for emotional safety and distance, to reflect on personal loss and grief. In this way, the methodology developed looks at how an embodied understanding of failure can be a tool for coping with loss and a way of making meaning of grief. This thesis describes a research process that examines loss through the lens of failure by detailing studio practice that explores what is actually impossible and what reads as failure. It also recounts an artistic output designed to understand what the responsitivity and unpredictability of live dance performance can reveal about how we process loss and accept failure.