On a Five Dimensional Pedagogy

In the beginning was the Word.

At least I thought so until I saw Wim Wenders’ film Pina last night. In the beginning, middle and the end are the undulating movements of her dancers that reach past language, through language, both into us and past us, into dimensions with which we work but dimensions we rarely invoke consciously in our work as playwright artists creating new work in the theater.

I have never seen work that so clearly builds and leads us from the very beginning– zero dimension, stillness, abyss through encounter (the second dimension), flowering (third), expansion to all possibility (the fourth dimension) and then finally, the fifth dimension of manifestation.

Bausch mistrusted words. They lacked specificity, she is said to have said. “Um, ya know. Like that.” She preferred the porous concrete of the entire integrated organism, active in all five dimensions, to embody her work. And she did not brook ambiguity. Unless she did.

I have never seen work that so clearly builds and leads us from the very beginning– zero dimension, stillness, abyss through encounter (the second dimension), flowering (third), expansion to all possibility (the fourth dimension) and then finally, the fifth dimension of manifestation. The crystal birthing of something eternally true. We live in the third dimension and go to the fourth to select whatever time and space we choose to inhabit and with the help of the fifth dimension we create it. Poof. It’s what technique offers us. The time/space travel pass. The flexibility, the undulating arm, the perfect body mind spirit to be a clear channel, conduit for what is really real and truly true.

I love to work with these five stages in facilitating new work. We as artists are actively playing with expanding and contracting visions all the time. The artist learns to master this dynamic. It’s not just plot, dialogue, character and a park bench. Our work lives most vitally when it resonates through a limitless universe.

And the teacher, director, the leader holds all these spaces open and safe so that the artist can enter. Reach through one to five and bring into reality just exactly what we desire. Wow. That’s what we do and why we do it. Watch that movie if you need a reminder. And then keep oiling the pathways.

We have some work to do.

And we “got some ‘splaining to do.”