I am now having breakfast and I woke up having contemporary and contemporaneity in my mind. No big revelations, just some morning thoughts.
Our working language in the Research Academy for Dance and Choreography is English. So, I take it from there. Contemporary consists of two units etymologically. These are “con” (meaning “with”) and “temporary” (from latin “tempus” meaning “time”).
So, I noticed that already with the first “con” element, contemporary implies a gathering, a together-ing, a with-ing. One cannot be contemporary if one is alone. In order to be contemporary one needs to be and act with others. I am assuming these others can be people, spaces, constructs, networks, relations.
But above all one needs to be with time or tempus. But time is simultaneously abstract and concrete, it can only be grasped by its affects and its effects, it is immobile and unstopable, it is generic and holistic.
Concerning then dance and choreography, I am wondering whether these are the constituent elements that define them as contemporary? Togethering, abstracting and concreting, affecting and effecting, immobility, generality?
Some evening thoughts on Costas’ morning thoughts, but mostly a non-sense game with words:
I was thinking as well on the etymology related to the translation of the words “contemporary dance” in Greek, that is “synchronos choros” [syn=plus or together, chronos=time, choros=dance or chorus].
Back to English; when we use the adjective “synchronized”, we usually refer to a number or a series of moments, but when we use the word “contemporary” we refer to a situation, a continuity.
But since one moves through moments or fragments of mo(ve)ments, couldn’t we possibly invent a connection by translating them into a new language, couldn’t we create their continuity, if we really need it?