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?