Notes from Erdlinge erweitert (2023)

These are samples of notes – pieces of writing, photos, a few recordings – from research on dance and ecology, or dance in living places, that I did in late spring – early summer in year 2023. It is about embodied relationship to the non-human life in green places within urban environment. Specifically mostly Volkspark Rehberge, and Park am Plötzensee, in Berlin-Wedding.

Note: While my research into this wider topic continues, I am not updating this page with further notes or findings anymore. This page serves as a document to what happened at that point in time.

  

Blue weed, alyssum and a bee. All photos by Akseli.

Introduction

I am looking for ways to live in an ecosphere, to ‘co-live’ with other life forms that are also there. Trying to find a more conscious way, more open with senses, to be with living and populated places. And yes, let that lead into dance and performance. To find some forms of co-living rather than imposing something on a place.

It is a search for some kind of connecting. However, it is important to me to note, that I am not looking for ‘nature’ in a sense of opposition to human, or opposition to the city. We all exist in this ecosphere already.

It starts from from very basic and simple things. Sensing. Listening. The longer I spend on it, the more I find.

  

Sensing and writing.

  

Akseli looking for artemisia in Park am Plötzensee.

Funding: 'Erdlinge erweitert' is supported by Fonds Darstellende Künste with funds from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media as part of NEUSTART KULTUR.

  

Gundermann (maahumala, ground-ivy) blooming in May in Park am Plötzensee.

Finding a lot to sense — soil

Rattling, ruffling leaves, dry leaves, porous, delicate in structure – they are warm and simultaneously bit slippery and rough, spiky at places. The soil below is soft to the toe, wet and cool. It embraces my toes and fingers in a warm wet hug. All encompassing. One could drown in this, slowly decompose. Decompose away happy. Become one with planet Earth.

At what point do dead leaves and sticks turn into soil? What is the intermediate state between a distinct part, discernible object and the fine-grained soft mass? Does the intermediate state always go through the belly of a worm or an insect? Is the difference between discernible objects and soft masses just my human perspective?

  

Branch on ground.

  

Nuthatch. Many birds in the parks are easy to hear, but harder to see (let alone photograph).

Finding a lot to sense — bird voices

When I draw my gaze away I usually start to hear the birds more. I try to count the birds I’m hearing now; how many of them make up this soundscape, this concert by coincidence? It is difficult for me to keep track of distinct bird voices, not beeing able to tell them from each other entirely reliably. By the time I get to eight I’m already confused. More than ten anyway.

I listen to the rhythm and spacing – I make that meaningful to myself. The birds themselves are thinking of something else, messaging probably to others of same species. The singing gets very load when sunset is closing. Many more join. The last call for this evening?

  

Mäusebussard on Schönholzer Heide. All photos by Akseli.

  

Alyssum and blueweed, Volkspark Rehberge.

Finding a lot to sense — moving close to ground

Lowering myself to the ground, leaning, lying, sitting, rolling, crouching, it is easier for me to feel connected. Easier to let go of the usual habits and attitudes of an urban human. To feel the ground, to feel the plants, to even feel the air more, when everything is closer to my skin. Using tactile senses and proprioseptive senses, not putting myself further away by rising to my extended legs, distancing in terms of touch and engaging through vision and hearing. On the ground I am in a different topographic, kinetic, tactile and proprioseptive relationship; more complex, more varied in terms of those physical exchanges that by-pass sight and hearing. It is partly about my intention – but there is more possibility to be affected in ways that are not culturally coded for me already.

Where there is less defined, there is intention to move, to interact, but less socially understood purpose.

  

Rolling in dry grass.

Following squirrels

  

Bee and blue weed in Volkspark Rehberge.

The abundance of insects

When I just sit still for a while, observing, listening, I start notice the insects. They also come to me. They are incredebly numerous, and clearly of very many species, though I cannot name them. Hot day on the meadow favours those who can resist drying in the heat. In addition to those that fly, crawl, run or jump on the plants, leaves, on the ground, there are all of those under the leaves and under the ground. In the shadows below the near-by beeches there are many more.

I see many kinds of grasshoppers, butterflies, numerous species of wild bees, flies of course, ants, one of the species is pretty large, ladybugs and firebugs. Earlier I saw dragonflies here, but recently I haven't seen them anymore.

I have very few names to all of those emerge when digs a bit into ground. All those incredibly important creatures.

  

Mating grasshoppers in Rehberge.

Listening to the wind

Wind in the trees branches, wind on the skin, wind in the wind, wind in breathing, wind in many directions, wind everywhere, wind in the leaves of beech next to me, wind in the tree tops further away, wind in the grass, wind on the face, wind whirling around the ear lobes. Flowers swaying in the wind, the rays of sun in the wind, the moisture in the wind, occasionally cool, occasionally warm, reflection of light in the wind, the grasshoppers music in the wind, te city behind the wind, the park embraced by the wind, the human body embraced by the wind, bathed in wind, light, air. A hawk veering in the wind, on top of the wind and under the wind, makes an arc and disappears into the wind. The air sways, trembles and flows.

  

Clover, dandelion, plantago. Sauerampfer further away. Rehberge.

On scales of perception

Human observations has a tendency to ‘landscapism’: seeing an area of human field of vision as an image, and taking that image as what describes the area perceived. ‘Landscape’ is what a human looking toward the horizon can see, while moving through an area. This puts the attention to certain large shapes, like “there is a hill behind the lake”, and draws attention away from what is happening at arms reach from the observer. Perhaps it is also easier for person who does not understand those other life forms much, to just watch the overall picture, which is at least easily understandable?

A living place has many scales of life and events. Decomposers crawling in shallow soil, dry pieces of brown leaves, numerous roots of many sizes mingling. Even closer there is fungus and bacteria collaborating with plants and insects. A blooming meadow is busy with numerous wild bee species and constant sound of chicadas of which there are many species as well. The clouds roll past, travelling from thousands of kilometres away.

  

Snail hanging on artemisia.

Foraging, ingesting

For most of human history, our ancestors related to their immediate environment also by eating from it. This depedence is an intimate relationship.

Possibilities for wild foraging still exist – though in mostly urban environment it has to be extremely careful. A respectful forager takes care not to harm the plant populations that provide for them.

  

Tee from dandelion flowers (with Beatrix Joyce).

  

Harvesting Gänsefuß. Mostly considered weed, one of it's names in English, wild spinach, reveals its attractiveness to (urban) foragers.

I am most thankful, above all, to the earthy nettle, that often provided me tasty supplements to my nutrition, growing amply in more shadowy spots.