EN
// On realism, nominalism, and conceptualism of symmetry //
A few days ago, I attended a master class by choreographer Neve Harrington, where we explored movement based on the simplest symmetry score: we explored how the body can move completely symmetrically, how it can move and touch itself and space.
I love these simple principles that can take you very deep, where you find more and more as you enter a trance-like state, because moving symmetrically for a long time is quite an unusual task in our time, where so much attention is paid to asymmetry.
But the important moment for me happened not during the practice, but during the final circle, where everyone shared their impressions, and one person said: “I like that in this study we are dealing with the untruth of the body, because everyone knows that it is asymmetrical - we are working with an artificial score, knowing that it does not correspond to the truth.”
I didn't start a discussion in response at the time, but for me, this statement became a very important difference between approaches to thinking in which we exist as different entities—as choreographers, somatic practitioners, teachers, researchers, artists—and so on. Because here we find ourselves in the rift between realism, conceptualism, and nominalism.
I will try to simplify it, because I am not a philosopher, but for me this is a very important difference.
So, symmetry and three approaches.
Realism: universals (i.e., ideas such as “symmetry”) actually exist.
Conceptualism: universals exist as generalizing concepts of the mind, which collects statistics from its own experience and generalizes the concept.
Nominalism: universals are just markers, labels; in reality, only specific objects exist (e.g., different human bodies).
How do all these approaches relate to the symmetry of the human body?
Realism:
We cannot fail to notice that the vast majority of bodies have paired organs, arms, legs, eyes, that the spine, as a continuation of the embryonic axis, divides the body into right and left halves, that the limbs grow more or less simultaneously (temporally symmetrically).
Conceptualism: Symmetry exists as a pattern, but in reality the body deviates from it: the right and left sides are not identical, there are both paired and unpaired organs, and fluid systems (blood, lymphatic) are not symmetrical.
Nominalism: Symmetry does not exist, organs are arranged asymmetrically, paired organs differ in their functions and even in their form, we do not move only bilaterally and symmetrically.
It seems that personally, as a practitioner of movement based on my experience, I am a conceptualist: I realize that complete symmetry does not exist, but I recognize it as a concept that my consciousness distinguishes based on a large number of observations (of living things, my own body, embryology textbooks).
And I like to play the “what if” game—what if I can try to move completely symmetrically, what forms will that lead to?
And—returning to the feedback from the master class participant—the nominalist “symmetry does not exist” baffles me, because I see in it the same conviction as in realists, the search for asymmetry in all processes in the search for truth.
One of my favorite things about choreography is that there are no attempts at truth or the search for universals. We just try different things and see what comes of it.
In this process, the question "what if symmetry exists" and "what if symmetry does not exist" are equally valid.
// On realism, nominalism, and conceptualism of symmetry //
A few days ago, I attended a master class by choreographer Neve Harrington, where we explored movement based on the simplest symmetry score: we explored how the body can move completely symmetrically, how it can move and touch itself and space.
I love these simple principles that can take you very deep, where you find more and more as you enter a trance-like state, because moving symmetrically for a long time is quite an unusual task in our time, where so much attention is paid to asymmetry.
But the important moment for me happened not during the practice, but during the final circle, where everyone shared their impressions, and one person said: “I like that in this study we are dealing with the untruth of the body, because everyone knows that it is asymmetrical - we are working with an artificial score, knowing that it does not correspond to the truth.”
I didn't start a discussion in response at the time, but for me, this statement became a very important difference between approaches to thinking in which we exist as different entities—as choreographers, somatic practitioners, teachers, researchers, artists—and so on. Because here we find ourselves in the rift between realism, conceptualism, and nominalism.
I will try to simplify it, because I am not a philosopher, but for me this is a very important difference.
So, symmetry and three approaches.
Realism: universals (i.e., ideas such as “symmetry”) actually exist.
Conceptualism: universals exist as generalizing concepts of the mind, which collects statistics from its own experience and generalizes the concept.
Nominalism: universals are just markers, labels; in reality, only specific objects exist (e.g., different human bodies).
How do all these approaches relate to the symmetry of the human body?
Realism:
We cannot fail to notice that the vast majority of bodies have paired organs, arms, legs, eyes, that the spine, as a continuation of the embryonic axis, divides the body into right and left halves, that the limbs grow more or less simultaneously (temporally symmetrically).
Conceptualism: Symmetry exists as a pattern, but in reality the body deviates from it: the right and left sides are not identical, there are both paired and unpaired organs, and fluid systems (blood, lymphatic) are not symmetrical.
Nominalism: Symmetry does not exist, organs are arranged asymmetrically, paired organs differ in their functions and even in their form, we do not move only bilaterally and symmetrically.
It seems that personally, as a practitioner of movement based on my experience, I am a conceptualist: I realize that complete symmetry does not exist, but I recognize it as a concept that my consciousness distinguishes based on a large number of observations (of living things, my own body, embryology textbooks).
And I like to play the “what if” game—what if I can try to move completely symmetrically, what forms will that lead to?
And—returning to the feedback from the master class participant—the nominalist “symmetry does not exist” baffles me, because I see in it the same conviction as in realists, the search for asymmetry in all processes in the search for truth.
One of my favorite things about choreography is that there are no attempts at truth or the search for universals. We just try different things and see what comes of it.
In this process, the question "what if symmetry exists" and "what if symmetry does not exist" are equally valid.