Transporteringsdans

Posted on 24/10/2012

In my endeavours to explore ways of playfully interacting in public space I recently stumbled upon an interesting deck of rulecards. Transporteringsdans is a ruleset for playfully ‘transporting’ yourself trough space. It’s been published by a Norwegian artist Martin Slaatto, (freely translated) his words are as follows:

Transporteringsdans lets you challenge your physical movements, breaking some conformity, and helping you view the life from a slightly different angle. It is both dance and fitness, with an arts perspective.

I had good fun with the deck, where I found the physical rulesets the most invigorating, Kicking every step, twirling, blind running, jumping, rolling, these are the physically spontaneous movements I remember loving as a kid. Come to think of it, especially the rule of freeze-framing in a stiff position was something I remember doing, for no particular reason.

So, the next step would be to attemp an intervention where unaware participants are invited to dance their transport. Overcoming shame would be a big one this time, as I must admit I sometimes felt ashamed making a fool out of myself even when no-one was looking. As Martin says himself, it could serve as fitness, maybe a ‘fit-in-10(playful)days’-DVD would be more appropiate…

For anyone who would like to try the Transporteringsdans, but (like me) doesn’t read any Norwegian, I made a rough translation that can be found here.