The following text is freely interpreted and combined from various academic works presented by the contributors of the Theatre and the Nomadic Subject - A Mobile Train Conference, Helsinki to Rovaniemi 7-11 April 2014 by the writer. Full abstracts are available at http://trainconference2014.wordpress.com/abstracts/ for more careful look to the presented themes and arguments made by the presenters. For making any quotations, please be in contact with the original authors named within the brackets.
one, two, one, two, three, four (Hanna Korsberg)... curtain moves, stage is set, nomad is revealed ... a figure ... sitting still?
Movement ... that is in the core of the nomad. 'Nomades' wandering to 'nomos' pasture. It is not a movement performed for mobility as such, but for being, as the very reason for movement. Defining nomad as movement is denied by Deleuze & Guattari, but in relation to speed (Liesbeth Groot Nibbelink). Phenomenon of speed requires an object and the magnitude of its velocity. The rate of change of objects position is always relational, one moves in relation to something else, specified point of reference. These points create a rhythm, any regular recurring motion. In build environments the rhythm for movement is composed by blocks, crossroads, lampposts and road surface markings. But furthermore the rhythm can also be found in our very selves, embodied, inner movement, rhythm of life, breathing and heartbeat (Laura Bissell & David Overend, to learn more see http://www.makingroutes.org/).
For a nomadic act, ground is a surface, not a territory, and that is why for a nomad, movement is a process of de-territorialization (Nibbelink.) Nomade's land is no-mans land (Inga Sindi). Thus a nomad is not just an individual member of the collective body given an identity but identity is being shaped by the movement (Mariusz Bartosiak). The surface of ground is the platform for transformation. In a performance, the stage is understood as the solid ground, timeless and stabile, and the actors are the ones acting on it (Laura Gröndahl). Re-territorialization is the act where the ground and body are performed, drawing desire line to the landscape (Nibbelink), or more likely, drawing the 'scape' from the 'land'. In the frozen deserts of northern hemisphere, it is the standing stone figure inukshuk (Knut Ove Arntzen). which defines the nomad, the identity and the movement, not a single person passing it by. It is the body of knowledge for the favored direction of the movement, enclosing the time and space and the past and present bodies for the future. A bath is a sign of desire, but baths are not formed by individuals, they are followed and maintained by the collective. As Foucauldian power was never centered but moved via discourses (Jurga Imbrasaite), the course of life is performed through choreographies of movement in space (Annika Wehrle).
Nomad is not a migrant, emigrant or refugee (Sarit Cofman-Simhon), an object measured and rationalized or subordinated with boundaries, but a nomadic subject. The nomad being is not drawn by cartography and told by historians, it is a way of being in the world performed by movement. What is known as history is lived into reality via movement and landscape is made while perceived. The one who moves knows that he can never reach the blue mountains which will always remain in the distance (Terhi Vuojala-Magga). That is why the movement is not performed for reaching something, it is not for destination, but for moving along (Vuojala-Magga). Movement is intermezzo, being in between, being in the centre (Ramunė Balevičiūtė).
When one stops by, the world moves around. Movement is discovering, learning to know. When one knows the variables of the surroundings, home is everywhere (Vuojala-Magga), and life history can be carried with oneself (Cofman-Simhon). Not in a limited territory, but in the inner being of self. As the three of life and knowledge, Yggdrasil, it is in the core of all the worlds, reaching it's branches toward to sun, while simultaneously growing its roots deeper to the ground (Bartosiak), not to branch off toward the future from where it comes from, but to move forward to pass it's roots to the basis. Changing seasons and circular movement; while moving forward one evidently returns from where one started, not as the same, but as for the nomad, embodying the travel so far ... Nomad on the stage is not sitting still, but travels without moving (Wade Hollingshaus) through the sensations of it's audience and let's the world move throught oneself. Moving is a meaning in making.
Text by Joonas Vola