0:00:00.496,0:00:01.989
As you might imagine, I'm absolutely passionate

0:00:01.989,0:00:04.194
about dance. I'm passionate about making it,

0:00:04.194,0:00:06.798
about watching it, about encouraging others

0:00:06.798,0:00:08.667
to participate in it,

0:00:08.667,0:00:11.290
and I'm also really passionate about creativity.

0:00:11.290,0:00:15.407
Creativity for me is something that's absolutely critical,

0:00:15.407,0:00:17.792
and I think it's something that you can teach.

0:00:17.792,0:00:20.053
I think the technicities of creativity can be taught

0:00:20.053,0:00:22.219
and shared, and I think you can find out things

0:00:22.219,0:00:24.488
about your own personal physical signature,

0:00:24.488,0:00:26.400
your own cognitive habits, and use that as

0:00:26.400,0:00:29.852
a point of departure to misbehave beautifully.

0:00:29.852,0:00:34.255
I was born in the 1970s, and John Travolta was big

0:00:34.255,0:00:36.726
in those days: "Grease," "Saturday Night Fever,"

0:00:36.726,0:00:39.403
and he provided a fantastic kind of male role model for me

0:00:39.403,0:00:42.183
to start dancing. My parents were very up for me going.

0:00:42.183,0:00:45.045
They absolutely encouraged me to take risks, to go,

0:00:45.045,0:00:49.270
to try, to try. I had an opportunity, an access

0:00:49.270,0:00:52.861
to a local dance studio, and I had an enlightened teacher

0:00:52.861,0:00:55.966
who allowed me to make up my own and invent

0:00:55.966,0:00:58.960
my own dances, so what she did was let me make up

0:00:58.960,0:01:01.909
my own ballroom and Latin American dances to teach

0:01:01.909,0:01:03.281
to my peers.

0:01:03.281,0:01:06.050
And that was the very first time that I found an opportunity

0:01:06.050,0:01:08.935
to feel that I was able to express my own voice,

0:01:08.935,0:01:11.753
and that's what's fueled me, then, to become a choreographer.

0:01:11.753,0:01:14.769
I feel like I've got something to say and something to share.

0:01:14.769,0:01:18.346
And I guess what's interesting is, is that I am now obsessed

0:01:18.346,0:01:19.933
with the technology of the body.

0:01:19.933,0:01:23.229
I think it's the most technologically literate thing that we have,

0:01:23.229,0:01:26.328
and I'm absolutely obsessed with finding a way

0:01:26.328,0:01:29.626
of communicating ideas through the body to audiences

0:01:29.626,0:01:31.779
that might move them, touch them,

0:01:31.779,0:01:34.881
help them think differently about things.

0:01:34.881,0:01:37.483
So for me, choreography is very much a process

0:01:37.483,0:01:40.892
of physical thinking. It's very much in mind,

0:01:40.892,0:01:44.155
as well as in body, and it's a collaborative process.

0:01:44.155,0:01:45.981
It's something that I have to do with other people.

0:01:45.981,0:01:48.735
You know, it's a distributed cognitive process in a way.

0:01:48.735,0:01:51.333
I work often with designers and visual artists,

0:01:51.333,0:01:53.941
obviously dancers and other choreographers,

0:01:53.941,0:01:58.312
but also, more and more, with economists,

0:01:58.312,0:02:02.618
anthropologists, neuroscientists, cognitive scientists,

0:02:02.618,0:02:05.385
people really who come from very different domains of

0:02:05.385,0:02:08.378
expertise, where they bring their intelligence to bear

0:02:08.378,0:02:10.766
on a different kind of creative process.

0:02:10.766,0:02:13.969
What I thought we would do today a little bit is

0:02:13.969,0:02:16.230
explore this idea of physical thinking,

0:02:16.230,0:02:18.031
and we're all experts in physical thinking.

0:02:18.031,0:02:19.409
Yeah, you all have a body, right?

0:02:19.409,0:02:21.600
And we all know what that body is like in the real world,

0:02:21.600,0:02:23.294
so one of the aspects of physical thinking

0:02:23.294,0:02:26.208
that we think about a lot is this notion of proprioception,

0:02:26.208,0:02:29.273
the sense of my own body in the space in the real world.

0:02:29.273,0:02:32.659
So, we all understand what it feels like to know

0:02:32.659,0:02:34.012
where the ends of your fingers are

0:02:34.012,0:02:36.009
when you hold out your arms, yeah?

0:02:36.009,0:02:38.824
You absolutely know that when you're going to grab a cup,

0:02:38.824,0:02:40.734
or that cup moves and you have to renavigate it.

0:02:40.734,0:02:42.692
So we're experts in physical thinking already.

0:02:42.692,0:02:44.728
We just don't think about our bodies very much.

0:02:44.728,0:02:47.833
We only think about them when they go wrong, so, when

0:02:47.833,0:02:50.071
there's a broken arm, or when you have a heart attack,

0:02:50.071,0:02:52.536
then you become really very aware of your bodies.

0:02:52.536,0:02:54.823
But how is it that we can start to think about using

0:02:54.823,0:02:58.231
choreographic thinking, kinesthetic intelligence, to arm

0:02:58.231,0:03:00.589
the ways in which we think about things more generally?

0:03:00.589,0:03:03.545
What I thought I'd do is, I'd make a TED premiere.

0:03:03.545,0:03:05.848
I'm not sure if this is going to be good or not.

0:03:05.848,0:03:07.823
I'll just be doing it.

0:03:07.823,0:03:09.910
I thought what I'd do is, I'd use three versions

0:03:09.910,0:03:11.554
of physical thinking to make something.

0:03:11.554,0:03:14.670
I want to introduce you. This is Paolo. This is Catarina.

0:03:14.670,0:03:17.518
(Applause)

0:03:17.518,0:03:20.122
They have no idea what we're going to do.

0:03:20.122,0:03:22.466
So this is not the type of choreography where

0:03:22.466,0:03:24.810
I already have in mind what I'm going to make,

0:03:24.810,0:03:27.351
where I've fixed the routine in my head

0:03:27.351,0:03:28.941
and I'm just going to teach it to them,

0:03:28.941,0:03:31.250
and these so-called empty vessels are just going to learn it.

0:03:31.250,0:03:34.184
That's not the methodology at all that we work with.

0:03:34.184,0:03:38.517
But what's important about it is how it is that they're

0:03:38.517,0:03:40.564
grasping information, how they're taking information,

0:03:40.564,0:03:42.695
how they're using it, and how they're thinking with it.

0:03:42.695,0:03:44.143
I'm going to start really, really simply.

0:03:44.143,0:03:47.120
Usually, dance has a stimulus or stimuli, and I thought

0:03:47.120,0:03:50.224
I'd take something simple, TED logo, we can all see it,

0:03:50.224,0:03:52.573
it's quite easy to work with, and I'm going to do something

0:03:52.573,0:03:55.362
very simply, where you take one idea from a body,

0:03:55.362,0:03:57.366
and it happens to be my body, and translate that

0:03:57.366,0:03:59.558
into somebody else's body,

0:03:59.558,0:04:02.912
so it's a direct transfer, transformation of energy.

0:04:02.912,0:04:05.692
And I'm going to imagine this, you can do this too if you like,

0:04:05.692,0:04:07.930
that I'm going to just take the letter "T" and I'm going

0:04:07.930,0:04:10.805
to imagine it in mind, and I'm going to place that outside in

0:04:10.805,0:04:14.709
the real world. So I absolutely see a letter "T" in front of me.

0:04:14.709,0:04:16.114
Yeah? It's absolutely there.

0:04:16.114,0:04:19.094
I can absolutely walk around it when I see it, yeah?

0:04:19.094,0:04:21.019
It has a kind of a grammar. I know what I'm going to do

0:04:21.019,0:04:23.954
with it, and I can start to describe it, so I can describe it

0:04:23.954,0:04:26.925
very simply. I can describe it in my arms, right?

0:04:26.925,0:04:29.603
So all I did was take my hand and then I move my hand.

0:04:29.603,0:04:31.790
I can describe it, whoa, in my head, you know? Whoa.

0:04:31.790,0:04:34.098
Okay. I can do also my shoulder. Yeah?

0:04:34.098,0:04:37.106
It gives me something to do, something to work towards.

0:04:37.106,0:04:39.224
If I were to take that letter "T" and flatten it down

0:04:39.224,0:04:42.160
on the floor, here, maybe just off the floor,

0:04:42.160,0:04:43.633
all of a sudden I could do maybe something with my knee,

0:04:43.633,0:04:46.184
yeah? Whoa. So If I put the knee and the arms together,

0:04:46.184,0:04:49.744
I've got something physical, yeah? And I can start to build something.

0:04:49.744,0:04:52.205
So what I'm going to do just for one and a half minutes or so

0:04:52.205,0:04:54.805
is I'm going to take that concept, I'm going to make something,

0:04:54.805,0:04:57.683
and the dancers behind me are going to interpret it,

0:04:57.683,0:04:59.327
they're going to snapshot it, they're going to take

0:04:59.327,0:05:02.306
aspects of it, and it's almost like I'm offloading memory

0:05:02.306,0:05:04.422
and they're holding onto memory? Yeah?

0:05:04.422,0:05:05.826
And we'll see what we come up with.

0:05:05.826,0:05:07.981
So just have a little watch about how they're, how they're

0:05:07.981,0:05:09.289
accessing this and what they're doing,

0:05:09.289,0:05:11.250
and I'm just going to take this letter "T," the letter "E,"

0:05:11.250,0:05:14.281
and the letter "D," to make something. Okay. Here goes.

0:05:14.281,0:05:17.665
So I have to get myself in the zone. Right.

0:05:31.877,0:05:34.751
It's a bit of a cross of my arm.

0:05:40.438,0:05:45.089
So all I'm doing is exploring this space of "T"

0:05:45.089,0:05:50.404
and flashing through it with some action.

0:05:50.404,0:05:52.807
I'm not remembering what I'm doing.

0:05:52.807,0:05:55.570
I'm just working on my task. My task is this "T."

0:05:55.570,0:05:59.178
Going to watch it from the side, whoa.

0:06:00.947,0:06:02.817
Strike moment.

0:06:02.817,0:06:06.358
That's it.

0:06:07.789,0:06:12.115
So we're starting to build a phrase.

0:06:12.131,0:06:14.084
So what they're doing, let's see, something like that,

0:06:14.084,0:06:17.231
so what they're doing is grasping aspects of that movement

0:06:17.231,0:06:19.136
and they're generating it into a phrase.

0:06:19.136,0:06:21.394
You can see the speed is extremely quick, yeah?

0:06:21.394,0:06:23.684
I'm not asking them to copy exactly.

0:06:23.684,0:06:26.041
They're using the information that they receive

0:06:26.041,0:06:29.357
to generate the beginnings of a phrase.

0:06:29.357,0:06:31.278
I can watch that and that can tell me something

0:06:31.278,0:06:34.031
about how it is that they're moving.

0:06:34.031,0:06:37.111
Yeah, they're super quick, right?

0:06:37.111,0:06:40.895
So I've taken this aspect of TED and translated it

0:06:40.895,0:06:43.570
into something that's physical.

0:06:45.616,0:06:48.200
Some dancers, when they're watching action,

0:06:48.200,0:06:50.675
take the overall shape, the arc of the movement,

0:06:50.675,0:06:52.780
the kinetic sense of the movement,

0:06:52.780,0:06:54.375
and use that for memory.

0:06:54.375,0:06:56.658
Some work very much in specific detail.

0:06:56.658,0:07:00.476
They start with small little units and build it up.

0:07:00.476,0:07:02.504
Okay, you've got something? One more thing.

0:07:18.012,0:07:21.160
So they're solving this problem for me,

0:07:21.160,0:07:24.993
having a little --

0:07:24.993,0:07:26.854
They're constructing that phrase.

0:07:26.854,0:07:28.330
They have something and they're going to hold on to it,

0:07:28.330,0:07:30.353
yeah? One way of making.

0:07:30.353,0:07:32.709
That's going to be my beginning in this world premiere.

0:07:32.709,0:07:34.683
Okay. From there I'm going to do a very different thing.

0:07:34.683,0:07:37.399
So basically I'm going to make a duet.

0:07:37.399,0:07:40.894
I want you to think about them as architectural objects,

0:07:40.894,0:07:43.190
so what they are, are just pure lines.

0:07:43.190,0:07:45.746
They're no longer people, just pure lines, and I'm going

0:07:45.746,0:07:49.971
to work with them almost as objects to think with, yeah?

0:07:49.971,0:07:52.448
So what I'm thinking about is taking

0:07:52.448,0:07:56.373
a few physical extensions from the body as I move, and

0:07:56.373,0:07:58.671
I move them, and I do that by suggesting things to them:

0:07:58.671,0:08:01.848
If, then; if, then. Okay, so here we go.

0:08:01.848,0:08:03.024
Just grab this arm.

0:08:03.024,0:08:06.049
Can you place that down into the floor?

0:08:06.049,0:08:08.255
Yeah, down to the floor. Can you go underneath?

0:08:08.255,0:08:12.072
Yeah. Cat, can you put leg over that side? Yeah.

0:08:12.072,0:08:13.521
Can you rotate?

0:08:13.521,0:08:14.637
Whoom, just go back to the beginning.

0:08:14.637,0:08:20.985
Here we go, ready? And ... bam, bake ... (clicks metronome)

0:08:20.985,0:08:22.909
Great. Okay, from there, you're both getting up.

0:08:22.909,0:08:26.434
You're both getting up. Here we go. Good, now? Them.

0:08:26.449,0:08:28.018
(Applause)

0:08:28.018,0:08:30.719
So from there, from there, we're both getting up,

0:08:30.719,0:08:31.962
we're both getting up, going in this direction,

0:08:31.962,0:08:34.300
going underneath. Whoa, whoa, underneath.

0:08:34.300,0:08:38.264
Whoa, underneath, whoo-um. Yeah? Underneath. Jump.

0:08:38.264,0:08:42.446
Underneath. Jump. Paolo, kick. Don't care where. Kick.

0:08:42.446,0:08:45.865
Kick, replace, change a leg. Kick, replace, change the leg.

0:08:45.865,0:08:49.574
Yeah? Okay? Cat, almost get his head. Almost get his head.

0:08:49.574,0:08:54.439
Whoaa. Just after it, maybe. Whoaa, whaaay, ooh.

0:08:54.439,0:08:58.757
Grab her waist, come up back into her first, whoom, spin,

0:08:58.757,0:09:00.363
turn her, whoo-aa. (Snaps) Great.

0:09:00.363,0:09:02.722
Okay, let's have a little go from the beginning of that.

0:09:02.722,0:09:08.231
Just, let me slow down here. Fancy having eight -- (Laughter)

0:09:08.231,0:09:11.033
Fancy having eight hours with me in a day.

0:09:11.033,0:09:15.539
So, maybe too much. So, here we go, ready, and -- (Clicks metronome)

0:09:15.539,0:09:23.122
(Clicks metronome)

0:09:23.122,0:09:26.263
Nice, good job. Yeah? Okay. (Applause)

0:09:26.263,0:09:29.261
Okay, not bad. (Applause) A little bit more?

0:09:29.261,0:09:32.053
Yeah. Just a little bit more, here we go, from that place.

0:09:32.053,0:09:34.526
Separate. Face the front. Separate. Face the front.

0:09:34.526,0:09:36.751
Imagine that there's a circle in front of you, yeah?

0:09:36.751,0:09:41.646
Avoid it. Avoid it. Whoom. Kick it out of the way.

0:09:41.646,0:09:45.735
Kick it out of the way. Throw it into the audience. Whoom.

0:09:45.735,0:09:46.778
Throw it into the audience again.

0:09:46.778,0:09:48.660
We've got mental architecture, we're sharing it,

0:09:48.660,0:09:50.552
therefore solving a problem. They're enacting it.

0:09:50.552,0:09:52.735
Let me just see that a little bit. Ready, and go.

0:09:52.735,0:09:57.238
(Clicks metronome)

0:09:57.238,0:09:58.903
Okay, brilliant. Okay, here we go. From the beginning,

0:09:58.903,0:10:01.841
can we do our phrases first? And then that.

0:10:01.841,0:10:03.530
And we're going to build something now, organize it,

0:10:03.530,0:10:05.179
the phrases. Here we go. Nice and slow?

0:10:05.179,0:10:08.581
Ready and go ... um. (Clicks metronome)

0:10:08.581,0:10:12.977
(Clicks metronome)

0:10:12.977,0:10:16.661
The duet starts. (Clicks metronome)

0:10:16.661,0:10:29.987
(Clicks metronome)

0:10:29.987,0:10:33.424
So yeah, okay, good. Okay, nice, very nice. (Applause)

0:10:33.424,0:10:35.134
So good. So -- (Applause)

0:10:35.134,0:10:38.381
Okay. So that was -- (Applause)

0:10:38.381,0:10:40.275
Well done. (Applause)

0:10:40.275,0:10:41.834
That was the second way of working.

0:10:41.834,0:10:44.206
The first one, body-to-body transfer, yeah,

0:10:44.206,0:10:46.954
with an outside mental architecture that I work with

0:10:46.954,0:10:49.026
that they hold memory with for me.

0:10:49.026,0:10:51.264
The second one, which is using them as objects to think

0:10:51.264,0:10:53.032
with their architectural objects, I do a series of

0:10:53.032,0:10:55.505
provocations, I say, "If this happens, then that.

0:10:55.505,0:10:57.860
If this, if that happens -- " I've got lots of methods like that,

0:10:57.860,0:11:00.491
but it's very, very quick, and this is a third method.

0:11:00.491,0:11:03.245
They're starting it already, and this is a task-based method,

0:11:03.245,0:11:04.926
where they have the autonomy to make

0:11:04.926,0:11:06.732
all of the decisions for themselves.

0:11:06.732,0:11:07.991
So I'd like us just to do, we're going to do a little

0:11:07.991,0:11:11.413
mental dance, a little, in this little one minute,

0:11:11.413,0:11:13.312
so what I'd love you to do is imagine,

0:11:13.312,0:11:15.413
you can do this with your eyes closed, or open, and if you

0:11:15.413,0:11:17.891
don't want to do it you can watch them, it's up to you.

0:11:17.891,0:11:21.631
Just for a second, think about that word "TED" in front of

0:11:21.631,0:11:24.932
you, so it's in mind, and it's there right in front of your mind.

0:11:24.932,0:11:27.169
What I'd like you to do is transplant that outside

0:11:27.169,0:11:30.712
into the real world, so just imagine that word "TED"

0:11:30.712,0:11:33.045
in the real world.

0:11:33.045,0:11:35.985
What I'd like you to do what that is take an aspect of it.

0:11:35.985,0:11:39.125
I'm going to zone in on the "E," and I'm going to

0:11:39.125,0:11:41.772
scale that "E" so it's absolutely massive,

0:11:41.772,0:11:44.484
so I'm scaling that "E" so it's absolutely massive,

0:11:44.484,0:11:45.655
and then I'm going to give it dimensionality.

0:11:45.655,0:11:47.907
I'm going to think about it in 3D space. So now,

0:11:47.907,0:11:50.380
instead of it just being a letter that's in front of me,

0:11:50.380,0:11:53.261
it's a space that my body can go inside of.

0:11:53.261,0:11:55.978
I now decide where I'm going to be in that space,

0:11:55.978,0:12:00.449
so I'm down on this small part of the bottom rib

0:12:00.449,0:12:03.317
of the letter "E," and I'm thinking about it, and I'm imagining

0:12:03.317,0:12:06.771
this space that's really high and above. If I asked you to

0:12:06.771,0:12:09.528
reach out — you don't have to literally do it, but in mind —

0:12:09.528,0:12:12.578
reach out to the top of the "E," where would you reach?

0:12:12.578,0:12:14.556
If you reach with your finger, where would it be?

0:12:14.556,0:12:17.448
If you reach with your elbow, where would it be?

0:12:17.448,0:12:21.345
If I already then said about that space that you're in,

0:12:21.345,0:12:23.704
let's infuse it with the color red, what does that do

0:12:23.704,0:12:26.430
to the body? If I then said to you, what happens if

0:12:26.430,0:12:29.704
that whole wall on the side of "E" collapses and you have to

0:12:29.704,0:12:31.550
use your weight to put it back up,

0:12:31.550,0:12:33.974
what would you be able to do with it?

0:12:33.974,0:12:35.871
So this is a mental picture, I'm describing a mental,

0:12:35.871,0:12:39.876
vivid picture that enables dancers to make choices

0:12:39.876,0:12:42.257
for themselves about what to make.

0:12:42.257,0:12:43.692
Okay, you can open your eyes if you had them closed.

0:12:43.692,0:12:45.066
So the dancers have been working on them.

0:12:45.066,0:12:46.922
So just keep working on them for a little second.

0:12:46.922,0:12:49.938
So they've been working on those mental architectures in the here.

0:12:49.938,0:12:52.440
I know, I think we should keep them as a surprise.

0:12:52.440,0:12:55.020
So here goes, world premiere dance. Yeah? Here we go.

0:12:55.020,0:12:58.541
TED dance. Okay. Here it comes. I'm going to organize it quickly.

0:12:58.541,0:13:01.825
So, you're going to do the first solo that we made,

0:13:01.825,0:13:04.624
yeah blah blah blah blah, we go into the duet, yeah,

0:13:04.624,0:13:08.374
blah blah blah blah. The next solo, blah blah blah blah,

0:13:08.374,0:13:12.098
yeah, and both at the same time, you do the last solutions.

0:13:12.098,0:13:14.640
Okay? Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, world premiere,

0:13:14.640,0:13:17.408
TED dance, three versions of physical thinking. (Applause)

0:13:17.408,0:13:20.104
Well, clap afterwards, let's see if it's any good, yeah? (Laughter)

0:13:20.104,0:13:22.603
So yeah, let's clap -- yeah, let's clap afterwards.

0:13:22.603,0:13:24.765
Here we go. Catarina, big moment, here we go, one.

0:13:24.765,0:13:50.146
(Clicks metronome)

0:13:50.146,0:13:55.357
Here it comes, Cat. (Clicks metronome)

0:13:55.357,0:13:59.793
Paolo, go. (Clicks metronome) Last you solo.

0:13:59.793,0:14:03.202
The one you made. (Clicks metronome)

0:14:03.202,0:14:15.004
(Clicks metronome)

0:14:15.004,0:14:16.963
Well done. Okay, good. Super. So --

0:14:16.963,0:14:18.844
(Applause)

0:14:18.844,0:14:21.135
So -- (Applause)

0:14:21.135,0:14:22.926
Thank you. (Applause)

0:14:22.926,0:14:31.911
So -- three versions. (Applause) Oh. (Laughs)

0:14:31.911,0:14:34.892
(Applause) Three versions of physical thinking, yeah?

0:14:34.892,0:14:37.851
Three versions of physical thinking. I'm hoping that today,

0:14:37.851,0:14:39.425
what you're going to do is go away and make a dance

0:14:39.425,0:14:41.378
for yourself, and if not that,

0:14:41.378,0:14:43.605
at least misbehave more beautifully, more often.

0:14:43.605,0:14:46.223
Thank you very much. (Applause)

0:14:46.223,0:14:50.953
Thank you. Thank you. (Applause)

0:14:50.953,0:14:53.264
Here we go. (Applause)

0:14:53.264,0:14:57.260
(Applause)