The Zooms: Abun’dance

The Zooms are modest symbolic choreographed gestures intended to initiate an embodied practise of the desire for smaller. Although they are often hardly more than physical whispers these actions attempt to overcome the inability to act in the face of the omnipresent desire for BIG. They are not very good and they’re not spectacular. They just are.

Abun’dance is a short ceremonial dance conveying the desire to shrink towards a situation of abundance through shrinking the human body. It was originally performed by Arne Hendriks at the beginning of public lectures on the topic of shrinking the human species. The dance consist of two simultaneous movements. Its primary movement is a gradual increased crouching while at the same time swaying the left and right arm back to front. The Abun’dance starts while standing up and culminates in a crouching position. While diminishing his or her height the dancer keeps eye contact with the audience and upon completion remains in a crouched position while looking up at the audience. The dance is performed by a tall person to symbolise how the contemporary desire for tallness should be replaced by the desire for smallness and can be quite painful if the tall person has knee and/or back problems. While not pleasant for the performer these ailments add to the power of the narrative since they illustrate some of the disadvantages of being tall. Abun’dance is meant to be performed in a simple uncomplicated manner.