Grey Matter: People Matter: Launching the ‘Living brain’

Sheer poetry through the hokey pokey! The launch of TEDxAmsterdam by the Dutch National Ballet compels us to emerge, engage, and enter with our left leg, right leg, and oh all of our senses! Ballet artists enter the stage and their seemingly random movements are shown from above behind them, allowing us to see how chaos slowly but surely comes together, becoming the sensible as well as the sensational. And what a way to represent the TEDxAmsterdam theme of 'human nature!' After all, what comes to mind when we speak of ‘human nature’ are notions of being organic, raw, and spontaneous. Yet, when grappling with what constitutes as being human in this current time, we have become more and more preoccupied with significant alienations that occur around us. Crisis looms and reminds us of our vulnerabilities from the possible euro meltdown, techno-hackings to the continuous struggle for political freedoms across the Middle East. The brain takes over, rationalizing, segmenting, dissecting; often churning out clinical solutions to human problems. But then we are surprised when, for instance, bank bailouts are met by OccupyWall Street movements…comfort zones are threatened and forcibly redrawn. This year, TEDxAmsterdam immerses us within the ‘human nature’ theme and fittingly has launched with this specially choreographed rendition of this theme by the Dutch National ballet. Along with dance2film (Altin Kaftira & Mathieu Gremillet), Ernst Meisner and Grand Sujet at the Dutch National Ballet has pushed the envelope, bringing the dancers to reproduce the complexity of the human brain in ballet form on stage. Perfectly symbolic, the dance takes on the deep sense of order within spontaneity, brings intimacy through structure and form, and creates an underlying pattern through a seemingly chaotic orchestration. We see the deliberate curling of the feet within this brain composition, with the heads and bodies overlapping and curving to take on the shape of the brain. At some point, the numerous dancers lose their status as people and become a unified person on stage, a composite whole, a living brain. This performance is not just live right now but is being digitally captured through The Netherland’s most creative minds from ballet, film, photography, interactive, design and communications. They have joined forces through the WE ARE Pi, an assembly of 100 professionals to bring to life a series of ‘living brains’ for this event. The production process apparently started with a question from WE ARE Pi to dance2film, whom have a strong history of dance film production – “Is a human brain made from people possible, has it ever been done before, and can you help us make it happen?” This poetic movement and dance creation serves to extend these brain waves across the room here at Stadsschouwburg to across physical and cultural borders in visual and interactive form. As we experience this magic, we are reminded of what TEDxAmsterdam intends to be, an intellectual journey that is woven with emotion, synergies, inspiration, community and creativity, and where the human being is central to this world of ideas and action. Now, that’s what its all about! CLICK HERE FOR THE VIDEO OF THE PERFORMANCE ON THE TEDx AMSTERDAM WEBSITE: