Unfolding Microgravity and the Interplay Between Awe, Wonder, Curiosity, and Humility in Artistic Research

This article discusses how the term ‘curiosity’ emerged as a leading element in the development of the action performance research project Microgravity. The focus is on the effect of curiosity as an activator of movement in a participatory performance in which participants are invited to explore new bodily conditions for the first time (in this case, reduced gravity through a vertical dance technique). I begin with an account of what vertical dance is, its origin, and my personal experience as a vertical dancer. Through the connection between vertical dance and space exploration and an encounter with the terms ‘awe’ and ‘wonder’ (in connection to space travel), I move on to pedagogical and creative decisions regarding ways to create a participatory performance that, due to its complete physical involvement of participants, I now refer to as an ‘action performance’. I will elaborate on the creative partners who joined the research and the interplay of curiosity and humility in relation to the terms ‘awe’ and ‘wonder’ based on the book A Neurophenomenology of Awe and Wonder (Gallagher et al. 2015), which was the initial inspiration for the use of these terms and the establishment of the imaginary universe of Microgravity. I will also employ my own interpretation of these terms as a researcher, drawing on first-hand participatory experiments and data gathered from participants between 2019 and 2022.