The ‘Tending’ in Attending: Dance, Attention, and Interspecies Care in iLANDing Laboratories

Since 2006, the Interdisciplinary Laboratory for Art, Nature, and Dance (iLAND) has convened research projects that investigate urban ecologies through movement-based and collaborative methods. These projects bring together experts from multiple disciplines in the arts and sciences, using choreographic scores as tools for cross-disciplinary translation. Choreographic scores — sets of written or verbal instructions that guide how participants move, perceive, and respond to their surroundings — invite people to adopt modes of attention that are not their own, whether borrowed from another species or from a field in which they lack expertise. This talk examines how attention and care intersect within iLAND’s choreographic scores. I trace how these scores offer directives for both attending and tending — that is, for noticing the world and responding to it with care. I argue that iLANDing scores — which have modeled the perceptual practices of deer mice, attuned performers to networks of mushroom mycelium, and heightened awareness of how human movement transforms landscapes — reorganize what performers consider perceptually valuable as a foundation for ecological care. This research forms part of a book project that investigates how 21st-century experimental dance artists are wielding attention as both a choreographic and activist strategy.