November 2025<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This DEMO takes the form of a creative and reflective journal by Nancy Tobin, a student member and PhD candidate at the Universit\u00e9 du Qu\u00e9bec \u00e0 Montr\u00e9al.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Her research-creation project aims to explore how her dedicated meditation practice inspired and guided the creation of the staged sound art performance Superheart L\u2019Op\u00e9ra<\/em>, presented at La Chapelle Sc\u00e8nes Contemporaines in Montreal from October 9 to 12, 2024. With support from Hexagram-UQAM, she was able to explore the acoustics and musicality of the theatre\u2019s architectural structures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Through sustained meditation practice, as my attention becomes ever more refined, I discover a multitude of phenomena whose subtlety never ceases to amaze me. I encounter them in a calm, attentive state, as they are increasingly delicate, and increasingly elusive. In this inner space I explore, I come to understand with clarity<\/em>, beyond discursive and rational thought. Through the concrete experience of these phenomena, it becomes clear that nothing lasts; nothing is fixed or permanently defined. Without a doubt, I recognize that I suffer when my experience fails to meet my expectations or the desires I anticipate. What truly unfolds is a gradual understanding of my true nature, as I come to realize that the idea I have of myself does not exist. I am like phenomena: insubstantial, unstable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I am currently in the process of writing my thesis. Through writing, I seek to understand the creative process beyond and beneath the<\/em> self<\/em>. At the heart of the creative process, I identify certain dispositions\u2014such as attitudes or postures\u2014inspired by my meditative research. Here are a few of them; they are sometimes correlated with concrete aspects of the creative process behind Superheart L\u2019Op\u00e9ra.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Consistent meditation practice allows me to discover new forms of awareness\u2014what Shunryu Suzuki calls the beginner\u2019s mind<\/em>\u2014in an embodied and experiential way. This discovery does not come through seeking, but rather through the practice of letting go, welcoming the unexpected, and cultivating an attentive and caring presence. The effort involved is not in trying to find (a search directed toward a specific outcome), but in sustaining a state of openness and availability to what arises in the heart of the moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This posture in creative research is defined by a purposeful avoidance of outcome-driven control. The effort lies in freeing oneself from the habitual tendency to project into a desired situation. Therefore, curiosity and trust become primary. Discovery occurs by maintaining a state of availability, rather than seeking according to our expectations and preconceived ideas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I do not yet know the research terrain with precision. What inhabits me is a cluster of intuitions\u2014embodied, irrational certainties. I feel drawn to certain ideas and starting points. I feel compelled to try them, to explore them, though I do not yet know exactly why. This is what I call non-understood knowing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I trust these sensations. I do not seek to understand them, to define them, or to master them. However vague they may be, I respect their state. I do not attempt to clarify them in an abstract manner (in thought) before experiencing them. I search by groping, by feeling. I touch, I try, I walk in the dark<\/em>. My approach is experiential, concrete, and embodied. It is one of tentative exploration<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Perhaps a moment of illumination will occur. My understanding of why certain ideas or starting points feel so compelling may eventually become clearer. This is what I call a posteriori coherence.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n In this research-creation process, I approach non-understood knowing<\/em> as the manifestation of the future in the present, while a posteriori coherence<\/em> would correspond to the manifestation of the past in the present. All temporalities are present simultaneously, now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This collection of premises<\/em> (initial ideas for scenes or tableaux, starting points), quotations, thoughts, and drawings was shared with my collaborators on November 17, 2023, during our first meeting together, just before we began rehearsals. It contains no specific text to be repeated (no dialogue), nor any musical score to be interpreted. I wanted this libretto to be atmospheric, simply a way to unify our singularities in a shared quest, a process of attunement. Its conception took place in the summer of 2023, during a workshop dedicated to that purpose. Over the course of about a month, I reread every handwritten journal I had kept since the beginning of my doctoral studies in 2018. I gathered passages and quotations that spoke to me, without questioning them, without thinking too much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Throughout the process of creating the libretto, I followed an approach inspired by meditation that I envisioned applying to the creation of Superheart L\u2019Op\u00e9ra<\/em>. Anchored in the immediacy of the moment, I transcribed the words from my journals onto separate sheets; sometimes, drawing ideas would emerge. While working in the immediacy of the moment, nothing else existed\u2014not me, not my expectations, not my desires. I drew and transcribed, nothing special. The pleasure lay in listening to the strokes of my pencil scratching the paper, in the quiet joy of a drawing that came to me unbidden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All of this will have meaning. Don\u2019t be afraid. Trust. Such joy cannot be useless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nMeditation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Research-creation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Research-creation dispositions grounded in my meditation practice<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Discovery without pursuit<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Non-understood knowing and tentative exploration<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
A Posteriori<\/em> Coherence<\/strong> <\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The atmospheric libretto<\/h2>\n\n\n\n