Thinking about the unconscious gesture, Joachim Koester explores the terra incognita of the body and mind in a series of works titled To navigate, in a genuine way, in the unknown necessitates an attitude of daring, but not one of recklessness (movements generated from the Magical Passes of Carlos Castaneda), commissioned by If I Can’t Dance for Edition III – Masquerade.

For this piece, Koester generated some routines with a mime player built on Castanedas’ so-called magical passes and tensegrity system. One way of explaining Koester’s interest in Castanedas’ movements is through the metaphoric connotations of photography. Photography has historically been seen as a medium that bridges the world of materiality and the so-called invisible realms. Koester is greatly inspired by this concept, except that in his photographic works the invisible realms do not refer to occult lore, but rather to a world of ideas. A connection can be drawn between the photographic as a portal to another realm, and certain types of bodily movements, and this is what particularly interests Koester in the Castaneda system. Especially the idea of generating routines is important. One could say that all movement and movement systems are routines with different intentions. 

In addition, Koester’s fascination for the role of the charlatan has found its way in to this film. The figure of the charlatan, which has a long life within the arts but also within shamanism, is well represented by Castanedas being one of the biggest: everything he ever claimed had happened was made up.