Week Two – Monday 29th September 2014
In today’s session we spoke about the readings. In the ‘Touch: Experience and Knowledge’ reading it spoke a lot about how touch is a sensation that can be linked to the skin, to the nervous system, then up to the brain. It also talked about how you shouldn’t be afraid of being touched or touching someone else. At the start of the session I could relate to this, but in the opposite reaction. As I was scared of touching and being touched in the last session last week. However, when we started the practical work I kept thinking back to this comment of being fearless. This one word helped me break the ice a bit.
During the practical session we started by getting the room energised, by walking round the room using our bodies. We used our upper, lower and whole body kinesphere. This helped me get into a relaxed mind frame. We then went into pair work. We did rolls where you have an under dancer and an over dancer. This then led us into having new ideas of improvising round the room. Another interesting exercise was you had a partner A and partner B and partner A would improvise around the room. When partner B would say pause you had to stop and they would use there body to balance on your stable bodily position. I found this good, but I felt I was being too safe with both the situations I was in. All my stable positions were very similar each time. However, when I was the one balancing I felt I wasn’t being very adventurous with my positions, I would always be going on my back. I felt like I should of tried different body parts to start the balancing. At the end of the session we got given a task of improvising in pairs and using the exercises we did today. During these three minutes I gave myself one instruction – to be free and don’t care. This helped a lot as i’m usually tense. Afterwards I felt way more relaxed and into it.
I felt today’s session was a good one, as I connected my readings to what I was doing in the lesson. Also I thought going into the practical session with a positive attitude gave me a bit more confidence.
– Steve Paxton in a youtube interview we watched gave us questions we want to find out about and answers we know about.
Questions:
What is movement/what can it be?
Why does Contact Improvisation go back to the early stages of movement?
How do you make a Improviser confident in the space?
How is it possible to let go of any tension, in the head or the body?
Why does Contact Improvisation relate to a toddler/baby?