Month: November 2014

Monday 17^th November 2014 – Week Eight – Research Lab

In today’s session we had our second research lab and for me I found it quite not daunting, but not challenging enough. Our research lab session was looking into space and speed. To start with we looked at high and low level. With low level we came across that a lot of the time the two dancers were going back to doing the same old movements, for example a lot of rolls were happening, plus a lot of back to back movements. We related this back to our very first session where we were being slugs and just slowly rolling on each other. Maybe this could be a comfort thing when becoming stuck on what to do next. However, as the observers we did notice that different dynamics were coming into play, such as slow and fast. I then became a dancer for the experiment of high level. When doing this I felt very comfortable using my head, and as the weeks have gone on I have noticed that my head is my safety net. The observers noticed very well that our base was distant, meaning we couldn’t do much because we weren’t touching a lot. Going back to using the head as a safety net, the observers said we could probably use our legs more and see where this would take us. After communicating back to each other we decided to do the same again, but whoever did low last time would do high this time. We discovered in the second time that people were not as consciousness of doing movements. We started using different body parts for example legs and pelvis. When involving mixed levels (high and low) we discovered that it travelled more in the space and created more linkage between the two levels. Throughout this time we saw that the two dancers were using more surfaces on each other and not going for the easy targets such as the back and belly. When it came to travelling with both levels we saw that space was being used well, however they were sticking to on diagonal, this could have been because the audience was on the other side and they didn’t want to hit them. There was a good sense of pushing and pulling and going back to last weeks reading with the sense of gravity, I could defiantly see them playing with the centre of gravity and where it falls in each position. We then added in speed and tone, this was very hard for the dancers and also for the audience. When doing slow with hard and soft movements we found that as dancers the tones were easy to work with. However, when we did hard tone with slow speed the audience couldn’t see the tone being applied. Also with the fast speed with hard and soft tone, both audience and dancers couldn’t get the aspects of using the tones with the faster speed. As a result of this we came to a conclusion that tone doesn’t show a lot when looking at it from a audience view. We also found out that its hard to be fluid when trying to relate all these things together, especially when interchanging between levels and tone.

Readings:

(Quotes and feelings towards them)

‘another species of Human’ – I highlighted this because it reminded me of when I dance in the jams, it makes me feel alien like, going into positions I would of never thought of before.

‘curiosity’ – I get this feeling a lot when I am in a jam and working with different people. I feel like I can explore different things with different people.

‘body in a wheelchair’ – Non dancers may think disability is a disadvantage to dance, also they may think they have less chance of being involved in the dance sector.

‘micro-movement was just as much dancing as what everyone else did with their whole body’ – Disabled people can still move in big and interesting ways, including rhythmic movements. Even though they are in a wheelchair or blind, they can still do internal movement as well as mini external movement. It is going back to week four when watching Steve Paxton’s ‘Small Dance’. The body doesn’t have to move externally to do improvisation, what is happening internally can be a dance to some people.

‘what is most important to remember is that each body, disabled or not, is unique and presents another opportunity to explore what movement is possible’ – With Contact Improvisation anyone can participate. Relating to this article disabled have plenty of strength to move about alone and to improvise with other dancers.

‘feeling is minimal, I often use my eyes to tell me exactly where my body is’ – This relates to my last research lab task with the eyes closed, he is saying his eyes are his main communication when working in the space. It is this idea of using other senses to guide you and the movement through the space. Also relating back to our last research lab when our task was with eyes closed we used touch, hearing and vocal to help get us through the space.

‘keep your eyes open, don’t get lost inside your head’ & ‘ Don’t give or take weight without listening for the agreement of your partner’s body. Let each move evolve from mutual agreement, rather than having an image in your own mind dictate what happens next’ – Relating back to week one when talking about the rules of contact improvisation. You shouldn’t do anything with a partner unless each person has a mutual agreement. You should always be listening to your partners body language and movement and judge if its the right time and place to continue.

‘being spontaneous and playing together with gravity’ – I highlighted this mainly because it is something I have to work on a lot more. I feel like I don’t give 100% of my weight to the people I work with. This should lead me into becoming comfortable in being the over and under dancer and find different, interesting ways to situate weight and create stable surfaces for the over dancer i’m working with.

Monday 10^th November 2014 – Week Seven – Formative Assessment 1-5

In today’s session we looked at going up into lifts more, I found this fun but challenging at the same time. There were a number of lifts we did today. The first one was where one person bent over and the other was being lifted off the ground balancing on the stable position your partner was giving you. When I did this lift with Toni we found it easier for her to pick me up then for me to lift her, this could have been because we were different heights and I couldn’t get low enough to pick her up. The next lift was where one person stands behind you and puts their hands across your shoulder blades, you then both signified together on when to go, this meant you bent your knees and the front person would jump whilst the person behind moved them backwards. We then did the ‘paper-clip’ lift, this was where the under dancer put one arm around the over dancers waist and then when ready the over dancer would come towards the under dancer signifying they’re ready to be lifted. The over dancer puts the same arm as the under dancer over the under dancers shoulder and then the under dancer lifts up to give the over dancer a little lift off the floor. The last lift was a little bit more complicated, meaning that the under dancer had to be very stable in the position they were holding. The over dancer swipes one arm over the under dancer’s shoulder and you had to put a bit of momentum into it, so it’s like going into a cartwheel. You have to make sure that the over dancer’s pelvis is in line with the under dancer’s pelvis, meaning you can get more height when your lifted. Once you have established that cartwheel momentum, the over dancer is in a side plank position on the under dancer’s shoulder. The over dancer must make sure their legs are mobilised in case they need to come down quickly. During this session we also got into pairs and we had to stay in contact all the time. I found this nice as you always had a connection with your partner when moving across the space, it also made me not think about what I was doing as all I was concentrating on was keeping connected with my partner and moving to the other side of room. Throughout this process today I have felt like I have become more confident in being the over and under dancer and I feel I can interchange from one to the other. When we came to the last bit of the session we were being filmed as part of our assessment, the whole group got into pairs and started with their heads touching. This was the beginning of our improvisation dance. My partner for this was Emma and as I have worked with Emma before in the past I always think I can’t give her my full body weight as I think I will crush her. Now that over the weeks I have become more confident with being the under and over dancer I felt much more relaxed working with her. This gave me a boost as I was experimenting with much more range of movement. We then came to sit in a circle while there were two couples in the middle improvising, people on the outside could watch and then go in and add to the couple to make a trio, then after a while one of the original couple members would leave and the cycle would go over and over. For instance, when I was sat out on the circle, Stacie and Georgina were rolling towards me and I felt that that was the right moment to join into the dance. When I was in the middle doing the improvisation I felt that all the stuff I had learnt today had sunk in as I was translating what I learnt and putting it with the movement I did as I went along. Although we learnt set exercises on how to do different lifts today, I felt that we didn’t have to do them full out whilst improvising. With this, I took some of the lifts and improvised with them, so I wasn’t just doing the same things over and over. I think this helped me move more freely in between each movements for example, I felt like this was the first week where there wasn’t a lot of start and stopping between each ‘exercise’ we had learnt from lesson. We could flow from one thing to the next. At the end of the session we got into groups and started to look at questions we wanted to do for our research lab next week.

Readings:

With this weeks reading I have found that it relates a lot to gravity. From reading this chapter I felt it gave me a bit more insight to what we were doing in lesson. In the reading it had a little challenge for us to do, this was to cut a shape out on cardboard and balance it on an end of a pencil. I found this challenging as the shape lost its centre of gravity a lot. When relating this to the practical session it became more clear about gravity and how to hold it when dancing with someone else. Also thinking about this sense of gravity, it gave me a bit more confidence in trusting other people to support me when I became the over dancer. The reading states that ‘the two forces (weight and support) aiming past one another, create torque that turns the body’. This helped me in the jam when people were supporting me when I was the over dancer. The under dancers support and my gravity as the over dancer counterbalanced the lift to make sure it was a stable position. It is like with the exercise with the cardboard where you had to find the centre of gravity and draw an X. When dancing as a pair and one person is the under dancer and the other is the over dancer you soon find where the centre of gravity is, because you become comfortable in the position.

Week Six – Monday 3rd November 2014

Couldn’t make the lesson due to illness.
However, in the lesson plans for today’s lesson, it said we were learning how to go up into lifts. In the reading for this weeks class it was about gravity and how to balance and where to know where your centre of gravity is. It relates gravity in dancing a lot to physics. In the source book by Woodhull she asks ‘What does this balance stuff have to do with the centre of gravity?’ (Woodhull, 1978-79, 41) In my short words, it is to know where your full body kinesphere weight is being placed, so if your falling to the side it could make aware that your centre of gravity is off placement. Woodhull asks us to do an experiment in the text.

http://imgur.com/gpITP21

 

As you can see in the picture I cut and odd shape out and had to see which sides would balance. When balanced you drew a line and when you had two lines that crossed over you put an X in the middle and that is where the centre of gravity was. When you put the shape off the centre point you could see it flopped to one side. This exercise can be linked to when doing partner work. However, when doing partner work you share your partners weight. In the picture below it shows the male supporting the female. However, if you look deeper at the weight distribution, her weight is uneven, her torso and head are to the left. This would make her fall over and lose balance. But because her legs are to the right, her centre of gravity cancels out the floppiness and losing balance.

http://imgur.com/WBomb17

http://imgur.com/UWXyQCq

Woodhull also talks about ‘body segments’. In what I can relate it to in my head is that you in your limbs have different segments and these segments help cancel out the off balances in the body. This is what I get out of this section, if you say your working with someone and you come to a balance moment. If one person is slightly lighter the other person has less weight to work with. However, the lighter person has more weight to hold. So the centre of gravity might change so the lighter person is balancing their segments on the heavier person, so the weight/centre of gravity balances out. In the picture below, the wall is acting as an object. So the person is leaning on the wall, and he has friction when applying his hand to the wall. The wall then resists and the persons centre of gravity is pulling him down. Same as the wall, the floor is resisting the feet and there is friction going along the floor. Woodhull states ‘all the other forces, acting at angles to one another, and how they tend to push and pull and turn the body.’ (Woodhull, 1978-79, 47)This had made me realise that when doing Contact Improvisation your body shifts weight all the time. Meaning your weight changes automatically a lot. In the jam on Wednesday I would like to play with this idea of weight taking and giving and seeing how far I can go with it.

Wednesday 5th November 2014 – Jam

In today’s jam it was only a small group, which was good in a way as I could fully connect with the small amount of people and what I was doing. We started off with our pow-wow, talking about what we want to achieve out of the jam and if there were any current injuries in the group. My aim for th jam was to become more confident with being the under and over dancer and to be able to take and give weight to people. I also wanted to try out some lifts, as I missed the lesson on Monday due to illness. After that we got into pairs and did an exercise to kick start the jam. One person in the pair had their hand on the other persons pelvis and was giving them a mid forceful push to walk/stop/run round the room. This then led to hand holding and the person was leading the other around the room. The end one was to hold the shoulders of the person leading and again use different dynamics and speeds to go round the room, the person leading then went onto all fours and the other person had to be the over dancer. We then did this exercise again from the start but swapped roles. The next part was to keep improvising, but in our pairs we both wanted to be the under dancer, so we were fighting constantly to be the under dancer. We then swapped over and did this again, but both wanting to be the over dancer this time. These exercises I found fun, but tricky at the same time just because you were constantly trying to find gaps and edges to find a way to either be the under or over dancer. After these warm up exercises, we began the jam and in today’s one the task was to do solos, duets, trios and to sit out once in a while to take in and see what was happening in the space. For me I think it always helps starting off as a solo, as it gets me into the right frame of mind. After a while and I become settled in the space I let my movement take me across the room and if I bumped into people I would stop and have a play with improvising with them. I felt I became a lot more free with my movement quality and I wasn’t always thinking about what am I going to do next and who am I going to dance with. Although some occasions I did do that in the jam, I felt I didn’t do it as much in today’s session. When working in pairs and trios I became relaxed then I have been in previous weeks, this helped me push past my boundaries and experiment more with giving and taking weight. So I was becoming a good balanced of the two, over dancer and under dancer. As I wasn’t in the lesson on Monday I felt a bit restricted on doing lifts. However, there was one moment when Kelly lifted me and I felt a sign of relief, thinking to myself I can do this if I have the confidence in myself. Overall, the jam for me on a whole went well and I feel like I have become better at being a varied over and under dancer. On another side I think I do need to work on lifts, but I think that will come with practice over time.

Week Five – Monday 20th October 2014

In today’s lesson we had our research lab. We divided into groups. I was with Anya, Charlotte and Georgina. And our question we were researching was ‘how can we experiment with our eyes?’ This ranged from having eyes closed to initiating movement with the eyes. With this experiment we did four stages of exercises in partners, to lead us to the main stage where all four of us improvised together. This was to see any similarities and differences and to get feelings. My partner was Georgina and at first I felt hesitated towards working with her, because I had never worked with her before. The four stages in partners were, 1) both people had eyes open 2) one person had eyes closed whilst the other person had theirs open 3) swap roles of stage two 4) both people have eyes closed. In our findings we discovered that having our eyes open became more awkward as we could see and judge before we made movement. However, when our eyes were closed we became more reliant on other senses like hearing, touch and voice. When me and Georgina had our eyes closed we counted more on touch, so we were feeling for surfaces and for each other. Whereas, Anya and Charlotte kept giggling and talking, so they were using speech more when their eyes were closed. In partners I think we all felt more conscious of the space, whether people in the room were watching or not. Moving onto the second task, where all four of us were moving in the space. We all felt more relaxed and comfortable in the space when our eyes were closed. Also it gave us more freedom of what to do with our bodies so we weren’t going back to our habitual movement patterns. We came to a conclusion that it’s hard to know ho your dancing with when you have your eyes closed. This is a strange, yet good feeling as you can try to do stuff you never really do eg, taking weight. At one point I was improvising through the space and I came across a leg and this turned into a improvisation with someone. Turns out it was Anya, this was strange for the both of us because we never have really improvised together when in class or in the jam. However, in this situation it has made me much more comfortable going up to people and initiating movement. Overall, I feel this research lab has given us time to reflect not only on our question, but on how we judge situations when when actually improvising. We also noticed that during the tasks in task one we all stayed grounded to the floor, and there wasn’t much levels being used. However, when moving to having our eyes shut we all became more confident and broke away from the floor and started using levels like standing.

Wednesday 22nd October 2014

In tonight’s jam, I wanted to reflect back on our research question from Monday and see how I could merge the things I found out into the jam, using the advantage of having more people to improvise with. When actually doing the jam I found closing my eyes helped me getting into the mood. I felt during the jam I initiated movement with people I don’t usually improvise with. And I felt I gave my weight more in this lesson. I felt I could take my hands and feet off the floor which meant me balancing on their back. I felt more relaxed and comfortable this week seeing as I played with being the under and over dancer.

Readings:

What is Release Technique?

Student of Mary Fulkerson – 1970 – 1974 – referred to work as ‘Anatomical Release Technique’
Studied with (student) John Rolland and Marsha Paludan.
In order to change your habitual movements, you first need to address the functioning, whole organism. (The mind as well as the body)
Mind = ‘by the time an intention has become realized in physical action, it is too late to alter how the action is played.
Seed of an action is embedded between intention and subsequent launch.
Seed = body’s ‘image’ – physical preparation = body’s image → ensuring action.
Mary’s classes – development movement as basic vocab. (source)
Mary studied/practiced, rolling , crawling, walking, running, falling, and transitions between these patterns.
Anatomical images to map out pathways through the structure of the body → indicated structurally sound line of compression and support → sequence flow of action → underlying development patterns.
Draw the body closer to challenging its actions along pathways. This would align the body so that weight was supported through the centre of the bones as well as re-flow of energy, so that the muscles were initiating the movement.
→ release outer muscles of holding weight and free them for what they were meant to do.
Constructive rest position – receive/respond to new physical images → easy to rehearse muscular activity and not fall.
Re-patterning the bodies response to an intention to move.
Centre-line.
Student found Steve Paxton’s work with Contact Improvisation.
→ Changed/new ideas with anatomical images.
→ Mind use as lens – power of alertness, observations.
→ Exposed body to higher levels of physical stimulation.
→ New insights into internal process of working with image.
Mary’s images = Maps for seeking and interpreting physical actions.
→ Dealt with image too much and not linking it with physical sensations = brainwash your body.
→ image come between yourself and body – open new images.
Contact duet, weight, force, response, soft quality.
→ Imagination, mind, act of dancing.

Conatact Improvisation: A Question?

Contact Improvisation seen as an art to the public view.
→ Respond physically to its enviroment.
Level of physical functioning that is ordinarily unconscious and material that is typically avoided in performance.
Steve’s ideas → put dancers body into unusual, disorienting and emergency situations.
Rather than the usual, predictable, familiar environment of support → you have to be ready for anything.
Bones, muscles, organs, nerves, brain.

Monday 13th October 2014 – Formative Assessments 1 and 2

In today’s lesson we looked at a range of exercises and how they related to the readings and to our body’s kinesphere. In the movement activities we mainly did partner work so for the first exercise we did we were working on our own. We looked at standing in parallel position and closing our eyes. Now at the beginning of the class we looked at Steve Paxton’s small dance video. The small dance means it is mainly an internal dance so its mainly the organs that are moving inside. We stood for a good five minutes just to connect our minds to our bodies. Whiles the eyes were shut, I could definitely feel some movement happening in the body and I think I swayed back and forward a lot, not dramatically, but there was a sense of swaying involved. Once establishing the small dance, we then played with this idea of letting gravity pull our weight somewhere in the space and not reacting to it but letting our body go with the suspense/movement. When letting gravity take us on a movement, you have to be sure you are relaxed and have your knees bent a bit. After getting used to this sense of being pulled through the space by gravity, we then went on to do more stuff with this sense of gravity being the bigger force. We were still letting ourselves be pulled by gravity but this time we had to let the gravity pull us all the way to the floor so in other terms we shouldn’t stop ourselves from falling to the floor. During the exercise l couldn’t let myself fall forward to the floor because I was scared of the way I would land. For this exercise and in contact improvisation, for myself, I have to tell the voice in my head to let the barriers down and to be confident in myself to do the majority.

Moving onto the next exercise, this was in partners. We had to hold one hand of each other and run. However, one person would take the lead first and have to drag the other partner around the space by using their own sense of gravity to lead their initiation of movement. We then switched roles and we both became the lead so we were interchanging roles. After a short break, we cam back to our same partner and started a new task. With this one we were learning ways to transfer weight onto another body. To understand it more, we used the terms cat and cat owner. The first time I was the cat owner and I just stood there and moved into stable positions so the car could move around me and give me their weight. We then swapped over. Once feeling comfortable with this sense of movement, we then became interchangeable between these two roles (cat and cat owner). This exercise was nice to do as I had never worked with Stacie before so it was nice to move away from my usual partners and get to know someone else. I have to say it has made me feel more confident in working with other people I don’t really know so well. At first when starting the exercises we both felt a bit hesitant, we thought this could be due to us being new partners. Neither of us knew each other’s boundaries/weight limitations. Once we got into it, the more fluid it became and the easier it was to move. When we did the interchangings, we felt we went to the floor a lot, feeling more grounded. Together we felt we could do more stable positions/lifts. As the flowness was going well through the task, I felt we weren’t starting and stopping like we were in the first two exercises. We had constant movement towards the end. And again, in my opinion it helped by shutting off that voice in the back of the head, making my body make the decisions for me.

Ready for the research lab next week, we got into our groups, discussing what questions we want to research in next week’s lesson. Our two questions are:-

1. How can you use other body parts as effectively as your chest and back?
2. How many stable positions can we actually get into?

Questions 1 and 2:

How easy is it to give someone your weight when you’re conscious you’ve never worked with them?
What is the difference between giving someone your weight and taking someone’s weight?
How do you become comfortable interchanging partners with different weights?

Magnesium – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FeSDsmIeHA

Video – Steve Paxton – The Small Dance – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sJKEXUtv44

Steve Paxton’s small dance is a movement picture of a skeleton. The small dance is the inner movement we have in our body so when you watch from the frontal view, you can see the hands twitching slightly and the thighs also doing the same. There is also a slight twist in the ribs/torso, meaning the alignment is off centre. Although these are minor movements, these are what count as “small dance”. When viewing from the side you could see the thighs engaging, helping the body very slightly rocking back and forth. Looking from the top angle (bird’s eye view) you can see the head very minorly nodding. From the feet looking up (worm’s eye view) you can see the hands/arms moving a bit. All these minor movements make up the small dance. Thinking about this idea of small movements and the inner movement, the organs and nervous system could be part of this dance, seeing as those two things are working to keep us breathing and alive. This video relates back to the very first exercise I talked about, standing still with eyes closed, seeing where gravity takes us. When standing in neutral position, I could feel my weight in my body moving back and forth. This could be because gravity is pulling my body away and my body is balancing out the weight equally. Also it is trying to make me feel more grounded on the floor. And I had a few twitches in my hands as well. This helped me learn that even stillness isn’t really still because there is always something within us that is moving slightly.

Readings:

In Steve Paxton’s Magnesium (1972) he stated “is to discover, through spontaneous movement in contact”. He then goes on to say “there is no set choreography, no specific instruction”. In this sentence I can relate it back to the gravity pulling exercise. Mainly because in that exercise you should just let go of tension and see where gravity takes you, whereas I was thinking to myself where I could catch my weight if needed, was scared of falling and crashing. In the article ‘sensing weight in movement’ Susane Raun talks about 4 different techniques (ballet, contemporary, body-mind centering and butch dance). All four genres have different ways of using gravity and mass to sense where to distribute their weight evenly. For example, a ballet dancer will have to use their weight by pulling up through the centre, whereas a contemporary dancer would need to have more range of movement in the torso.

Wednesday 15th October 2014

In the jam today I was challenging myself to work with different people and to initiate movement. Through the course of the jam I felt more relaxed then I have been in the past jams. This could be because we had more variety of movement due to the Monday classes. Also the darkness helps me get into the right frame of mind, I feel more awake and free in my movement, like no one can judge me. When starting the movement I became more aware of who was around me and went back to my old habits, going back to people I feel more comfortable with. Once I became more relaxed and into the mood of things I started my challenge of initiating movement with people. I have to say although I could find it easy initiating movement I was scanning the room a lot of the time to see who I hadn’t worked with yet. Despite that glitch of planning where to go next I felt I moved with a lot more people then I would usually work with (worked with the majority of the class). This on its own has given me a confident boost knowing there is nothing to be scared about when working with people you don’t really know so well.