Monday 17th 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.