Month: December 2014

Bibliography

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Paxton, S. Drafting Interior Techniques. In Stark-Smith, N. A Subjective History of Contact Improvisation. In Albright, A. C., & Gere, D. (2003) Taken by Surprise: A dance Improvisation Reader. Middletown, Conn: Wesleyan University Press. 175-184.

Heitkamp, D. (2003) Moving from the Skin: An Exploratorium. Contact Quarterly/ Contact Improvisation Sourcebook II. 28, (2) 256-264

Bannon, F. & Holt, D. (2012) Touch:Experience and Knowledge. Journal of Dance and Somatic Practices. 3, (1/2) 215-227

Turner, R. (2010) Steve Paxton’s “Interior Techniques”: Contact Improvisation and Political Power. 54, (3) 123-135

Ravn, S. (2010) Sensing Weight in Movement. Journal of Dance and Somatic Practices. 2, (1) 21-34

Brown, B. is Conatact a Small Dance? Contact Improvisation Sourcebook I. 6, 72-75

Woodhull, A. Center of Gravity. Contact Quarterly/Contact Improvisation Sourcebook. 4, 43-48

Curtis, B. Exposed to Gravity. Contact Quarterly/Contact Improvisation Sourcebook I. 13, 156-162.

Youtube. (2009) Steve Paxton, Small Dance. [Online Video] Available from: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=steve+paxtons+small+dance [Accessed on 20th October 2014]

 

Monday 1^st December 2014 – Week Ten

When attending the lesson today we mainly focused on our scores and polishing them up ready for the open studios on Thursday. When focusing more deeply on the score we realised that we had some issues with it. The first being that we replaced the amount of lifts we had to see before going back into the jam. At first it was three lifts, but we changed it to two lifts as people were standing out of the jam too long. We also decided that the audience should have a say in what we do. So at the start of the score we asked the audience to pick a number. Half the group asked for a number ranging from one to five and the other half asked for a number ranging from one to ten. The numbers indicated how many people we danced with before we could leave the score. As a group we felt this worked so much better with both halves of the group having different ranges of numbers as we could balance out the number going in and out. Thinking about the lifts, we had to make sure that we constantly had the lifts in the back of our head mainly because we didn’t want people waiting on the outside for a long period of time. We went through the score a few times in the lesson, whilst getting feedback and reorganising things to fit with the score.

In the open studios on Thursday the 4^th December 2014, I felt that it went really well. At the start we had a soothing start to the jam which got us geared up and ready for the score. As the audience was arriving I didn’t really realise they were watching at the time, I think because I was so focused on what I was doing, I wanted to achieve my best and see how far I could go in the score we set. I feel I gave and took weight well, but not as much as I have in lesson, this could be due to having an audience in the room and feeling cautious?

Throughout this ongoing module Contact Improvisation I feel like I have grown from the first session. I feel now I am more confident in the group now and feel I could work with different people in the group without feeling shy or intimidated. Throughout this research lab I have felt the readings have given me a much bigger understanding on how I view and critique pieces of contact improvisation.

Monday 24^th November 2014 – Week Nine

In today’s session we got into our groups that we are in for open studios next Thursday evening. For our score we decided to go with space as our component. The following rules as part of the score are:

• Ask the audience to pick a number between one and ten.

• Odd number means you start standing and even number means you start on the floor.

• You have to dance with the amount of people your chosen number was, eg four.

• Once you have danced with the number of people you were given, you step out of the jam and watch until you see two lifts happen inside the jam.

• Once you have seen two lifts you enter back into the space continuing with the jam, aiming to dance with the number of people you got given by the audience member.

• If two people get left in the space at any time, the other members have to make a corridor around the two members left in the space. Once the corridor members had seen two lifts they could then enter back into the space and start to improvise again.

• Once we feel the score has come to an end, one by one we will improvise towards the audience and sit looking in at the jam. There should be a duet left in the space at the end.

With our score I feel like it is very strong and within the designated time slots to practice I feel like we will accomplish our score and will be able to improve it for when we perform it next Thursday. During the session, we mainly just spoke about what worked and what didn’t. We also just kept running through the score and assuring people understood all the concepts.