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.