Month: October 2015

‘In other words we learn to use our bodies in necessary and efficient ways in order to relate to our environment and a moving partner.’ (Brown, 1997, 73)

This week we began the session by standing still with our eyes closed. We were told to stand as still as possible to ‘Sense the weight of your body’ (Ravn, 2010, 21) and experience the presence of our body in the space. This exercise made me really aware of my shifts in weight and how much I move even when I try to be still. This whole task was influenced by Steve Paxton’s Small Dance (ZayacZhe, 2009). Whilst I was watching the video for the first time I was a bit confused as to what it was trying to show. However once I did this task I gained understanding on the matter and what it was trying illustrate. Your body is constantly moving, even if you are unaware of it, the body is constantly re-aligning itself. This movement isn’t necessarily visible to an external observer, however I became aware of the ‘internal kinaesthetic sensations’ (Ravn, 2010, 21) when taking part in this exercise.

We then went into our warm up where we travelled around the room walking, taking in our surroundings and bringing our awareness back into the space. After a while we began to incorporate a roll down into our walking where we’d roll down, go out into plank and then walk our hands back to our feet and roll back up to continue walking with purpose and intent. This developed into downward dog where we’d walk through the feet, walk the feet to our hands and roll back up. Next we travelled across the space using this idea of ‘grounding’ our bodies, a concept which was spoken about in the reading Sensing Weight in Movement (Ravn, 2010). We started with moving across the space on our hands and feet as our four points of contact, we were told to keep our pelvis low and the movement fluid. This then progressed into bent leg cartwheels and handstands with straight legs and legs in second. The last few exercises all possessed an aspect of upper body strength, which is something I lack.

We began improvising in partners where we brought back an aspect of a task visited in week 2 where we’d shout stop and our partner had to pause so we could find a point of balance. This time however we both were moving and partner A (the person who would pause) wouldn’t announce their moments of stillness. Instead person B had to sense their pause and react to it. This is another task involving this idea of non-verbal communication. Instead I’d have to keep an external awareness where I’d use ‘the other dancers’ way of moving […] as information for my own movements.’ (Ravn, 2010, 22). In other words, I’d use the tactile sensory input as my invitation for support. As usual I preferred being the under dancer and found when I was paired with someone who was comfortable to put their weight on me and be the over dancer the improvisation seemed to flow more freely as they were less hesitant or conscious. This is something I think many people struggle with when it comes to contact improvisation. The reluctance to put your full weight on someone else, means you hold back and therefore inhibit the movement being produced but also the experience you have. I remember in the second week when we we’re introduced to this idea of under and over dancer and how I was heavier if I was tense and if I didn’t fully relax my weight onto the under dancer. Personally this is what I think holds me back, ‘how the weight of the body is perceived from within’ (Ravn, 2010, 23), how I internally sense my weight on someone else and how I comprehend my weight to feel. Even from my experience as being the under dancer I know I’m not the only person who feels this way, even if it hasn’t been said.

The next task was more of a trust exercise more than anything else. We all stood in a circle and one person would move into the centre of the circle to then begin a count down from three to one. In this time the individuals standing on the outside would move to stand behind them. The central dancer would begin to fall backwards and the others were there to help support the fall. You’d gently place the dancer on the ground supporting every bit of their body and then return to your original position. I was more than happy to help support another dancer, but I did not have a go at being the actual centre dancer. This developed into two groups where one dancer was lifted up by the remaining bodies (in my group there was 7 supporting dancers). One dancer would stand in neutral as the rest of us placed our hands on various bits of the body and as the individual dancer fell backwards we would gradually lift her up above us and carry them around the space. We also took turns holding various bits of the body and some areas require more strength (upper legs) whilst others require more care (head). It really made you think about how you’d apply your points of contact and how much force or pressure you’d exert to form a connection but to not cause harm. We all had the opportunity to experience being the dancer who was lifted and for me this was a nerve wracking experience. However, as stated in one of the readings, it is possible for anyone to lift anyone, it’s to do with ‘the body’s construction more than the body’s strength’ (Ravn, 2010, 24), and in this case I had 7 other people lifting me.

After this we split into research groups and in this group we began mind mapping questions we individually had asked ourselves over the previous weeks in contact and points we had risen in our blogs. This made me realise a lot of my worries other people shared and put my mind at ease a little. Some of our questions and points linked. I think it became clear as a collective we were all still interested in our movement being produced, whether this was habitual or not, the ‘questions of aesthetics and creativity still remain’ (Brown, 1997, 74). However, when we began expanding on our questions and points we found two stood out. We brought up the importance of the senses and whether we rely on some more than the others and what would happen if we took one or multiple away. The second point was focusing on this idea of consciousness, which was brought up in one of the previous readings, and whether it benefits improvisation or not.

 

Brown, B. (1997) Is Contact a Small Dance? Contact Improvisation Sourcebook I, 6, 72-75.

Ravn, S. (2010) Sensing weight in movement. Journal of Dance & Somatics, 2 (1) 21-34.

ZayacZhe (2009) steve paxton. Smalldance

. Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sJKEXUtv44&feature=youtu.be [accessed 13 October 2015].

This week we began the session by reflecting on this week’s reading Steve Paxton’s “Interior Techniques” by Robert Turner (2010). We all said how it spoke very much about the importance of touch when it comes to improvisation and also the reluctance to use it in everyday life and how this is what causes apprehension when it comes to contact improvisation.
Afterwards we watched some video examples of contact improvisation. Magnesium (Paxton, 2006) was one. I found there was minimal movement when the dancers moved by themselves however when they met another body it became quite high speed. I felt like there were underlying themes of pushing, pulling, rolling and spinning. One particular move stood out to me and it occurred a couple of times during the improvisation. While in contact with each other (using the arms or hands as a point of contact) a dancer would rotate and swing round another, causing them to descend to the floor and spin around on their back. The standing dancer, still rotating, would then pull the dancer back up lifting them form the floor to standing. This move was always executed with a strong, meaningful connection between both dancers.
The next improvisation we looked at was by Blake Nellis and Brando (Aaron Brando, 2010). I found this improvisation to look weightless and effortless as if they were moving without thinking. One move seemed to flow into the other as if it was choreographed. You could see the incorporation of under and over dancer and the transitions between the two changing between the under and over dancer was seamless. While watching it I asked myself how can I make my movement flow like that?
Personally I preferred the look of Blake Nellis’ and Brando’s (Aaron Brando, 2010) steady and relaxed approach to improvisation in comparison to Magnesium (Paxton, 2006). One thing I noticed in both pieces, was something we are told to focus on and that’s our intention behind our contact. Whilst watching, I could see they initiated their movement and points of contact with purpose and force. Even if in the second improvisation it looked delicate, they were certain with their movement and I think this is what made it so effective. The fact that they were so sure in their movement and what they were going to do made me feel at ease, they performed their movement with confidence. In the reading it was said ‘dancers learned to have confidence in their “choices”’ (Turner, 2010, 131), is this something I will learn? Will I ever be able to move as freely and as relaxed as that?
Our warm up task was a challenging one. We began in neutral to bring attention to our bodies and then were asked to roll onto one side to lie in foetal position. We did this and sped it up until a point came when we were told to begin moving without taking your head off the floor. How could I move without taking my head of the floor? It took me a while to get into the flow of this. I struggled to move into higher levels and mainly kept the movement minimal, however, I asked myself ‘what were the unexplored possibilities of movement’ (Turner, 2010, 126)? The more I thought about it the more I made sure every single surface of my skull had made contact with the floor and therefore I could happily say I exhausted the movement possibilities.
Our first hands on task involved us cradling another person’s head in our hands. Person A would lie on the floor and person B would sit behind them. Starting at the shoulders, person B would stroke their hands up the neck of person A to the side of the head and gently, without assistance lift their head off the floor. As person A, I found this very relaxing although I did struggle with letting go of my head, not because I didn’t have trust in my partner, just because I found the process of fully relaxing a body part quite challenging. However, as person B I felt I held some kind of responsibility, the head is a very precious part of the body. I was very nervous about moving my partners head and whether I wasn’t being gentle enough or I was holding it at an awkward angle. It really did make you think about how you apply your touch. From this, Person A was asked to begin moving, starting slowly with minimal movement and then developing to bigger movement travelling around the space. Person B was told to keep contact with person A’s head. When I took on the role of person A, I found it really brought my awareness to the head, a part of the body which might usually be forgotten. This meant there was a major reduction in my habitual tendencies. This especially was the case when person B was told to give a little guidance and somewhat persuade your direction, this also meant I would initiate and lead movement with my head. From my experience of being person B and guiding I found this rather therapeutic. It meant, from an external perspective, you could cause the dancer to create interesting movement patterns they wouldn’t have necessarily thought of. Was this a duet in itself? A point we drew upon from the reading was this idea of control in improvisation, ‘assuming authority or submitting to it’ (Turner, 2010, 124), suggests this idea that when you’re improvising as a duet one person takes lead and controls the direction of the improvisation. It doesn’t necessarily mean that person is always in control, more of the fact that someone will be leading while the other is surrendering to it. In this exercise even though person B wasn’t dancing as such, they manipulated person A’s direction of movement and therefore contributed to the movement being produced.

For our next exercise we were asked to get into pairs and create a point of contact between our heads. Without losing this connection we were told to start improvising. In the reading is say’s ‘The understanding of personal space is social/habitual and since the habit is defensive, having that space invaded can be shocking’ (Turner, 2012, 125). During this task I could definitely relate. Having to keep such a tight proximity with someone for an elongated amount of time was quite daunting especially as it was the head/ face, which is quite an intimate body party. This being said, it definitely pushed us to the limit of our movement boundaries and allowed us to produce really unique movement. After a while we were asked to switch body parts, my partner and I decided to go for the elbow. I think this was quite a safe choice in comparison to the head or the back/ thigh lets say, especially as it meant I could still move my lower half in isolation to my partner. We were then asked to change partners. This threw me as it meant you then had to once again form that connection with someone and begin to create this flow of movement, which for me takes a little bit of time to get used to. However, the change did mean you could experience different bodies and the way different people move which opened my eyes to more material. As the exercise progressed the exercise developed into changing the points of contact rather than just holding one. This is the first time I’ve properly felt like I was taking part in a contact improvisation because of the freedom we had and from the sort of movement being produced.
Following this we did an exercise which focused on how we use our focus and eye contact as a tool for communication. We were instructed to walk around the space and make eye contact with who we passed. This progressed into us holding the eye contact for an elongated amount of time, almost so you felt uncomfortable doing so. Once this had been established we started involving movement. On your own accord you’d make eye contact with someone, follow them and then copy the movement they produced before separating and continuing with your different paths. This exercise made me realise how much can be said through just the eyes.
The last exercise was a weight-baring exercise, where one person would make a base by being on four points, where by the knees and the hands were parallel and touching the floor. Another person would line themselves up, in the same position, next to the first individual. They would then lift the arm and leg which was furthest from the other person and rotate themselves round so they were facing the ceiling. They would at this point be making contact with each other’s back. The person doing the rolling would take a moment here and fully rest themselves on the other person. They would then continue moving to roll off on the other side in preparation for them to then be the support. I found this quite easy because I have quite a tall back so I could easily roll onto and off my partner, however, my partner even said how she struggled because of the height difference. is this something I need to consider when improvising?

 

Aaron Brando (2010) Contact Improvisation: Blake Nellis & Brando @ Earthdance. [online Video] Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQRF2sLK1vY [Accessed 7 October 2015].
Nelson, L. (dir.) (2006) Contact Improvisation Archive DVD #2: Magnesium, Peripheral Vision, Soft Pallet. [DVD] East Charleston: VIDEODA.
Turner, R. (2010) Steve Paxton’s “Interior Techniques”: Contact Improvisation and the Political Power. TDR: The Drama Review, 54 (3) 123-135.

‘We diminish or become fearful and so do not teach and learn with touch, we devalue one of our most basic and informative sensations.’ (Bannon and Holt, 2012, 219)
This week we looked at the idea of being under and over. Our attention once again focused on this idea of touch and the value of it when connecting with someone else, ‘touch that stimulates awareness’ (Bannon and Holt, 2012, 216). We spoke about it in relation to this week’s reading (Touch: Experience and Knowledge) and agreed touch is needed in contact improvisation for ‘affective communication’ (Bannon and Holt, 2012, 220). It was also brought to our attention the trust and support we need to have in each other and the value we need to have not on just our own bodies but on the others around us.
The class began with an exercise that involved us connecting with other bodies. Similarly to last week the task incorporated this idea of pushing and pulling. We began by moving around the room which slowly progressed into a jog. We were encouraged to go up to another person and touch them on the shoulder, this contact initiated them to ‘melt’ to the floor where they would just lie still in neutral. Another body would then come along and pull them up off the floor for the process to start again. About 15 people were doing this at one time. While this was going on we were urged to think about the intention behind the touch, ‘the quantity of touch’ (Bannon and Holt, 2012, 216), and how it resulted in the other person melting to the floor or being lifted from the floor. For me I tried to make sure my contact on the shoulder was strong and forceful and when lifting people from the floor I would use my pile so I had a strong base in order for me to be able to lift the other dancer up without requiring their help. This task helped us prepare our bodies for taking other people’s weight.
Another task which got us thinking about how we would take another person’s weight, as well as how we would distribute our own weight onto another person, was when we experimented with a move which involved two bodies, one lying on top of another. This task also introduced us to this concept of the under and over dancer. The under body would have all of the over bodies weight on top of them. The under body then had to roll causing the over body to roll off them. I felt very self-conscious about putting all my weight onto someone else, so I somewhat held back from doing so. This actually put more stress on the under body than if I just let my weight go.
Finding new points of contact with each other we moved on to our next exercise which involved us being back to back with another body and improvising using this idea of under and over. We did this numerous time with different pairs. I found that automatically one individual in the pair would somewhat take control and lead the improvisation and this would go back and forth throughout. Initiating the movement using under and over as the stimulus meant you and your partner would have to decide who was going under and who was going over without verbally discussing it. In an improvisation how do you decide who’s the under dancer and who’s the over dancer? I personally prefer being the under dancer because I would rather take someone’s weight, so I would always manipulate the improvisation to make sure it moved in the direction that meant I was under. This sort of meant I was trying to control the duet and for a duet to be successful it has to be a conversation, involving two bodies and two minds. When I was with someone who preferred being the over dancer, the improvisation came a bit more freely without disruption and dispute, whereas when we both wanted to be the under dancer there was a conflict of interests and ideas of where this improvisation was going.
Like last week, in pairs, we would observe one another looking out for habitual patterns. Once this had been done we repeated the exercise however this time we would randomly shout stop, your partner would pause and you, using their body as a structural starting point, would find moments of contact. You could lean, balance or even fully rest yourself on the other person. We then switch roles. When I was initiating points of contact I was hesitant to put my full body weight on another and this meant I held back in what I was doing. Therefore I found myself doing similar movements which weren’t far out of my comfort zone, how do I gain the confidence to give my weight to someone else and be more adventurous in my movement?
Our last exercise, once again, involved us taking and having someone else take our weight, but this time it was in the form of counterbalances. I found for these to work you needed some individual muscular strength. We did these back to back, moving forward and backwards and sideways, as well as doing side by side counterbalances. I really struggled. I found the back to back one moving forward and backwards, when I was the one moving backwards (with someone behind me) the easiest. Probably because, once again, I was semi in control. How do I let go and allow another person to lead? The other counterbalances either I physically didn’t have the strength to continue with or I couldn’t synchronise the balancing with my partner.
This session really made me question my contact improvisation abilities, for me to improve I have to remove this mental block which is stopping me from giving my weight to another person. Is this a lack of trust? The reading highlights the importance of trust in relation to being touched, ‘Touch allows you to connect with another, from my experience it has helped me engage with my group member to a higher level of trust.’ (Bannon and Holt, 2012, 221). It also speaks about touch as a ‘vulnerable commodity’ (Bannon and Holt, 2012, 219) and I believe this is the issue. I feel vulnerable when resting my weight on someone. Maybe as the week’s progress this will become less of an issue and I can begin to experiment more when moving with others.

 

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