Last week was our reading week and I arranged a tutorial with Kirsty to discuss the module and how I was getting on. During this it was mentioned how I needed to give into my movement and have confidence in the material I’m producing. She asked me to fully explore my movement because at the moment I seem to be cutting it short and we questioned whether this was a confidence thing. Kirsty also said she wanted me to investigate different dynamics while dancing and maybe this change in quality will affect the movement I produce. I will comment on this in the upcoming weeks.
This week unfortunately I had to sit out, however it gave me an opportunity to watch an improvisation class and I found it really interesting to be an observer for a change. A lot of different elements were touched upon but they all focused around this idea of ‘going up’. You could tell a lot of people were anxious about this concept and the idea of their mass being supported by someone other than themselves. This week’s reading Center of Gravity by Ann Woodhull focused around the theory of the centre of gravity in relation to balance and stability, as well as how it affects being lifted by or lifting someone else. At one point in the reading it was mentioned how ‘The height of the center of gravity affects stability. The further your center is above your base of support, the less stable you are.’ (Woodhull, 1997). This gives reason as to why people dislike being in the air, there’s an element of uncertainty and they don’t feel safe. However, does this also give a reason as to why we prefer to improvise closer to the ground? Is it because we feel safer? Is it because there’s another surface to support ourselves off? Is it because there’s less distance to fall?
The session started out as normal with a warm up where the dancers would walk around the space taking in their environment. This progressed into rolling down into plank with press ups to then holding plank and then moved into travelling work. This week seemed a lot more physically demanding than the previous weeks. After this the partner work began. Person A was asked to improvise, producing simplistic movement at a slow pace. Person B was asked to apply points of contact by tracing partner A’s movement and to put pressure on the points movement originated. B’s eventually were asked to not use their hands. This made me think back to our research lab and how no one made the decision to initiate contact with another body part. This then developed into using any area to make contact and began to incorporate the idea of pushing between the two points of contact. This introduced the idea of counterbalances and moments of contact which have resistance. There was then a moment of reflection and individuals said they felt as if they’re weren’t feeling the movement and it was as if they got stuck. From an external perspective, I never would have noticed, especially as it didn’t look awkward. This made me question my thought process when I improvise and whether when I feel uncomfortable is this portrayed through my movement or is it something only I’m aware of?
In pairs the next task involved one partner resting on hands and knees to create a table top position. The other person had to rest on their back. The connection was made and the weight of the person was established for the under dancer. The over dancer then had to try rolling over the under dancers back. This from observation was clearly easier said than done. I think a lot of people struggled with being upside down but on top of this they were unable to see behind them and this meant automatically the body tried to protect itself. Developing on from this, they tried to balance on the back of their partner using their stomach and were asked to test the point of contact and push the point they balanced on. This produced the effect that the over dancer was weightless and most pairs seemed comfortable with this weight baring.
After they tried counterbalances and lifts which travelled around the space. One involved the pair facing each other holding hands and one partner would pull the other to cause them to move, the pair would rotate as this happened and then were in reverse for the roles to change. This progressed into the individual being pulled to lift their outside leg which gave the impression the dancer was jumping, when in fact most of the effort came from the partner doing the pulling. Then they tried running and jumping at their partner. From previous experience I know this can be quite overwhelming because you feel like you’re going to run straight into your partner so you tend to slow down and this means you don’t have enough momentum to be lifted high. Other lifts and counterbalances were investigated but all, obviously, involved a mutual effort and attention from both partners.
As the class went on confidence seemed to build. After a while a connection was created between partners and this meant you were able to invest some trust into another person to lift you. You could tell it was a semi daunting task when they were asked to change partners. Thinking back to the reading, I felt this was because they had identified where their partner’s centre of gravity was and therefore knew where to rest, lift, move from etc. At the beginning of this session I felt I was going to feel very nervous for next week’s class, when in fact, after observing my fellow class mates doing lifts and exploring this idea of going up I was excited to experiment with it myself.
Woodhull, A. (1997) Center of Gravity. Contact Quarterly/Contact Improvisation Sourcebook I, 4, 43-48.