Month: January 2015

So this week, it was decided it was time to put down the bean bags and focus on our body. The class required a lot more letting go but at the same time a lot more concentration. We began by gradually moving around the space at a slow speed which allowed time for everyone to focus in on themselves. As the speed of the movement increased, I found myself losing focus on what my body was actually doing, I was focusing on constantly moving and ended up using a lot of repetitive movement. Due to this, I was then debating with myself as to whether that was true improvisation, as there was no thought process behind the movement, I was following what my body wanted to do. It did feel myself let go as I threw my body around the space a bit more, yet on reflection I felt that the movement was perhaps ugly and would be useless if I were to actually choreograph something from it.

One element of the class I felt I particularly benefitted from was the ‘pause, imagine, move’ task. By taking the time to pause and think about how to move from one position to another and then imagining myself performing that move, it allowed me to explore with all the possible ways of moving. It enabled me to focus on particular parts of my body and use techniques that I perhaps don’t use a lot, such as spiralling in the waist rather swinging my arm on a wheel plane. This contrasted to earlier in the class when improvising at a fast speed with no time to think, as then I felt my limbs were moving without control and all at the same time, however in this task I was allowed a lot more control.

When it came to partner work, there were aspects I found enjoyable and useful but there were aspects I also found challenging. I enjoyed improvising whilst my partner watched and wrote down what she saw because I was dictating the movements and I was making my own choices. However, when it switched to my partner then reading out what she wrote and me following what she said, it was more difficult as it put me more on the spot even though I had just performed those same movements. Then when it came to us both improvising, both dictating and yet following each other at the same time, I found that this was the most challenging as it was hard to follow your own decisions whilst listening to your partner’s. This linked to last weeks class, demonstrating further how other people’s decisions affect your own and you have to react to it. However it was interesting to see that, although we both had separate agendas and our movements were slightly different, there was a connection between the two dancers, which I am keen to explore further when choreographing in the future.

The decisions we make whilst improvising also link to the tracking technique. When reading about this technique in the readings I was very confused by the difference between conscious and unconscious awareness. I took from the reading that if you are conscious that you are tracking, you are not truly tracking your improvisation, you are in fact dancing. Yet if you are unconsciously tracking, you are truly improvising. I’m still not sure as to whether this is correct or not but I guess it depends on the dancer. It wasn’t until I read Nancy Stark Smith’s input on tracking that I began to comprehend more. She uses a technique called ‘telescoping awareness’, describing that ‘It’s not about being aware of everything all the time, but flickering in and out’ (De Spain, 2014, 51). This type of awareness taught me that you can be completely focused on one sensation but then you can zoom out and focus on the larger picture, or switch to a different sensation. For example, there are many different purposes for tracking, such as where you are in the music, or on stage or where you are compared to others on stage, and so by using the ‘telescoping awareness’ technique, it enables you to flicker between these elements, rather than trying to focus on them all, all at once. I also embraced her idea of the ‘idiot button’ which can come in handy when you become stuck in your movement or ‘you are just too aware of too many things and it gets almost too turgid or something’ (De Spain, 2014, 51), tracing back to what I said last week about it being okay to cross everything out and start again by reminding yourself of the basics.

I know its only the second week, but I’m already feeling pretty confident in myself and my learning, there is still plenty of time for things to go wrong, and no doubt they will. But as long as each week I settle in to class thinking of it as the next level up in my learning, I know my confidence will only grow.

De Spain, K. (2014) Landscape of the Now: A Topography of Movement Improvisation. New York: Oxford University Press.

Improvisation has always been a daunting task for me, let alone reflecting on what I’ve just done. I mean, any dancer has probably put on a song they really like in their bedroom and danced however they like to it, but anyone can do that, as there is no real task at hand, there is nothing to really achieve and you can easily forget about what just happened. So upon hearing the first task was to throw a bean bag between pairs, you could say I was very relieved and perhaps a little confused.

The readings in particular changed my attitude towards improvisation. The reading ‘Dear Practice…: The experience of improvisation’ by Vida Midgelow demonstrates the deep connection by a dancer and his or her practice, through describing one’s actual experience. Midgelow tells herself that ‘in allowing the self to be open, a set of principles deeper than any prior rules will ground you. Go ahead, dearest Dancer, with the belief that ‘something’ (even if that something is a ‘nothing’) will emerge’ (Midgelow, 2012, 11). This made me realise that whenever I become stuck in my practice that I should not worry as I already know the answer and the way to move forward, I just haven’t discovered it yet, however, with perseverance and confidence in myself the answer will come to me.

Our task was to set up a score around the passing of a bean bag between one another, combined with certain parameters that affect our decisions by being aware of others and your surroundings. In our group, one pair stood facing each other a few meters apart, making a different sound each time the bean bag left their hand, once they have started, other pairs enter the space randomly from opposite sides of the space and begin throwing the bean bag, whilst constantly moving around the space. Just by doing this, we are creating movement, albeit random movement, but still movement. We then introduced parameters that would affect our decision making and how we move, these included:

1. Jumping once upwards and freezing in a pair if one of you drops your bean bag, only able to move again upon hearing another pair drop their bean bag.
2. Dropping to the ground if the original pair making sounds make a ‘shh’ sound, and then getting up to continue once the original pair make another sound.
3. If the ‘shh’ sound is made whilst you and your partner are frozen, you are then allowed to move by dropping to the floor with everyone else and then get up to continue throwing the bean bag.
4. If the original pair drop their bean bag, they also have to jump once and freeze, causing the other pairs around them to then swap partners, entirely at random with no assumption of who your next partner will be. The original pair can then move again and continue throwing the bean bag when another pair drops their bean bag.

A few problems arose when practising with the score, for example, the fourth parameter was added when the original pair dropped their beanbag and followed the first parameter, realising there was no way for the second parameter to be carried out. The fourth parameter allows the movement to continue and all the parameters to be carried out. A second problem arose when actually performing our score, as we realised we did not have a clear ending, therefore our score was infinite however we realised this was neither right or wrong as a score can be infinite yet you can still come to an ending by sensing it throughout the group. The fourth parameter also provides something unfixed within the score, as by having to swap partners without knowing beforehand who you are going to switch to, we are thereby, by having no idea when we will have to swap partners and no time to think or prepare, we are truly improvising.

And so in my first class of improvisation, I have learnt that there are many more layers to improvisation to what I originally thought and that there is no shame in only having just realised that. There is no right or wrong and its okay to sometimes get stuck when experimenting. No matter what the task is, be it simply throwing and catching a bean bag or improvising a solo performance in front of an audience, as long as you have confidence you are constantly discovering new things.

Midgelow, V. (2012) Dear Practice…: The experience of improvisation. Choreographic Practices, 2(1)9-24.