Improvisation and Reflective Practise

Confidence is something that can take a while to build up but can be destroyed in a second. Just as I thought I was doing well, I now find myself struggling more than I was at the start, which is actually quite hard to admit. After discovering I may have torn one of my hamstrings and the thought of having to watch others improve their improvisation skills whilst I sit out wasting precious time, it gets you quite down.

When presented with the idea of still joining in, however with the limitation of not being to use my legs, I thought right okay, this gives me a chance to still improve by getting me to work with my injury, instead of being hindered by it. But then I had several questions:

• If I’m not allowed to use my legs, does that mean I’m meant to envisage having no legs? Dancing as though I exist only from the waist up?
• Are they there but not working? As if they are paralysed?
• Are they there, but I have to ignore the fact that they are there?

Don’t get me wrong, it was a great limitation to consider but it opened up so many different interpretations, it was rather overwhelming and so I felt a lot of added pressure in a room full of capable dancers. I tried to join in with the tasks given in class at first, but with the pressure of trying to make what I did look good, I felt as though I wasn’t doing it right. It also would have helped if my leg didn’t hurt whilst even being sat still. The part I found most difficult was finding ways to travel without using my legs, obviously I can use my arms to pull me across the floor, but combined with the tasks of trying to get the top of my head to touch my sit bones or imagining all the cells in my body are racing, it all seemed too much to think about. On the other hand there were some tasks that I felt I couldn’t join in with at all, such as the task that my left leg is leading the movement, which brought me back to my initial questions, do I even have legs? Whilst sat on the edge of the performance space, I had images of what I could do with this limitation, but felt I couldn’t due to the risk of injuring my leg further.

In dance, your legs are considered your most powerful tools, albeit not your only tool, and so I always believed that if I injure one of my tools its important to give it time to heal? And so, by attempting to participate in this week’s improvisation class, I felt I was contradicting myself and advice given to me. So many different arguments and ideas were floating round in my head at the time, but then I watched the work of David Toole. Here is a man with no legs using his arms as his main tools and being able to move seaminglessly across the floor, and here’s me complaining about a silly torn hamstring. So for now, I will give my leg time to heal but the idea of limitations will be something I come back to in the future.

This week we were asked to answer one of the following three questions from within one of our readings (Ribeiro and Fonseca, 2011, 72):

1. How is it possible to make a shared choice of movements during improvisation between two or more dancers, without previous agreement and communication through words?
2. What generates the sense nexus that is perceived when we watch a dance improvisation?
3. Can we call choreography what we see when we watch dance improvisation?

The first question seems rather straight forward, the second seemed a bit too in depth for my brain to handle and the third, however, actually made me stop and think. We typically define choreography as the arrangement of steps, or patterns, could the same not be applied to an improvisation with a set score? Although the movements aren’t specifically planned, the score is. In their article, Ribeiro and Fonseca reveal that “a person who watches a contemporary dance improvisation performance perceives a sequence of interlinked movements that has its own logic” (Ribeiro and Fonseca, 2011, 79). They argue that improvisation can in fact have its own logic due to the link between the dancers on stage, linking to question one. The capability of the dancers to form a connection with one another, is based on empathy, to allow themselves to make similar decisions and this contributes to the overall logic of the improvisation. Empathy is “a process that enables the understanding of emotions and intentions among people” (Ribeiro and Fonseca, 2011, 73) and is what allows the dancers to participate in non premeditated joint decision-making, therefore adding to the temporary structure or temporary choreography of the piece in the present moment which the viewer can identify. The agreement between the dancers and the confident and deliberate movements they use, convince the viewer that there must be some underlying structure and choreography to the piece. So therefore, it is also not the individual movements themselves that demonstrate the choreography, but it is how they are linked to other movements or other dancers.

Ribeiro, M, Fonseca, A. (2011) The empathy and the structuring sharing modes of movement sequences in the improvisation of contemporary dance. Research in Dance Education. 12(2)71-85.

DV8 (2008) The Cost of Living – David Toole. [online video] Available from: http://youtu.be/VcpcujComks [Accessed 21st February 2015].

It now seems an appropriate time to take a step back and assess how I think I am doing in my learning of improvisation. Despite it only being 4 weeks since having started, I am beginning to feel a bit more confident and I at least don’t have the sickening feeling of anxiousness before entering the studio. However, I am not going to say I find it all easy, each week there is a new challenge to be tackled, yet seen as no challenge has left me completely baffled (yet!) I feel as though I am off to a great start!

I think something I still particularly struggle with is my habitual movement. This week we were given the task to improvise a solo in front of a partner, in order for them to pick out certain movements and give tips for improvement. Here I took the opportunity to film myself in order to aid me in picking out my own faults. Immediately after performing the first solo, I noted down some movements I found myself repeating. I tend to roll across the floor a lot and repeat the same move but to the other side. I also noticed what I did when I felt myself nearly becoming stuck, I tend to perform dabbing movements, such as pressing into the floor with my hands, releasing slightly to then press down again, creating a weighty sense of movement. I know I do this, because it allows me time to think of what to do next, which I also know I should not be doing, I should be letting the movement flow. I think the reason I found myself becoming stuck was due to the pressure of performing in front of someone, knowing they are judging my movements. However gradually, after the 2nd and 3rd solo I felt myself become slightly more comfortable.

When comparing the 3 different solos after feedback from my partner, you can see the difference and how I am trying to explore with different movements. For instance, my partner described how she could identify my dance history with street dance as she could see clear isolations, however in the 3rd solo this was not as easily identifiable as I was more invested in my exploration. It was also mentioned that I seemed to have a connection with my use of breathe and my own pulse, I seemed to use this to influence my movement without really realising and so this will be something I will delve into more when next improvising.

Another task alongside these solos was to identify a beginning, middle and end. I discovered that timing was not necessarily something I found difficult, each solo lasted around 2mins40 which I felt was appropriate. Each section lasted around the same, perhaps the ending lasting a bit shorter as I knew I had to bring it to an end. What I did struggle with was perhaps actually achieving an ending and knowing when it was time to stop because if I wasn’t thinking about it, I could have probably danced a lot longer than I did. The movement quality, however, if I did continue would be questionable.

Over the course of the past 4 weeks I have also felt myself identifying closely with some practitioners, particularly Steve Paxton. I agree with most of his ideas towards improvisation and some have allowed me to consider certain elements of dance improvisation more deeply. For example, when discussing space and time this week I was drawn to Paxton’s idea of “Zero Times Two” (De Spain, 2014, 111). I have always known that where you are in the space on the stage can have a dramatic effect on an audience member’s reaction and interpretation but I have never thought of what actually defines space. In his lecture, Paxton describes how he empties the space of everything, he is “taking all the air out, and removing the walls and taking away all the things that define space, because they’re not space, but they do define it” (De Spain, 2014, 111). I took from this idea that by emptying the space of everything that defines it, you are then able to add in what you want, such as you can add a wall in the middle of you space (obviously imaginatively, not literally), and choreograph around it, or you can even add a particular lighting to further divide your space with spotlights for example. I am comforted by the idea that the space I work with is what I make it and I can allow what I imagine the space to be influence my improvisation.

Each week, I seem to discover something new to play with and by allowing myself to explore, I am therefore improving without necessarily realising. Of course, this may just be my growth in confidence and there may not be any actual improvement, but as long as I believe there is, there will be.

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

This week I unfortunately fell ill and so I missed the Improvisation and Reflective Practice class, however, whilst wallowing in my bed I had lots of time to delve into the readings for this week. It was a good thing I had loads of time to dedicate to the readings as they were particularly hard to understand.

Melinda Buckwalter talks about how “form is the shape of something” (Buckwalter, 2010, 34). Form is something I have always struggled to follow, as its difficult to find a clear definition, mostly because form is not always something we can name. It wasn’t until Deborah Hay’s description where I began to understand. For instance Hay demonstrates how the form is developed through practice, she is sure to use the phrase “practice the performance” rather “rehearse”, as through practice we begin to see the dance take form by “unlearning the habit of learning a piece in one particular way” (Buckwalter, 2010, 39). Eiko and Komo allowed me to then understand how form influenced improvisation; when making their dances, they begin with a concept and develop an end structure through improvisation. It is “a narrative built from multiple, concrete images, but not a typical ‘and then we did this’ narrative” (Buckwalter, 2010, 39). This demonstrates how form and improvisation work in conjunction with another as through improvisation the form is able to develop, yet the form or narrative is still open to interpretations, following the description that “sometimes the form is left open, to be discovered or revealed along the way” (Buckwalter, 2010, 34). Through the use of several practitioners views, Buckwalter embellishes the fact that form allows the dance or improvisation to take shape and actually become something other than just movement.

Intentionality as described by Kent de Spain reminded me of my previous experiences with decision-making with regard to improvisation, yet it seems different due to many practitioners disagreeing with its use. For instance Steve Paxton believes it disrupts the creative process, which is actually a belief I am inclined to agree with, as I believe if you intend to do something, it forces the movement rather than letting the improvisation flow. I felt I closely identified with Lisa Nelson’s idea of the “illusion of intentionality” (De Spain, 2014, 71), she feels she is aware of the intention because she is aware of the different sensations, hence why it is considered an illusion. She describes how the movement is so complex, and there are many elements affecting the improvisation, and so there may be several intentions, and by tracking all the different sensations, Nelson is then able to become aware of the different intentions.

Due to being ill, I also had to sit out of this week’s jam session, however watching the improvisation proved to be a very interesting and exciting experience. Despite the dancers being limited by space and movement, I found there was still plenty to observe. For instance, when the girls joined together with one another creating duets/trios/quartets, the space was then further divided between one group performing stationary movement and another group performing pedestrian movement in the space left over. However, when it moved on to the fourth section where the dancers were not limited in space, the whole of the space was still not used. It was also easy to see some dancer’s intentions when they entered the space, you could see when people felt ‘safe’ when following the movements of another, as they were following another’s intentions. It wasn’t until that person suddenly changed their intention and the person who was following now has to make a decision on whether to carry on following the person or to follow their own intention. There was sometimes a brief moment of panic flick across the dancer’s face once this happened. What was most exciting were the moments when dancers came together in movement without realising as, like mentioned earlier, the movements were not forced as the intentions between the two dancers were potentially entirely different and the improvisation was true. When the dancers were allowed to further develop the movements, dancers still came together by performing similar movements instead of the exact same, for example one person could be kneeling, yet another person could have their knees slightly bent. Again, this may or may not have been their intention yet these moments prove pleasing to the audience.

Despite the unfortunate halt in my learning this week and not being able to physically explore with improvisation, it actually proved useful to take a step back and analyse another’s improvisation and watch the dancers as a group whilst picking out individual moments.

Buckwalter, M. (2010) Composing while dancing: An improvisor’s companion. Madison, Wis:: The University of Wisconsin Press.

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