Discovering Time and Space

This week’s readings were based on the aspect of time and space. One of the things that stood out for me was how Lisa Nelson senses time by beginnings and endings, but how these two aspects can be switched so that the end is at the start and you finish with the beginning. Also that your relationship with space is constantly changing moment by moment.

The activities were all based on relationships with a group of people or just one person. For most of the session we had to look at 5 aspects as to how we could change a movement someone was doing. These aspects were;

  1. Diminish
  2. Copy
  3. Echo
  4. Augmentation
  5. Make bigger

The thing that I struggled with the most was making things bigger. I think the reason I struggled was that when your partner or person leading the group already performed a large move you had to make it greater. It was difficult to think on the spot how you can develop it to succeed in the task set.

My favourite part of the session was the last task. The class split into half and with the same concept had to dance for 5 minutes, changing partners or groups. We did this twice and the last time my group were told to have legs like knives and arms like spaghetti. At the end we all came together to do the same movement. I feel like it was strong and interesting to watch, even though all we were doing was repeating the same movement multiple times.

 

 

 

Bibliography

  • Buckwalter. M (2010) Composing whilst dancing: An Improviser’s Companion. Madison, Wis. The University of Wisconsin Press. Pages 60-90
  • De Spain. K (2014) Landscape of the Now: Space. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pages 108-113
  • De Spain. K (2014) Landscape of the Now: Time. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pages 108-113

Awareness, Attention and Intention

This weeks readings were all about awareness, attention and intention. They talked about awareness of what is going on in your surroundings, for example the people around you, what’s in the space your in, your attention and where your placing it, so you may be aware that someone is dancing in a circle around you but your attention is on the dancer in the far left corner. Finally about your intention, what do you intend to do about the girl in the corner, do you want to copy her movements or come up with contrasting movements?

 

Snapchat-4117686483657455105    My favourite task of this week was done in partners, two sets of partners had to get up in front of the   class and dance together with our eyes closed. The task was to be aware of when your partner stopped moving and to stop with them. My partner was my best friend of 7 years and dance partner of 5. The audience commented on how we were so in sync it was ‘weird’. This was probably because we know each other so well in normal life as well as dancing.

 

 

 

 

 

Some of the other task included;

– Straight line group of 5 people, 2 people stood straight while others bent their knees.

– 3 people walk, run, jump forward, 2 people back

– Dancing in the space in groups of 3, 2 or 1

This week was m2y favourite of the weeks I felt that I learnt more about being aware of what others were doing around me and that if you know the group of people you’re working with well, it’s easier to get a sense of each others movements.

Bibliography

  • Buckwalter. M (2010) Composing while dancing: An Improviser’s Companion. Madison, Wis: The University of Wisconsin Press. Pages 34-59
  • De Spain. K (2014) Landscape of the Now, Attention. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pages 167-172
  • De Spain. K (2014) Landscape of the Now, Intentionally. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pages 68-72

Discovering Your Habitual Movements

Although I didn’t dance this week I feel I picked up a lot more knowledge than I did the week before. At the start of the session we discussed the reading in groups, we compared the ‘Dear practice reading’ with the 4 rules of improvisation. The 4 rules are;

  1. Show up
  2. Pay Attention
  3. Don’t get attached to your results
  4. Tell the truth

The Dear practice reading talked about connecting with your body and how one dancer did this through improvisation. She talks about being open during her improvisation sessions and losing control of what her body does. Another reading was also about tracking, keeping track of what you do with your body in order to create the next section of your work when appropriate. Whether this is to develop what you’ve just done or to come up with new material that doesn’t include your habitual movements.

One of the exercise’s the dancers did was to dance for 10 minutes changing speed on a level of 1-10 when told. 1 being the slowest 10 the fastest. This was all about moving away from your habitual movements. I noticed that when they were told to dance at 6 or below, they used the same movements repeatedly, some of these were, rolls on the floor, kicks, leg swings and hand gestures. Interestingly when they went at 10 new movements were happening everywhere, this is because they weren’t conscious of what they were doing, they didn’t have time to think about what to do next they just had to go with what their bodies told them to do.

Video of speed improvisation task

 

Bibliography

  • De Spain. K (2014) Landscape of the Now, Body. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pages 45-52
  • De Spain. K (2014) Landscape of the Now, Movement. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pages 93-96
  • De Spain. K (2014) Landscape of the Now, Tracking. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pages 97-101