Category: Week 1

For me improvisation is something I’ve always dreaded, but after the first session I feel like I have a whole new perspective on what it actually is.
I’ve been given the impression over my few years of dance training that Improvisation is boring, limited and there’s only so far you can go with your exploration of movements. I now know that this is not the case…

The session started with a slow warm up exploring our bodies and what they felt like, after the warm up we went to the bean bag exercise. This exercise provided us with set limitations in partners. We had to throw the bean bag to one another but not in a simple way. These are the tasks that were set;

• Throwing the bean bag to your partner around the studio, without noise.
• Swap partners.
• Throw the bean bag to your partner, pause in the space for a few seconds, then run to a new space.
• As you throw the bag make an abstract noise
• Development of the above. Stop the noise halfway and let partner imitate.
• Finally split into groups of 7 or 8, make up a 5 minute piece performance using the above tasks to perform to the group.

  

For the final bean bag activity we had to make a way of stopping the piece when we thought 5 minutes was up.
By the end of the session I have a whole new perspective that improvisation can be fun and it’s not just about ‘dancing’. We improvise every day, on the way to university, what to make for tea or even what clothes we should wear that day.