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;
- Show up
- Pay Attention
- Don’t get attached to your results
- 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