Day: November 18, 2016

Working in a new environment and with new people can often help us to renew and improve our contact skills by taking it back to basics. This week we had the incredible opportunity to visit the Dance4 studio in Nottingham and take part in a workshop with Feet off the ground dance company. Starting with games to warm up automatically created a relaxed and trusting atmosphere between students and teachers. The majority of the warm up consisted of basic contact skills that we have already learnt in our contact improvisation studies including walking around the room and starting a conversation with the people you made contact with. We starting by making a connection at the hand, going through the arm and rotating until we were back to back. We started this way for each stage but experimented in all different exercises including finding each other’s weight, going down to the floor and coming back up, one person going into table top and the other going over them backwards and releasing your back onto someone else’s and taking your feet off the floor as they go down to go up. Although none of these exercises were new, it was nice to be able to revisit them and practise getting in and out of them smoothly and continuing to moving through the space, which is something I usually find challenging during a contact jam. However, seeing examples of what some of these movements looked like on new bodies helped to discover new positions in movements that we are already familiar with. For example, whilst working with a shorter body than mine, we found that we could find a back to back connection and she could take my weight by me sitting on her back rather than completely releasing and lying flat on her back. Not only was this a new discovery but it created new levels and opportunities to be more experimental.

[Insert photo of me sat on Elycia’s back/ take on Monday 8am]

Learning the rep of this company was an exciting experience which was a shared opinion amongst the group. It made a difference in the class dynamic for everyone in the space to be engaged in/ excited about what we were learning and trying new things. I chose a partner which I knew I was comfortable lifting and being lifted by and who was a similar height to me. Working with a different partner could have altered my overall experience if we didn’t trust each other or if frustration was caused by constant (hypothetical) failed attempts. Demonstrations whilst giving spoken instructions proved to be helpful as it helped to clarified what they were saying in terms of movement. There was also room for us to adapt things or make small changes if particular things weren’t working, giving us the opportunity to try a lift/balance and develop it to see how our bodies could explore the ‘set’ movement.

The movement I found the most difficult was the body surfing to standing at the end of the phrase. Using weight in my shoulders and engaging my core to lift my legs up and over my partner’s torso was something I had never tried before and caused confusion when it came to standing up as I didn’t know where to place my feet whilst the under dancer was still rolling. It proved to be easier to find my feet when thinking about finding the connection with my partner with the left side of my body instead of connecting her torso with my back. This then allowed me to bend both legs and land kneeling on my left leg, aiding me to stand up easily and end the phrase properly. However, because this was difficult for us as a pair, it didn’t work every time that we practised it which unfortunately resulted in no documentation of the progress we made in this section of the phrase.

The video above shows the contact duet rep from the Feet off the Ground Workshop. We accomplished all of the lifts that we attempted and together choreographed where we would inhale/ exhale which made it easier for our bodies to work together and to stay released.

Revisiting the duet phrase we learnt during this workshop proved that we still have a lot to practise in terms of being safe, efficient and staying released when working with/ lifting and partner, but it was refreshing to reconsider this before entering a contact jam to be able to put these new skills into practise.

RESEARCH LABS

We decided to base our research lab on the reading from the previous week by exploring the question ‘How can we change our centre of gravity?’.

 

To explore our chosen question we devised four different exercises and devised questions to ask through out for them to think about what was happening in their bodies, which would later help when asking question and collecting data at the end.

We asked five questions at the end of the lab:

1- Which exercise did you enjoy the most?

Results

Exercise	Number of People
Warm up	3
Flying angel	7
Spinning (donut)	0
Wheel barrow	7

 

2- Did you feel safe in your own body despite having a constant change in your center of gravity?

Results

Yes	No
15	2

 

3- Could you feel the change in your centre of gravity from one exercise to another?

Results

Yes	No
16	1

 

4- Did you feel more stable being grounded to the floor or in the air?

The results we collected from this particular question were different to the rest as some people didn’t feel they could contribute in choosing yes or no. We still recorded the results from every one else but recorded the feedback from the individuals who could not answer documenting their opinion. “Usually I would feel more stable being grounded to the floor but being grounded in these exercises today did not make me feel stable. This remained the same whilst being in the air, therefore there was no difference in stability from one to the other.

5- Do you think you will recognize your centre of gravity in your contact improvisation practices because of exploring this today?

Results

Yes	No
15	2

After the research labs this week we briefly revisited the duet phrase from the workshop the previous weekend, then transitioned into a contact jam. Nothing worked. My energy levels were low because of being so involved in the research labs before, however I was still engaged and determined to be present in the jam and try new things. However I found the more things didn’t work, the harder it was to stay focused and it was more beneficial, for me and the body I initially made contact with, to switch to a new partner to regain focus and try to continue experiment with the different bodies in the space. Unfortunately none of the movement produced in any of the improvisations I was involved in, but I remained in the space and made an effort to move as much as possible. Despite a slight frustration building from things not working, by staying in the space I proved to myself that my confidence is growing and that I am capable of finding new ways to create a connection between my body and another and that I was willing to move even though I had already hit many obstacles during this jam.

Cont Jam

With a shorter jam due to a performance occurring subsequently we warmed up our own bodies then started the jam. However it began in my preferable way of sinking into the floor, exploring the space and movement in our own bodies whilst staying relaxed, and leading into making conversation with a body that we accidentally make contact with. I find this way of starting allows me to be fearless and presents the opportunity to be more experimental as it is inevitable who you are going to interact with or how that interaction is going to be initiated, which is an efficient way of making new discoveries. I found that during this jam I left the space twice but found a way to re-enter almost immediately and that I only moved with new bodies and not anyone that I usually work with. There was an absence of weight baring in my contribution to this jam as, although I am becoming more confident in leaving the floor, working with new people made me apprehensive about lifting people as the movement that we were creating suggested they were more comfortable staying on a lower kinesphere, manipulating my movement and playing with skinesphere rather than going up. However it was nice to explore what could be done here and to work with new people as that, in itself, presented new discoveries.

After a break from movement for reading week the apprehension of making contact with other people and starting to be lifted off the floor was daunting, however other people’s excitement encouraged me to try to contribute more in jam situations and be more confident in lifting and being lifted.

We started off this class by watching two contact improvisation videos; the first one was “The Play of Weight” (Neige Christenson, 2009)  the second “Contact Improvisation- Mirva Makinen & Otto Akkanen” (omegabranch, 2011). Initially I expected the two videos to be very similar, but from analysing I found more differences as first video was just two bodies in the space on their own and seemed more like a production rather than an experiment of movement whereas the second video looked to have been recorded during a class/ jam. Overall, the movement in the first video was slow, fluent and continuous. Both bodies listened well to one another and any ‘mistakes’ or falls were recovered by rolling and both bodies quickly and smoothly carried on, embracing what had happened and using it to continue. The effortlessness in the movement of these bodies suggested to me that they may have been partners for a long time and have a lot of experience in working together from the way they move, listen to, and protect each other’s bodies. From my own experience in contact improvisation, I know that keeping a connects with a partner, whilst also keeping to movement fluent and precise, is often made more difficult if you don’t have a good relationship, or don’t trust the other person that you are making contact with. The second video seemed more raw and experimental. Both bodies found anchor and lever points and the role of the under and over dancer changed frequently throughout the video and there was no clear leader, each body initiated the movement or took the weight of the other body, which goes against the traditional stereotype people often think of in other genres of dance, such as ballet, when the male dancer lifts the female dancer. Similarly to the first video, both bodies keep a solid connection whilst improvising and were always aware of their rolling points, making it more interesting watch as they were discovering new ways to move which I had never seen or experienced before. The use of shared momentum in this clip alarmed an awareness to me that both bodies need to listen to each other in terms of pace during contact improvisation, not just listening to the movement content and this seemed to be important whilst taking each other’s weight, which is something I kept thinking of throughout the rest of the class.

We experimented with walking around the space then releasing our bodies and letting other members of the class catch us from behind and giving a warning of “one, two, three” before falling, similar to a trust falling exercise. Catching other bodies and safely placing them flat on the floor was something I felt more comfortable with because I was aware of how safe I had to be to protect the body I was catching. The more released their body was, the easier and quicker it was to safely get them to the floor. Throughout the exercise I discovered that I didn’t need to help everyone who released back, that it was more efficient to only catch the people I was near and let other people do the same, instead of running across the room every time I heard “one, two, three!”. Releasing my own body to fall backwards proved to be a struggle as not knowing the group of people who were behind me made it hard to trust that someone was going to catch me and that I wouldn’t fall to the floor. The first time that I tried this exercise the panic made me forget that I had to bend my knees whilst falling back which made it awkward for the people behind me to place me on the floor which then caused me to hold a lot of tension throughout my body. I started to understand how fluent this could be when I tried this again and I used my breath, releasing on an exhale to get rid of all tension which took me all the way down to the floor and still had the momentum to roll on to my side and bring myself back up to standing to continue walking and engage back in with the space.

The more I try to experiment with body surfing, the more I lose connection with the other body. Travelling down the room body surfing, using a table top position and exploring ways to roll together, I tried to work with new people to build my confidence and help to find new and more interesting ways to travel and stay connected. I found that trying to increase the pace of body surfing didn’t work with my partner in this situation as I wanted to speed up the transition of changing the over and under dancer to see what would happen but my partner wanted to take it slower than me and stay at a pace that we usually practice. Therefore I did not find anything new in this instance however I could try this again with a different partner and see if the same thing happens to suggest that increasing the pace not be something that works effectively during body surfing. After this it was difficult to try new things as I found a new partner and I was subconsciously planning ahead to try and ‘keep up’ with a new body, who I don’t usually work with, even though in hindsight I know that it is unnecessary to think in that way.

Taking this to table top it is easier to find different ways of going over someone’s back however changing the direction of facing when I release on to the other body causes me to get stuck loose connection before falling out of what I am doing. This reoccurring problem could possibly be solved by practicing this more outside of class which will increase my confidence and improve the results of these experiments. Moving to standing also proved to be difficult, however it became more fun and experimental the more times I travelled across the space and swapping partners. I felt confident in counterbalancing and taking and giving weight to others once on a high kinesphere however I find the only way I can reach that level is by standing up as I am unsure of how to incorporate going from a low kinesphere to a higher kinsephere whilst travelling.

Working in partners we played with the idea of going up to go down in a number of different ways.

We jumped in the air with our partners behind us as they found a comfortable position to place their hands just under the shoulder blades and pushing them up and forwards as they come back down to the floor. Whilst jumping it felt like I was getting much higher when my partner pushed me, although she wasn’t gripped on to me or lifting me properly. When I was helping to elevate my partner into the air I often found it difficult to recognise if my hands were in the right place or if I was applying enough or too much pressure to make this effective.

This exercise helped to recognise that I need to stay released in contact improvisation and practise keeping a softness in my knees to release tension but stay grounded to make my movement more fluent and ensure that anything I do is safe for me or the other bodies around me.

During this class we included an improv jam as the previous one didn’t take place due to reading week. I felt I was more involved in this jam, working with four different people but starting to transition from one body to another rather than leaving the space and attempting to re-enter. This made it easier to experiment with new ways to interact with other bodies and be included in keeping up the pace in the jam. Whilst moving I found that if I stayed in the space other people would join as there is collective apprehension about being the only two bodies in the space.

Bibliography

Neige Christenson (2009) the play of weight. Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ltq6y06E8ew [accessed 12th November 2016]

omegabranch (2011) Contact Improvisation Mirva Makinen & Otto Akkanen . Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMLbWxujoGw&t=2s [accessed 12th November 2016]