There is a problematic ‘organization through the technical and organizational rules governing both dance and society’ (Robert Turner, 2010) requiring us to lose all pre existing knowledge of how to behave in society in order to learn new ways of thinking for how to behave in in the studio. This week we trialed this as we started to work closer together than we have before meaning we had to think in a different way to make it work.
In the paxton reading this week we learnt thinking is different to doing and they effect each other in the terms of “habitual movement” and making contact with others. We tested this first by trusting out partners with the weight of our head in their hands. This was a strange experience as we learn to hold our weight in our head/neck from a young age and this exercise meant that we had to forget all of that existing knowledge but continue to move and trust the person you were working with. I felt this was a lot more difficult than how it felt or how I initially thought it would feel. Whilst moving, I thought I was letting all my weight into my partners hands, however from feedback she told me that should feel a strong resistance from me where she couldn’t take my weight which was surprising to hear as it was not how my body felt during the exercise. Whist I was holding my partners head I realized that it was easier for me to use imagery, rather than thinking of how hands would hold a head, to help me think in different way which made it easier for my body to move with hers and I could feel the more I did this the more my partner trusted me and we were able to work better together with more fluent movement. As this was an unusual exercise it required me to fins a new way of thinking which wouldn’t have been possible otherwise.
This week I found that changing the environment has a dramatic impact on how we think and how that influences her movement. During a familiar exercise (walking around the space making eye contact with people and starting movement conversations) I tried to make myself aware of my surroundings and the other bodies in the space, along with making sure my own body was engaged. Doing this helped me become more aware of which bodies I could trust and could start an interesting conversation with as apposed to the people or friends who I know I could probably work with. If other people weren’t as alert or engaging the space in the same way as me they were harder to move with and it was clear just from making eye contact with them. For example I found that a face with a tense jaw, angry eyes or a smiling mouth usually belonged to a tense body that was focusing on movement in their own bodies rather than interacting with other bodies.
The same exercise allowed me to make accidental contact with other bodies, similarly to in a jam. Whilst walking around the space I decided to make change in directions quick, often and sharp which made collision with other dancers likely and initiated a spontaneous conversation. I made contact with one other dancer with my back and her chest which allowed us to find new ways of baring each other’s weight and we found interesting new counter balances that I wouldn’t have thought would be possible if it had been pre planned.
This weeks contact jam didn’t feel the same in my body although I was alert and tried to keep my energy high. The more instructions were introduced, the more I found it difficult for things to work which I believe to be because each instruction allowed a different interpretation for each person, causing us to leave the space to rethink, re-engage and start again. However a failed attempt often took away the confidence I had to entre the space and try again. The lesser/ slower atmosphere as a collective and the absence of the teachers and their pace created a dramatic difference to the excitement and energy of the previous jam which also influenced the amount of bodies in the space at one time.