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Throughout the contact improvisation module I have experienced a series of different emotions and has occasionally made me question my ability in this practice. However it taught me the a fear of failure does not mean to give up or stop trying in something that I ‘can’t’ do or when trying something new does not work the first time trying.

This module had made me a stronger person mentally, as this module has proved the most difficult for me to manage this semester, and a stronger dancer physically as my body is now able to do things I would have assumed impossible at the start of the module, including inversions, allowing my weight to leave the floor and lifting other people. I am proud of what i have achieved  throughout the module and hope to continue practicing Contact Improvisation in the near future.

The beginning of the semester was full of frustration for me, feeling like I was at a lower ability to other people in the group I always struggled to have the confidence to try new things and work with other people, often finding myself contributing with a solo within a jam or working with people I am familiar with and creating contact in subtle ways. I remember thinking that was not where I wanted to be, however looking back it is clear to me that it was a start to the practice and there would have been more people in a similar situation to me. Reading back on the blogs I had written at the start of my practice it is amazing how much my opinion of contact improvisation has developed along with my capability; I feel that I am now a point similar to what I wished to be in the first weeks.

Weeks five and six are where I can pin point a change in my practice. With week 5 being reading week, the feedback i received allowed me to realize that my frustration and difficulty was going to hold me back, and finding a confidence would improve the content i was creating and develop my skills as it would help me to try new things. After reading week I found myself contributing more in jams and gradually developed the skills to remain in the space for the duration of a jam and move around the space to find new people to work with. Working with new people, and different amounts of people each week, impacted my practice by allowing me to acknowledge different things within a conversation between the body or bodies I was working with; knowing when my body was tired and I needed to briefly exit the space for water, acknowledging the other possibilities of frames and movements when things get ‘stuck’ or go ‘wrong’  and that doesn’t mean the conversation has to end, and accepting when the movement is exhausted and when is best to a new partner and explore something new.

 

This session started off viewing videos of other people’s contact improvisation practices. The video was the students of Roehampton University exploring contact improvisation in a familiar way to how we study here. Although the students in the video have been practising Contact Improvisation for slightly longer than me, I can relate to the practice from watching. The rawness of their movement and experimentation shown gives me a confidence that what I create during a contact jam, or what I explore in class, is positive and that I am on the right track considering I am only at the beginning of exploring this practise.

The platforms and frames the dancers create are often imaginative and open, giving their partner a variety of options to explore how and where to make a connection with their partner’s body. At 0.27 seconds, two male dancers attempt to make a connection on a high kinsephere that was unusual and experimental and didn’t seem to be ‘successful’. However this proved interesting to me because before this I wouldn’t have thought of using this position as a frame, as either role of under or over dancer. Without the amount of momentum used to make contact with the dancer in the frame, how the over dancer was connected to the over dancer could have been explored much more; although this exploration was short in the video, it suggests room to discover I wider range in movement that I could explore in my own practice as higher lifts are something I usually avoid. The way the dancers keep a connection with each other is also interesting and proved something to what I practice myself. Using hands and arms to maintain a connection with another body is an instinct and something I notice myself and others practicing in class and jams. Though in this video, the dancers used the side of their bodies and under their armpits to ensure the connection does not break. Overall, this seemed to create and easier and available platform for the dancers to use and go back to, allowing them to always move together and explore something which could be initiated, rather than keeping a connection through hands then having to find a wat to initiate a conversation again, which would have a similar effect to losing the connection in the first place. Breath is something I often loose concentration with whilst improvising as I subconsciously focus on what is happening with my own body and trying to ensure that myself and my partner remains safe. However this video shows the dancer’s clear use of breath and the intention behind the breath which helped to initiate their movement and maintain contact. This reiterated the importance of breath and how it enhances weight baring and influences the fluidity in released movement.

We then explored the Underscore created by Nancy Stark smith. This initially proved difficult as a collective as it felt as though the freedom we usually would have to explore movement was being taken away slightly as we had not looked at an underscore before. However this was not the case. Naively I thought the idea of a score would restrict my movement rather than open up more opportunities to see what I was capable of creating.

Personally the beginning of the score was the most beneficial towards my own practice. Finding everyone arriving in the space energetically, then physically, then communication about injuries created a calming and trusting atmosphere with everyone in the group which I believe helped me to have the confidence with new people who I usually would not interact with, and explore working in bigger groups of 3 or 4 people, rather than relying on working in a pair with the same people as I usually would, that is starting to feel slightly habitual and too comfortable. Unfortunately, later on in the jam I found myself creating movement based on the conversation I was listening to from my partner rather than thinking of the underscore and thinking or new ways to move. I could have tried to interpret ‘attraction’ or ‘repulsion’ to bring a more interesting contribution to the conversation, nevertheless we remained to have fluent movement and the content we created was successful.

I found that without guidance from Kirsty I would have forgotten about the way the underscore worked or that I had to follow the different sections. However the reassurance of knowing I would be reminded of way to think to make move in a new way made it easier to stick to the underscore as it would have been easy to have ignored it and gone into a completely open score, which we had the ability to do towards the end of jam.

The jam this week felt like an emotional end to a great practise, I became increasingly more confident with looking at the underscore again during this session after already exploring it in the previous session. I found that I remained in the space throughout the entire jam and worked with several different people. I found working with the level three students to be refreshing and help me to think of completely new ways of moving, which I believe is a result of their group dynamic being different to ours but is still introduced in to our practice.

Focusing on the pelvis was one of the main focuses of this week’s class and is not something I would usually think of or engage with. Having this idea present made me feel more released throughout the class which I believe had an overall effect on my performance in and attitude towards this class. I was confident and excited to explore.

 

The warm up consisted of walking around the space and engaging with our pelvis to drop to the floor and get back up again. We then developed this into exploring how we could use our pelvis to lead our movement on the floor, and how we could find a connection between two pelvises and what happened to our bodies once we found that connection. Dropping to the floor and leading with my pelvis was interesting as I wasn’t pre planning any movements because I was moving in a completely new way. It was refreshing for my body to follow instruction and discover new movement without falling into any habitual movement. However, whilst moving in this way I initially found it difficult to make a connection with my pelvis and another. Being unable visualise what this would look or feel like make it difficult for me to understand what I needed to do to make this connection successful which caused confusion in how to approach another body. If a connection was made I then didn’t know where to go from there; to stay there and play with the weight, start to introduce movement or leave and move on to a new partner?

Moving in to keeping a connection between two bodies, we worked in pairs and wrapped around each other experimented with rocking between partners and changing the over and under dancer. Here gave the opportunity for both roles to experiment with movement and see how much our bodies do and what affect that could have on our partner. My partners found it difficult to change the role of each dancer so instead I explored how changing my weight could change where our connection was. I found that rolling and twisting allowed me to move and find new positions which kept a connection but did require a drastic change in my partner’s weight. We also tried to transition from this into an over dancer in reverse table top and the over dancer exploring this new frame. As we have never used this surface as an anchor point before it brought a new sensation in the body, as the over dancer, as the possible positions look interesting however feels restricted. As the torso is a smaller surface area than the back, which we are used to, and this position is harder for the under dancer to maintain than a table top position, this exercise causes hesitation of where to go next and how we can explore this anchor point without putting too much pressure on to our partners.

Something missing during our explorations is movement contribution from both bodies at the same time, usually it feels like turn taking. Introducing the ways the under dancer can move cohesively and staying safe felt revolutionary as it allowed both keep moving together with a secure connection, then continuing to explore movement further. Initially this felt unsteady and slightly unsafe as it was new and unfamiliar in the body. The more it was practiced and developed, the more it began to feel natural with more room for creativity. After this, the natural intention was to continue moving out of anything we explored.

As the course progresses I am becoming increasingly my confident and starting to really enjoy contact improvisation. Because of the psychological change, I am beginning to notice a difference in my ability to master the elements of contact improvisation that I was previously scared of and I am eager and willing to try out anything new.

Working with Kayleigh to discover anchor points on new frames proved interesting and I surprised myself with how much my body is capable of doing. Finding new frames, climbing on, then moving and exploring worked the best for us as it allowed us to find new things first and find a way to move in and out of it after. The frame that allowed the most range in movement was bent legs in a lunge or second position with a tall spine and free arms (available to move for support later on). Being in this frame felt stable and safe for another to be supported by, there was also the freedom to move the arms or adjust the torso to move with our partners to ensure the movement was fluent and as safe as possible. We also experimented in finding unconventional anchor points, which I had never thought of, or tried, before. Using a kneeling position as anchor position proved to be harder than it looked, however there were more areas to explore than originally expected and it was incredibly easy for both bodies to roll out if this position and into something else.

During the class we created a jam with a simple score:

• Minimum number of bodies in the space: 2
• Maximum number of bodies in the space: 4
• No limitation of movement
• Keep up the pace as a collective

 

This was one of the first jam situations where I have felt confident enough to enter the space immediately and alone. Because of how successful my explorations in this class had been I felt slightly responsible for being involved with starting off the jam and setting the initial pace. I believe this to be a result of wanting to encourage other people to enter the space as a more confident body setting the pace usually helps me to find a way to move into the space. Remaining in the space for the majority of the jam encouraged me to explore more thoroughly than I usually do and gave me the opportunity to work with completely new people who I have never worked with in a jam before. Working with Heidi enabled me to move fluently and we never lost connection, meaning we explored new frames and found completely new and interesting ways of moving in and out of these positions. This made me excited to be a part of the upcoming jam two days later.

As I am starting to enjoy contact improvisation my energy for this class was different to usual. This week I entered the jam class with an open mind and I was excited to explore.      I still have an apprehensive attitude towards inversions as I have a fear of being upside down and not being able to fully locate where my weight is whilst here. However this class started with three different inversions and I attempted and mastered all of them. Working with Natasha, we took it in turns to start as the over or under dance so we could both sense how it felt to bare someone else’s weight and how it felt to be completely released someone else’s back. Usually I would feel more comfortable and stable as the under dancer and holding someone else’s weight on my body, however with this I was more confident with releasing and being the over dancer which I believe is a result of feeling safe whilst working with this partner. We also used the shoulder as an anchor point and revisited a lift we are familiar with, but in a kneeling position on a lower kinsephere rather than standing. As the over dancer I was apprehensive about this at first as it is a hand stand motion that can be transitioned out of by forward rolling. Nevertheless, once I tried this I found that I could experiment with the position of the legs and how I could control them to find different options of how to change out of this position.

Next came the jam with no rules except starting with and empty space, having a minimum of two bodies in the space and introducing contact within small groups, not just in pairs. I entered the space alone and was exploring my own improvisations for a while before Natasha came and initiated contact with me. We explored the new things we had tried this week in class and before the jam, resulting in this being the first time that we moved away to find a new body to work with because the exploration was exhausted rather that our bodies being tired. I also attempt to work in groups with other people. The first time I tried to interact with an existing duet but moved away after a while to let them continue alone, sensing that we were all unsure of how to involve a third party. However, later on I worked with Casey and discovered new ways to initiate weight baring on a high kinsephere, resulting in me being off the floor more than usual. After a while we became a trio as Lauren Isbell introduced herself into our conversation. The movement we discovered as a three was new, interesting and successful. It seemed easier having a new person introduced to a group than being the third person and trying to initiate a connection with bodies which are in an existing conversation.

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]