lea Anderson talk

We went to DMU for a talk with lea Anderson. She explained to us some of the inspirations/ideas for her choreography. In particular she talked about the use of film, and how things such as the camera focuses, scene changes, and movements influenced her choreography and use of setting, lighting, and music.
I found this interesting as i never would have thought to use these aspects of film as a stimulus for choreography.

Improvisation score

Here is a score I created during an improvisation class, also showing the rules we had to follow. We carried the task out in groups of about 10 people, and we could enter and exit the space during the task.

Duet reahearsals

This week during rehearsal time with my partner and the chance to speak to a tutor about our ideas, we have a much clearer idea of what we would like to show in our duet and how to do so. We have now decided to focus on the idea of accumulation and pathways, as well as sticking to the original idea of chance, and no fixed point of focus in space. We have been improvising with movement, in particular walking, running, crawling, rolling, stillness, galloping, jumping, and short motifs. We are now also interested in incorporating the use of symbols within our piece to represent these types of movement. We also improvised trying to use sound with our movement such as clapping and stamping. We now need to decide if we are going to use music or not, and this week we are going to see if this would work, and keep improvising around our ideas in preparation for a sharing of our work so far on Friday.

Duet choreography task motif

This is the short motif we created during the choreography class using the large pieces of paper as a score. As you can see the movement refects what we had drawn on the paper. We performed this wit the audience in a semi circle around us, and the score behind us.

Aspects to remember during jumps

• Articulation through the feet
• Not jumping with the chest
• Falling pelvis
• Continuous through pleas and jumping
• being able to see the toes when in first position
• Back and shoulders flat and soft
• Soft landing
• Seeing the space, not staring out to one point

Body Story reflections and ideas

After focusing particularly on features such as flat shoulder blades, head to tail connection, length in the spine, floating skull, pelvis falling, and many others I have found that focusing on these has really improved my posture, alignment, and overall balance and control when dancing. This has had a positive  effect on my spine. I have found since doing this I have not suffered with any lower back pain, which  had done during the previous couple of years on and off during periods of time when I was doing a lot of dancing, e.g exams and auditions. This my have been due to over arching, sticking my pelvis out and leading with the chest, which i thought created good posture. I therefore feel as if I have been taught to  correct the way I was moving before which has now had a positive effect on my back.. which means I can now dance with more ease, flow, and show a real connection between the skull and tail bone.    

Duet choreography task

The duet choreography lesson we had with Florence Peake involved taping a very big piece of paper to the floor, then one person improvising on it creaing shapes and patterns. the other person would then draw around them and draw shapes and ptterns they could ee being created from the dancing as they were doing it.
This then created a score which was colourful, and you could tell by looking back at it what kind of movement had been carried out. We then stuck it on the wall and created a motif as a duet from the score.
I really enjoyed this way of choreographing, as when we came to create the motif I found it easy to keep looking back at the score and improvise as I was looking at it, as it was on the wall next to us instead of on a smaller piece of paper in my journal. I also found that because it was bigger I could see clearer patterns.

Here are some photos of the process, and the scores.

Duet chance task photos

First duet rehearsal.. chance task

During our rehearsal we designed a chance task to carry out.

• We created 3 piles of paper, one had a number on it representing five short motifs we had created, one had a speed/dynamic, and the other had a place in the space.
• We then picked out at random one from each pile and performed the motifs how this had been arranged.

We found that we then wanted to develop the motifs further and try and include contact, travel and repetition within them, leaving us with a few short sequences that could possibly be used in our duet!

Duet mind map ideas

First duet rehearsal

My partner and I had our first rehearsal and began by making a mind map on possible ideas and themes we would like to explore within the process of creating our duet. (Shown above) Here are a few ideas we are considering so far..

• Cunningham's chance theory - No fixed point of focus in space, and moments of contact and complimenting/contrasting movement through chance. - audience in the round?
• Possible use of an object. - chair or piece of material?
• Use of sound through the body and space to create rhythms, use of music, and silence.

Studio practice

Today we worked with the image of our arms as sails while holding positions and doing short sequences. This was done my imagining the way the arms are connected to the sternum from the thumb, and just above the shoulder baled from the little finger when in an extended second position, creating an open flat upper body. I found that imagining the flatness of the sails enabled me to hold a strong position without over extending. I will definitely use this image again when holding arm positions to make sure they don't over extend causing an arched spine, which will reflect on my overall alignment, which I am paying particular attention to during my practice.

Studio practice

Today during studio practice I felt as though I had a really successful lesson that I connected with. I found I was able to take on board feedback when in partners, and I could notice the changes in the way I was moving. I worked on keeping flow and control throughout, not over extending, making sure my skull was free when rising and rolling down, and also my ongoing focus of skull to tail connection, use of breath, and keeping the pelvis falling.
I particularly noticed my flow throughout a sequence had improved, and that by breathing while moving I felt warmer and more supple in the joints and muscles.

Duet beginnings

We have been given an assignment to choreograph a duet sketch.. I will keeping track of my choreographic process here on my blog.

To start thinking about duets I have thought of other duets unrelated to dance that will encourage me to consider different relationships and their significance to each other, to see if this could be a stimulus for a dance duet.

• love and hate
• light and dark
• knife and fork
• brother and sister
• bread and butter
• man and woman
• thunder and lightening
• black and white
• left and right
• Tom and jerry
• Bucket and spade

I have been considering how some of these cannot have one without the other, how some are opposites, and some are just associated with each other.

Please comment if you can think of any more that I may find relevant to my exploration of duets :)

Skinner releasing technique.. class four

This class enabled me to reflect upon all the previous skinner releasing technique classes..

Images I really connected with during improvisation were:

• Melting- allowed suppleness and release in the joints, soft and fluid movement. Felt like melting in honey so I could move slower but will full exploration in all body parts.
• Head strings- made me feel taller, more upright, and feeling length in the neck, spine, and a floating skull. This also allowed easier breathing.
• Gossamer string- between the hands, enables soft movement, almost cautious, became really engaged in the delicacy of the image.

Ideas that I would use in movement practice and my body story:

• Spaces in the spine
• melting into the cushion
• head strings
• supple joints
• skull to tail connection
• fluidity
• floating skull
• use of breath
• continuous movement in sequences

Getting to know a place

We were given a task to sit in a place of choice for 15 minutes and carry out these instructions..

'Sit quietly in a chosen place, with paper and pen to hand
throw open your attention.. see what comes
as you sit
make a list of sensory impressions.. sounds.. sensations in your body.. colours
whatever call attention to itself'

What I found interesting from carrying out this task in my bedroom with the windows open, is that it is never silent. Sounds constantly fill the air, even if I could not hear noises from the environment I could hear noises from my body such as breathing and my thinking. The idea that there is never silence made me think about how this is the same as movement, and that the environment is always moving and changing, even if not visible, our body's are never completely still due to breathing again, and other natural movements. This really interested me and could be a stimulus for a piece of choreography, the fact that we never stop moving even if we are trying to be still, and how movement and sound are never ending.

Breathing exercise

Continuing my focus on the use of breathe to improve my flow and balance when dancing, I read a useful breathing exercise which I intend to do regularly to keep myself ware of my breathing.
It begins with 'Sit in a comfortable position. Invite breath into your body. Focus attention on your lungs. imagine their shape as they take in air, and notice too the change to your ribs.' It later instructs, 'send breath to the centre of your pelvis.' and 'Notice how movements ignite your awareness.'
I found this really helped me imagine the flow of breath around my body, and I then held a constant flow of breathe throughout the sequence I was practicing in the studio. I think that a breathing exercise at the beginning of each studio practice class and before any rehearsals will really enable me to be aware, and keep control of my breathing while dancing. 

Cheryl Pallant (2006) 'The creative body: Source of a new form' Contact Improvisation:On introduction to vitalizing dance. McFarland&Company, Inc: Jefferson, North carolina and London.

Skinner releasing technique.. class three

In this session we did a lot of partner work, and work using the hands in order to help our partner soften in certain areas. On exercise I particularly found usefull was one where we had to find the lowest point in our partners ribs/ the floating rib, and using our hands lift the whole rib cage from this point outwards and upwards. This encouraged spaces and length in the vertebrae and ribs. I could feel this in my body and felt taller and longer when my partner let go. We then encouraged a free neck and skull and brushed the shoulders downward and outwards. This left my upper body feeling long and lengthened, and ready to dance.
During the improvisation tasks, one image I connected with was one where we had to imagine we were dancing in water currents under the surface of water. I found this made me dance fluidly and softly in the body as a whole, although sometimes finding moments of detail, mainly in the hands and feet. Therefore I would definitely use this image again when improvising.

Skinner releasing technique.. class two

In this session we carried out several tasks again to make us more aware of the joints, bones, and tissues in the body. I was left feeling supple and relaxed. We focused on the use of the breath, which I found really useful as I could perform the sequences and not feel out of breath at the end, and I found I could balance easier.
Again, I found the session very useful in making me more aware of these things, and how I could incorporate them in other dance classes. In particular I have been trying to bring the use of breath into my studio practice lessons, which I have found is helping me find more flow and deeper exploration into movement, mainly in swinging and dropping in and out of the floor. Hopefully I will be able to always do this while dancing, without really thinking about it.

Review of Bird Song by Siobhan Davies

The piece ‘Bird Song’ choreographed by Siobhan Davies challenges the tradition of ballet in so many ways and displays very different movement, music, costume, and staging to traditional theatre.

One of the ways in which the performance challenges traditional ballet conventions is by performing in bare feet and wearing loose trousers and tops, instead of Pointe shoes and a tutu. The performance is also set as an in the round theatre style and the square of performance space is on the same level as the audience, creating a relationship between them as they are so near to each other. Whereas, traditional ballet would have been performed on a proscenium arch staging with the audience sat all facing the front to create a separation and enable the audience to view the performance almost as a film.

The use of music also displays big differences from traditional ballet. The music is screechy and sounds almost mechanical, and is not pleasant to listen to. It constantly pauses and has no specific timing. This is completely different to the classical music used in traditional ballet that would be chosen first so the dance could be set to it after.  There is no central point of focus, and the whole space was used by all the dancers at one time, so there are no corps de ballet or principal characters that are framed by the other dancers and there is no hierarchy of dancers, as there is in traditional ballet.

The traditional themes explored in ballet would be fairy tale narratives, Greek mythology, and love stories through the use of gesture and mime. However Bird Song has no narrative and displays movement with no specific theme or meaning communication which allows the audience to figure out their own conclusions of the movement, if any at all, and enables them to appreciate the performance as they wish.  

I watched this performance on the Siobhan Davies Archive..     http://www.siobhandaviesreplay.com/index.php