'Retain the capacity to laugh at your own serious intentions, even while those intentions remain serious.'

I really like this as I find I can take movement too seriously and worry that I may not be doing it right etc, so by thinking of being able to laugh at my serious intentions has encouraged me to try new ways of moving and not worry about how it may look, and to just give it a go even if it does not work or makes me feel a little out of my comfort zone. I think this is a very valuable thing to remember when creating contemporary dance.

question to explore while improvisng

'What if all of my 100 trillion cells at once choose to surrender the pattern of facing a single direction?'


I found this idea engaging, as it is refeing to the connection between mind and body, and Matthias' interest in neuroscience, by introducing the idea of the cells in the body and how they connect to our mind and our movement. This required a lot of thought while moving, as trying not to have your cells facing the same way at all seems impossible. However, this encouraged a lot of new material and I found so many new dynamics and depths to my moving. I found that by not trying to face the same way encouraged me to use many more contrasting levels, speeds, amounts of space, and details in my movement.



       

Matthias Sperling

As part of my research on Matthias, before working with him I had a look on his website which gave me an insight to his background and previous and current works, in particular his solo 'Riff' was interesting to watch and get a feel for his style of moving..

http://www.matthias-sperling.com/

Performance project!

As a second year student we must take part in a module called Performance project. I am now part of a company called Influx, and our choreographer is Matthias Sperling. So far we have had one meeting with Matthias where we carried out several improvisational tasks. One of which I found I really connected with and enjoyed was building up movement by moving from areas of the body that 'light up'. So we moved from parts of the body that were of interest or held particular tension or energy. We also moved around the idea of all the cells in the body. I found that this encouraged me to feel light and bring the space into my moving, which influenced so many new ways of moving! Matthias also encouraged us to not take ourselves too seriously and I found this also encouraged the light movement, and not to think to much into what I was doing, just to enjoy dancing improvisationaly. Another task we did involved moving this way focusing on the cells etc but traveling from one side of the room to the other without the audience realising this was our intention. This still seems like an almost impossible task but after a few attempts we found moving slower and without outwardly focusing on the finishing point, we were able to move across the space without being too obvious about it. I really enjoyed the day with Matthias and look forward to our intensive rehearsal week :)     

Experiential anatomy class- The organs

A real sheep's live was brought into class, and we were able to look up close and touch it to get an understanding of the texture, colour, shape, and weight of a liver.

Found that moving with the awareness of the organs was something new, as usual the focus is on muscles, bone, joints, and tissues. I almost found it quite restrictive as the organs are internal and fixed within the body, so i found trying to move with this knowledge hard than focusing on the joints for example. However it was a new experience an focus and therefore i found new ways of moving.

Experiential anatomy class- The skull

During class we used partner work to feel for ourselves while referring to diagrams of the skull, to identify the shape, creases, lumps, tissues, and bone structure.

A few things I learnt about the skull I did not know before..

. It weighs just under a stone- being the heaviest of the body
. The 'soft spot' on a baby's head compresses as it is born
. Found the skull was not smooth and there was a lot more dips and lumps than I originally thought



   

Workshop with Lucia Walker

After taking part in a one off workshop with Lucia Walker, I left the session feeling supple, light, and aware of connections between skull and tail, and joints, muscles and bones.

Started gently and were encouraged to feel grounded- which I definitely benefited from as I was feeling tired and achy, so this preparation enabled me to wake up my body physically and mentaly.

Use of partner graphics- identifying the spine and all the individual vertebrae from skull to tail. i was left feeling:
. At ease
. Spongy
. Loose
. Swift
. Supple in the joints, bones, and muscles
. Smooth
I felt this then affected my movement and I danced with more ease and flow. Found that keeping the eyes closed also encouraged me to hold on to that connection and feel the changes internally.

'uses of improvisation'

1. As a source of original material

2. As training in perception

3. To develop a piece

4. As a performance mode in itself

Tufnell & Crickmay (1990) Body, Space, Image. London Dance Books.

I find this extract a useful way to consider the different possibilities and outcomes using improvisation has as part of experimenting with movement and choreography.

What do we understand about process?

I would describe my process as a dance artist as consant and continuous developing, and never ending learning, as well as

• Letting go of end gaining.
• Evaluation
• observation
• whitnessing

First week back moving..

During my first week back in the new term I have taken part in a few classes, and found it easy to get back into, and am still discovering new ways of moving and witnessing. In one particular class we started with a hands on improvisation in partners where we changed roles several times as one person moved and the directed and followed using a light touch with their hands. The roles of having eyes closed also changed several times, to gain new perspectives of moving with our partner. I found it easier to move with eyes closed as I found the use of my other senses a lot more and therefore used more sensitive movements and found a deeper discovery into areas of my body moving. Another task we carried out was where we had to get into small groups with our eyes closed and try and move in unison. This encouraged the use of hearing and sound into our movement. I found this particularly interesting as I do not usually notice other dancers around me using these senses. From witnessing this I noticed the larger the group the more in unison they became, and even if they were not in unison there was a clear strong connection between the dancers at all times. This would be a useful task to carry out before choreographing in a group as the dancers became much more sensitive of each other and the space around them .

Beginning of year two

After a short break from my blog during the summer, I am going to continue writing about my developments and progress as a dance artist, as I begin my seond year studying Dance at university. Previously I discussed developments and changes in my body and moving I had experianced as part of my first year on the course. This had been developed into a Body Story which is shown mainly on this blog.

This year I aim to carry on sharing my experiances as a mover and my bodies developments, as well as write about my movement explorations and improvisations during class and rehearsals, and reflect on ho these are contributing to my development as a dance artist.

This year I am also taking part in a performance project as part of the course, invloving being part of a choreograohers company and performaing to a live audience, after an intensive rehearsal process. I understand that this experiance is a very valuable one which will have a huge impact on my development and ability as a performer and maker, therefore I will be using this blog to write about my experiances as part of the company, including my whitnessing as part of the process.

I aim to include writen reflections and journal entries, pictures, and video evidence of this.

Body story ideas

Here is a photo of an idea I am exploring for my body story. As I have previously discussed, I am focusing on the alignment of the body, and how back pain can be caused by dancing without  correct alignment, and awareness of skull to tail connection. I have been encouraged to do this as part of the course during studio practice classes and can already notice changes in my body and my dancing as we approach the end of term two. I no longer suffer with lower back pain and have overall better balance and posture. I am going to continue exploring and improving this, and I feel creating the body story will enable me to keep track of my progress and be able to look back and see my improvements, and how I can develop further.

Siobhan Davies archive scrapbook

Below is the link for the scrapbook I made on the Siobhan Davies archive website, during the library worshop. It is mainly a collection of images and videos of her work I particularly enjoyed and was interested in.

I chose to put on the video of Plain Song because i was intrigued by the way it was made for television and how this would differ from a piece made for a more traditional theatre setting.
I also chose the images because I particularly liked the formations of the dancers presented, and was interested in the different costumes worn.

http://www.siobhandaviesreplay.com/lightbox.php?removefromlightbox=9

'Move It' dance festival

On the weekend, me and a few of my peers went to the 'Move It' dance festival in London where we took part in a variety of dance classes, one of which was Graham technique. There was a strong focus on breath and contraction an release based techniques, as well as the focus on lines, during floor based and traveling phrases and  exercises. I found this very interesting and feel the techniques I learnt could be applied to my studio practice  development, as they contribute to good alignment and flow while dancing.

Duet rehearsal video

Here is a video of me and my partner rehearsing and playing with a few ideas, which we have now developed.
Just a few questions..

• Does the use of music compliment the piece?
• Is there enough use of space?
• Can you make any suggestions for further development?

Duet working progress sharing

My partner and I showed some movement material we have created as ideas for our duet. We showed the whole class and our tutor, and received feedback. The main points were...

• Go further with the exploration of rhythms made when walking, running, and stillness- music?
• Still see each other in the space, create more relationship.
• More power when running.
• make the transactions clearer, and more experimenting with changing pathways to see when we cross.
• Our movement was clear and strong.
• The idea was clear, although needs more exploration.
• The was we entered and exited the audience during the piece reflected the idea of continuous pathways.

We are now going to explore the use of music/sound, more changing pathways, and the rhythms of the body.

Nottdance festival 2011

We saw Wendy Houstoun's '50 acts' at nottdance festival. It was a physical theare performance involving:

• 'Manifestos
• Apologies and errors
• Random acts
• Small dances and big ideas
• Ghostly appearances
• Invisibility
• Stupidity
• Inexplicable feats and unexpected turns
• Eco soliloquies
• Techno idiocy'

I really enjoyed the use of movement, speach, acting, and use of props.

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.