Improvisation & Reflective Practice

We started this lesson by looking at Empathic Choreography, The communication between dancers, however empathy choreography also, occurs not only by means of actions but also of emotions… (Ribero, M and AGAR, F, 2011, 81).

After looking at this through a powerpoint, we started to walk around the space having this idea of empathy in mind and being aware of the other dancers in the space.

We then got into partners and carried out a swiping exercise, the exercise was simple and made me think more into planes and using the whole of my body.
We had little sequences if we matched the same planes as my partner, I found out that I didn’t sync well with most of my partners and mostly went the opposite way to my partners.
I found this exercise woke my body up and I found it physically challenging, especially trying to remember the sequences if we did the same movements as our partner.
During this exercise I was thinking about the questions that we were asking in the power point earlier on in the lesson –

 

• How is it possible to make a shared choice of movements during improvisation between two or more dancers, without previous agreement and without communication through words?
• What generates the sense nexus that is perceived when we watch a dance improvisation?
• Can we call choreography what we see when we watch dance improvisation?

                                    (Ribero, M and AGAR, F, 2011, 72)

These questions to me describe my thought process and feelings towards the exercises perfectly.

 

We then turned the swiping exercise into a travelling exercise, with a person A and a person B, person A using the same planes as the previous swiping exercise and person B creating movement around person A. This exercise was challenging as creating movement around someone was difficult and I mostly used my head, torso and I was mostly grounded for the exercise.
We then developed this exercise, and had the swiping person with their eyes closed, this made the exercise harder and challenged me as I was incredibly nervous to walk with my eyes closed and panicked I would hurt my partner, however being the other person leading the person with their eyes closed was interesting and made me create movement that I wouldn’t of really thought of creating when I was avoiding the swiping arms. Whilst working with my partner guiding them whilst there eyes were closed, I found myself thinking more about helping my partner and slowing all my movements down linking back to the previous discuss about empathy.

 

We then moved on developing the exercise to copying the person in front of us with every movement they did, this in itself was challenging as I started to work with people that I had never worked with before and moved differently to me, so copying the movement was difficult to follow.
Copying other peoples movement also helped me to expand my movement pallet and put myself in someone else’s body, making me see improvisation in different ways.

 

When then developed this exercise further and started to look at backwards blinking, as we started to learn how backwards blinking worked whilst walking around the space I become confident in myself, however when we moved on to doing the previous exercise whilst backwards blinking I lost trust and confidence in myself.
It was challenging and I felt that I didn’t grasp this idea as well as other member’s in my group did, for example I couldn’t keep my eyes closed for as long as I had hoped for.
I also found this exercise challenging because when my partner was down, I was mostly always still standing, I struggled to keep with my partner.
I also struggled to connect the movement together with my eyes closed as I couldn’t image what my partner would be doing next, linking back to last session’s discussion on imagery.

 

The last exercise we did was looking more into implusing and using the idea of imagery to develop this exercise, we got given three different images to explore: Kitten, Seaweed and wrestler’s.
These really helped me to develop my implusing improvisation as It gave me a reason to touch the places I did on Hannah, for example
I picked her up and moved her physically and it changed the way I explored my movement.
I also felt during this exercise that I understood it a lot more than in previous weeks.
I explored working more with Hannah rather than just following and touching and watching the videos back I realized that our impulse started to look more like a duet.
I really enjoyed this exercise and this weeks lesson and I feel a lot more confident within improvisation and I feel I understand a lot more about the ways and how’s improvisation.

We started with a coordination exercise this week, with arms moving on the counts of 1 and 8 whilst jumping, I found this slightly difficult to start with however I managed to get it without getting confused, this exercise woke up my body and made me concentrate a lot more.

 

This week we got set a reading, which spoke a lot about imagery and how different choreographers used imagery in different ways and different exercise they do within imagery with their dancers. I especially like “these movement education techniques, developed by dancers interested in creating ease in movement, use imagery to suggest alternate and more functional pathways of movement in order to release excess effort” from the reading as to me this explains a lot of how many dancers whose imagery and made me start to think about how imagery could influence my dancing and gave me something to think about during the improvisation class.

 

Linking to this reading the next exercise we did was an imagery based, we looked at performing with the images of – Knifes as legs                                                               

Spaghetti as arms

Nose lower than the knee

My cells racing

This was harder than I ever expected it to be and I slowly ran out of ideas and started to loose motivation throughout my movement, this was seen by my peers in the rest of the group as well. I also struggled as my body lost the improvements I made before reading week so coming back was difficult to bring my body back into improvisation.

After discussing with Kirsty about slowing the movements down, and looking more internally and developing more movement from a smaller movement, for example, circling the foot and then developing the circle further. So in the second improvisation jam, I looked more at internally and slowing the movements down, this improved my motivation and stopped the movement from dipping.

I focused a lot on knifes for legs, as I found this interesting to explore, using the sharpness and stiffness to explore all movements.

 

We also looked into thick skinning, looking at ways to staying close to the bodies around us, we used thick skinning in an improvisation jam, and I found this difficult with people that I didn’t know or wasn’t as closed to. For example I found it quite easy with Laura and Hannah, however I still struggled for things to do, as I repeated the same kind of things with each person I partnered with.

After discussing the exercise with my peers, I started to realise that I was going a little to fast so as a pair it was hard to see who was going where.

 

In the second improvisation jam, we looked at using all the improvisation techniques we have learnt in the pass 5 weeks, we had no score apart from using a technique called a ‘tidal wave’ where you have to make eye contact with each other before you move into the space, I found this at first hard as i struggled to connect with other people in the space, however as soon as I first went into the space with a group of people I started to relax and understand it more, and started to connect with other people in the space more. When we got lost the only rule in the score, a lot more people started to join in, in the space and we used thick skinning more than most techniques.

 

This week I found the class easier than the other weeks, I found myself more relaxed and becoming more confident during the class, throwing myself into the improvisation jams instead of backing away.

 

Buckwalter, M. (2010) Composing while dancing: An improviser’s companion. Madison, Wis: The University of Wisconsin Press. Pages. 90-105

We started this week improvisation lesson with another flocking exercise, however this week flocking exercise was in a line with no certain leader, and just using our peripheral vision.
We used slight seconds of stillness to see which member of the group was starting the movement.
As we first started to do this exercise, the movements started out as a ripple effect, as the person at one of end the lines movements wouldn’t fully reach the other end of the line around the same time, and to start with the movements were getting lost at the other end of the line.
We also started out with the problem of having 2 people starting movement so some people were doing movements and weren’t focusing on what the rest of the group was doing around them.
Towards the end of the exercises, the movements started to become more together, however the movement itself started to repeat.
Most of the movement created either with the hands/arms and legs/feet, however it ranged from the floor upwards, and towards the end of the exercises the movement started to get a little more complicated.

I tried to lead this exercise a couple of times, I focused more on doing things with my hands on the floor, making each movement larger than needed so the rest of my group could see the movement out of there peripheral vision.
As we brought this exercise together as a whole group it seemed a lot easier to make the exercise less of a leader/follower, as we were in opposite lines so you could relay on the person opposite you to follow and watch what movement was happening.

 

The next exercise was based around the readings set before this week’s lesson, thinking about using our internal clock rather than external clock, thinking within ourselves when we thought something should be over etc.
the exercise included us laying on the floor and standing up when we thought 2 minutes were up, I managed to get just passed two minutes, however I found it hard not to count and internally think about the time passing.

 

We also looked at Nina Martins Score –

 

1. 3/2 – ensemble relates through levels, movement, facings and distance.
2. Hot spot – How can individuals take focus and how does the ensemble give and individual focus.
3. One idea – How can the ensemble create one simple easily read form.
4. Number score – How many of the ensemble are in the working space.

 

We watched a demonstration of a trio doing a piece following the Nina Martin score as a visual demonstration of the score.
I found this useful to watch because it let me understand them more and I began to see the different areas in the score.
However I disliked the piece as I felt even with the score it was very predictable and not that enjoyable.

 

After we watched this, we tried out the score as a whole group, this score made me want to be in the space a lot more than I have in previous weeks.

It gave me more to think about and ways to work with movement.

Especially ‘one idea’ as I could find one person to copy there movement, which gave me time to think of ways to compliment it and manipulate it.

With the number score, I worked with Hannah as a duet working through movements with our feet, hands and fingers and exploring levels within the floor all the way through to standing.

 

As the weeks have gone through I can see within myself that my confidence is growing and I am able to join in more with group discussions and whole group work without being terrified when joining in with group/smaller group work.

 

In the third week of improvisation, we looked at exploring further by using a method called ‘the flocking method’. We started in a full group, which I found slightly difficult to start with as I struggled to see the persons in front as I was in the middle of the group, so I felt my timing was slightly out to the person ‘leading’ at the front.
However after being a full group, when then split into two groups, which I found easier with less people as I could see the person leading, and the group managed to get the movements in perfect timing.
As there was more people along the sides of the group to lead when we split in to two groups, my group used a split second of stillness to decide who was going to lead, and start the movement off.

Most of the movement we created during the flocking exercise, was small and mostly used the arms, head and torso, as the group was so tight together using complicated movement with our legs would have been difficult.
The movement was also slow and simple, during the end of the exercise we managed to pick the pace up slightly and still managed to stay in time and if we had, had longer on this exercise I feel like we could of made the movements a lot more complicated and made the movements a lot faster.

 

We then split into pairs, and started to do a change, develop and continue exercise, I worked with Hannah and watching her move I started to notice her habitual movements and the movements she constantly went back to, so I started to tell her to change every time I noticed her doing habitual movements and to develop her habitual movements further, after doing this for 5/10 minutes I started to notice her experimenting with different type of movements and starting to leave her habitual movements behind.

When we swapped around, I tried to focus on staying away from habitual movements however I struggled to stay away from them and develop them further I noticed in myself that I was repeating a lot of movement when I was told to develop which is something I aim to work on throughout the improvisation module.

 

After this exercise we split into A and B’s and followed the instructions from Kirsty, however she added more directions, such as ‘no hands, the left hand had to stay to the floor, the movement comes form your nose, the movement comes from the back of the knee’ with this I struggled with, especially ‘the movement comes from the nose’ directions, as I struggled to find ways of doing this, so I ended up repeating a lot of movement again.
However with the directions like ‘the left hand has to stay attached to the floor’ it made me find movement that I would never normally do as it was restricting and I ended up being in positions that I wouldn’t normally be in, making me try and find a way out.

However I noticed that whenever the direction changed I started with hand/arm gestures.

 

We also split the room into different 4 stages, so the right hand top corner of the studio, we were only allowed to run, walk, turn, kneel and fall.
The second stage was the left hand top corner, and the same score applied.

The third stage was half the room, where any movement goes, and we added develop and continue.

The forth stage was the full room, same score as the third stage.

I found this exercise harder than I have found any of the other exercises, I mostly struggled to find the right time to join in and create a duet, trio as when I had finally found a place to join in the movement had already passed and the dancers had moved on.
However I started to feel a lot more comfortable as we got to third and forth stages, and me and Laura managed to find a good connection and worked around each other creating some good movements.

This exercise challenged me to interact with people and start to think about how you could complement another person’s movement.

I would like to try this exercise again and see if I can improve my material and put myself in more of the stages rather than standing and watching.

 

I really enjoyed reading this weeks readings, and I especially enjoyed reading (Buckwalter, M. (2010) Composing while dancing: An improviser’s companion) seeing how all the different choreographers that were discussed in the reading and how the each used form and manipulated the movement by using different pathways and different types of form.

Bibliography –

 

Buckwalter, M. (2010) Composing while dancing: An improviser’s companion. Madison, Wis: The University of Wisconsin Press. Pages. 34-59

Week 2 of dance improvisation and reflective practice and after exploring further into improvisation and getting rid of the nerves I was mostly excited for the lesson. After reading this weeks readings before the lecture I felt a little bit more clued in and confident about improvisation, and made me realize a little bit more that the thoughts and feelings I had towards improvisation are common, I especially liked,

 

‘its like learning to ski. At first you are just trying to keep from falling down. Soon you can change directions a little and look up at the horizon instead of down at the tips of your skis. Eventually you can begin to choose where you want to go and notice and adjust the details of how you are getting there. Not everything is a choice because you are also responding to gravity.’ (Spain, K, 2014, 93)

 

I felt like I could connect to this quote because during improvisation I feel like I’m taking baby steps and learning how to build my skills a step at a time and each week I’m stronger and starting to become braver and a lot more confident.

 

We started this weeks session with somatic exercise, connecting the body to the floor and feeling every muscle and body part and reconnecting with the body, we moved our heads from side to side slowly, and after a couple of seconds of doing this I felt like I’d lost the center of my head and couldn’t place it back. I also felt my body relax and become heavier towards the floor as I was no longer concentrating on the rest of my body, this enabled me to fully connect my body to the floor and feel each muscle along the floor. We also looked at trying to tense a single part of the body, for example the thighs, torso, feet etc. I struggled a lot to do this, not being able to isolate my body, it worked a lot better on my right hand side than my left, but even on my right hand side it wasn’t perfect.

 

We then moved into partners, I felt doing this I was connecting fully to Kayleigh, copying her breathing, her posture and every movement she did, like we were becoming one person. We had to mimic each others movements without having direct eye contact. We had most mutual decisions, there was only a couple of times throughout this exercise that it became more lead and follow, and this was only if the actions had stopped and we needed motivation to start the movement again, or if the movement was going to fast and one of us couldn’t keep up.

 

After the somatic practice, we went straight into an improvisation circle.. I can safely say I nearly cried when we got told to go into the middle of the circle and improvise in front of the whole class! When I first went into the circle I started to do movement I knew already and repeated a lot of the movement as I panicked! However my 3^rd/4^th time in the circle I had a lot more confidence to experiment with movement, and started to look at using smaller movement and using different ways to travel along the floor. I never thought I would enjoy anything like that as much as I did and as we moved on and started to copy people, I got copied by a few people and it was really interesting to see how the movement had worked, it looked almost like a choreographed piece with people stopping and swapping the person they were copying!

 

I firmly believe that my confidence is growing rapidly throughout the improvisation module, and I no longer want to cry every time I walk through the studio door!
Bibliography-

 

Spain k. 2014. Landscape of the now: a toptography of movement improvisation. Oxford: Oxford University Press