WEEK 4

WEEK 4

WOW! What a class! Today was something else, amazing! For the first time I felt comfortable in what I was doing. I had the confidence to keep going into the space and interacting with others. I LOVED CLASS!

The class was a formal assessment this week, so I automatically felt nervous as previous weeks I haven’t felt right. This class usually scares me so much that I feel sick, however I went in with an open mind and I felt great. A positive mental attitude before class helped me maintain that attitude through the lesson.

One quite from the reading that I really worked on and kept in mind was “If you are concerned about how you are seen or what you are doing, time will press on your mind and squelch your creativity.” (Kent de Spain, 2014, 114)

In previous weeks I felt really conscious and silly creating new movement, so this week (and especially for the assessment) I tried my hardest to be confident and positive and to also stray away from my habitual movement and to also be more daring. I started from the word go, the warm up involved walking (with the hips and not leaving them behind), running and then dropping into press-ups (using the feet so we wasn’t heavy footed) and then also using our minds to quickly get into the specified number of people- this was also fun at the same time, which helped me relax into it even more.

FLOCKING

Flocking whilst in a horizontal line was harder than I thought it would be. Using my peripheral vision whilst maintaining a still position with my body and also thinking about staying in time with everyone, was brain overload! At one point, I tried to take the lead and the people on either side of me followed me but the rest of my line was doing something else from another person leading. This proved to me that we needed to do the movement slower than slow so everyone was able to stay in time and keep up with the chosen movement.

The glacial time/clock or felt time, was difficult as you would be thinking of the instructions of making solos, duets, trios, quartets and groups of 5, that you would forget to count the time or to even keep a mental note of how long you could have been moving for. I always find it hard to maintain stillness after moving as my blood condition makes my body feel numb and especially my fingertips, they feel as though they are going to pop. But this is something I need to work on myself and learning how to control it. I felt confident with working with new people, whereas the first session I would only really work with people I knew the most- which is a huge improvement for me.

We watched the “Ensemble Thinking Scene” by Nina Martin in preparation for our next task. The rules of the task were explained and we began with the task. Watching others move open my eyes as to when we could do each rule and how creative it could be, I found it inspiring and it motivated me to stay confident and keep going into the circle and move. I really liked and understood the “distance” rule, many of times I took a movement and performed it elsewhere in the space. I took a swoosh movement with my leg on a low level and did it right behind a group of people who were doing movement on a high level- this added contrast.

The focus element was the most intense as me and Leesh had a moment of constant eye focus, It was hard to keep a straight face and keep in the moment, however once we both got into it, it was as though we had planned to do the movement we had chosen. We took it slow and sustained so we could fulfil the movement but also make most of the moment we had. One thing I have learnt is that each moment of improvisation will not happen the same again, as every height and move will be different each time so just go with it. It is making me enjoy class even more each week.

Becca, Charlotte and Chloe had amazing focus at one point, keeping eye focus on the body part moving of someone else, this highlighted the movement and drew my attention to that movement whilst I was watching.

Nina Martin says in Buckwalter’s book that “Dancers don’t choose to enter the dance based on an intuitive sense of the building dace material, but to simply fulfil the score”. (Buckwalter M, 2010, 62).

This helped me realise and understand that the score was the most important part, and whatever movement we chose was to match and emphasise the score, not just because we felt like doing that particular movement.

I didn’t feel as pressured or shy this week, my actions and movement felt more natural, making me thoroughly enjoy the class.

Bibliography:

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

Spain, K. (2014) Tracking in Landscape of the Now: A topography of Movement Improvisation. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press