WEEK 9
The final week!
Today’s class started with walking around the room to highlight tension combined with roll downs. Tasks like these get my mind and body into thinking and performing simultaneously, and also collectively. I also find it helpful as you can cover lots of the space and get to know the space better, especially walking into the corners and around the bars as I never cover them spaces in my usual class. The conversation task in pairs was great! I loved working with new people and using imagery to initiate our movement. I was really thinking about my habitual movement and how I can stay away from that as much as possible; working with different people each time really helped me to continue this throughout this task. The imagery would be spaghetti or water for example, so that helped me to think to move more fluidly and initiating movement from places like my thumb or my bellybutton.
This task was to be part of our final jam…
The Thomas Lehmen task was interesting as one person in groups took on the task of being…
– The movement maker
– The interpreter
– The manipulator
– The observer
I took on the role of being The manipulator. This was new for me as other than ‘impulse’ tasks, I have never singularly been the one to effect the movement and what was happening. I wasn’t throwing instructions out everywhere as we all needed to save our energy for the hour assessment jam later. The Lehmen task helped me to visually see non-habitual movement, one instruction I gave was to remain laying down and lead movement with the ankle. It was nice to see the thought process in which happened for this movement to take place. I was glad that this task would be part of the assessment jam as our group worked well with each other. These tasks got me thinking about the improvisation jam later on and eased my nerves as it was tasks that I felt comfortable with and new I could perform well. We all wrote down all the words that we had learnt over the weeks onto paper, which actually made me realise that we had covered a lot and come a long way in a short space of time.
Over the weeks in the improvisation classes with Kirsty, I have really enjoyed being in her company and learning from her. One main thing I have learned to do, which she ensures to have each class, is to have confidence in anything you do. I found week to week varied in confidence levels for me however if I did feel uncomfortable, it was okay to take 2 minutes to shake it out and then to carry on. My confidence grew after the first couple of weeks as my movement initiation was habitual, which I didn’t know then that it was habitual, however I would stick to what I felt comfortable with, whereas now I try and stay away from my habitual movement. This is huge for me as I found the change difficult which effected my confidence but in week 4 that all changed for me, I loved class and really enjoyed myself and since then the confidence stuck with me.
Tracking has played a huge part during my time in improvisation class as that technique helped me to improvise in a non-habitual way. By tracking my body and knowing what the movement before was and where it came from, helped me link it to the present movement and also made me think about the next movement. Kirsty would also let us track our body for stiffness and tightness which also impacted on what my movement choices would be. Spain, K says “What you track is usually a function of your improvisational values”. (Kent de Spain, 2014, 48). In week two, this stuck with me through the class and has done ever since as tracking has become a part of me and my improvisation journey.
A few time we experienced felt time, which was strange as you over thought thinking about the time. I would often slow down and speed up counting in my head, however I was very tempted to stand when someone else did but then forgot my time… It is still one to work on I think!
Over the 9 weeks we worked on stillness. We used stillness in many ways, in partner work, to highlight movement in jams, to contrast to the fast movement or even in cases where stillness was the aspect of the task. I think stillness helped me “be in the moment”. I believe that once you have the confidence you can be in the moment, the moment of feeling loose with your movement, feeling like you could keep going. The rush you feel when being in the moment, when the ideas flow continuously, when you connect with the other bodies in the room and work together and know what they’re going to do. There have been many times where I have been “in the moment” and I loved it! I proved to myself that I can do it! The final improv jam was insane! I felt so confident, I was in the moment, I was using lots of the key skills for me such as, focus, stillness, thick skinning, spatial relationships and peripheral vision.
The classes I have had have changed my experience as a dancer in general as now I feel more open to try new things as I hated improvisation and would never use this technique. I will definitely use improvisation in the future to help with routines or for it to even be apart of future routines. It has changed my outlook on dance and me as a person, making me more confident and think about my movement more, rather than just doing any old movement to fill a phrase.
The final class, especially the jam was truly ephemeral just like my entire experience in this improvisation and reflective practice class! An amazing experience in trying something new and one in which I can’t wait to continue.
Bibliography:
Spain, K. (2014) Tracking in Landscape of the Now: A Topography of Movement Improvisation. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
