Contact Improvisation

Contact improvisation has challenged me to push myself beyond any of my expectations, this module has given me a real perspective on how much my body can do and how oblivious I was too the movement within my body.

The challenges I have encountered throughout this module have really made me reflect on my previous dance experiences, release technique came very foreign to my body, and its something I’ve noticed has been embodied within my body within the past 4 weeks. As soon as the release technique started to embody within my body, I noticed how much my connection between other bodies have improved creating momentum and ‘risker’ movements for myself and between me and another body, no longer having the ‘fear’ of contact improvisation.

It took me a couple of weeks to really draw my body back to the basics of improvisation, things that we had learnt during first year and for a couple of weeks I noticed that a lot of my improvisation and contact improvisation was reverting back to habitual movements, I started to notice that I focusing less on creating new and exciting movement and more focusing on the legitimates of it, for example keeping the connection, allowing my body to release and using my breath to ensure this.

 

Giving to receiving was something that is constantly on mind throughout the whole contact module, ensuring I offered as many platforms for each of the bodies I worked with as possible. This is something I struggled to work with, if my partner wouldn’t offer a platform I would tend to offer as much as I could and then move out of the jam. This is something I brought my attention to and thought more about within the jam’s, working with people I had never worked with before to really challenge my contact improvisation skills. I noticed this during this week’s session, as I started to work with a body I had never made contact with throughout the whole of the contact module and I was surprised to see how much interesting and creative material we managed to create.

 

Whilst working within scores, especially Nancy stark smiths the underscore, I started to realise how important it was to enter the space energetically, physically and mentally. (Koteen and Stark Smith, 2008).

I never realised how important this was until I started to apply this to other modules such as technique classes. This really helped me to forget about any issues that I had outside of class and helped me to bring my mind into what I was about to do and how to push my body as far as I possibly could, it also helped to put my all into the module every lesson. Being present within the space also helped to me scan through my body to find any points of tension and to warm up within the respective areas that need more attention that other parts of my body. For example, with damaged tendons within my right shoulder, it was really important for me to release all the pressure from shoulder and warm up it probably to ensure that no more damage would happen from the session.

 

“Take an image, let it hang in the mind, let the sensation of the thought dissolve through the body. Let the movement inside of the body- of the breath, of thoughts – move the outside. Allow the sensations their own time and expression – yawning, rolling, resting – waiting for a space between the thoughts, an unlocking of the parts of the body – a gap into which something new can emerge” (Tufnell and Crickmay, 1993)

 

Researching into Paxton’s small dance theory, it really brought my attention to the reflex’s within the body and how movement can stem from each of the reflex’s. I rewatched Paxton’s small dance video again to reflect on my practice and how far i had come from week 4 and i started to realise that even though i struggled to ignore the reflex’s and keep myself from fidgeting, i noticed that i used the reflexes i saw in Paxton’s video in my own body to explore movement through my reflexes. Through thinking of Paxton’s small dance idea, I started to think about skinasphere, when we first explored this during class it was something I didn’t quite understand, I didn’t understand how you was supposed to explore it and I started to become very habitual with it, only using my hands and arms to explore this. However, when we revisited it during the underscore, it started to become clear and I started to explore skinasphere with body parts such as my hips, pelvis and head, making a connection to the other person’s body, for example hip to knee and head to shoulder. I managed to create different movements which explore all the kineaspheres.

 

Contact improvisation has really bad me think about the connections in my body and the connections to other people’s bodies, for example it’s really made me think about the internal link within my body and the different ‘Jigsaw puzzle’s’ platform’s between two bodies. I have learnt so much about different bodies that I never realised before, including ‘going down to go up’ and ‘anchoring and levering’, I realised that no matter the height and difference, through contact improvisation as long as the right connections are made anybody can lift anybody.

 

Reflecting on my practice through the contact module I have notice how much I have progressed, how my movement has become grounded and how that has created more fluidity through my movements. I have found different ways of expressing myself through dance, including twisting, pushing, turning and pushing my body to do things I wouldn’t normally feel comfortable doing. I have noticed I have more room to grow within my body and contact improvisation, to create more release through my body and to think more about the internal connections through my body. I have also noticed that my confidence has grown and I no longer panic on what people are thinking about me, this has created a new spark within myself to really explore my movement as much as I can, I have started to close my eyes whilst doing this, which has helped me think more internally about my movement.

 

The skills I have learnt through contact improvisation will stay with me for the rest of my dance career, and it’s something I would like to explore further within my career. I have gained a new confidence within myself and my movement and that’s something that has effect me through all my modules this semester.

 

 

Bibliography

 

Tufnell, M. and Crickmay, C. (1993) Body Space Image. Cornwall: MPG Books Ltd.

Koteen, D and Stark smith, N. (2008) Caught Falling: The confluence of contact improvisation, Nancy stark Smith, and other moving ideas. USA.

Paxton, S. (2009) Small Dance. Available from:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sJKEXUtv44 (Accessed 10 Dec 2016)

During this week’s session we looked at Nancy stark smiths the underscore, a way to create new movement with different ways to create intention and structure within the jams, rather than creating habitual pathways and movements. To start this weeks session we looked at two contact improvisation videos, ones that we’re similar to level we were working at.

 

Both videos explored the same kind of material we were exploring, using the torso and pelvis to make the connection, and using the arms and hands to make a connection through both bodies. During the first video which was based at the university of Roehampton, it was interesting to see how different people work within contact improvisation and different ways of connecting, a lot of what they explored during this video I explored through my own practice towards the end of this week’s session.

 

The second video we watched was at a polish contact improvisation festival, throughout this video they explored more of the concept of using the shoulder as a lever, exploring the shoulder as a base for a high, medium and low kineasphere. This is something I have never really explored, especially on a higher kineasphere. Throughout the festival video, each movement had a lot of momentum, which ensured that all the movements were connected and flowed.

 

We looked at introducing the underscore into our jams this week, and it really made me understand how important it is to arrive physically and mentally. After exploring for myself arriving physically and mentally, I noticed how I can find points of tension in the body, and being able to warm up interdentally to really pin point the areas that I need to stretch, push, pull and explore further. As we experimented with using the underscore within a jam situation, I found it created a completely different atmosphere between the whole class, I found more bodies were in the space, and more people to explore movement with, I started to work with people I had never worked with before, mostly because they are never normally in the space at the time I am.

Within myself I felt I stayed in the space even when we were allowed to exit the space, the underscore created more opportunities and ensured that we couldn’t exhaust the movement between the duets, as I had noticed the movement had become repetitive during previous weeks.

 

 

During Thursdays jam session, the jam felt comfortable and I felt a lot more confident. The movement I created was a lot more explorative and a lot less habitual movement, with the pathways I created wasn’t something I wouldn’t usually follow.

 

Kanał użytkownika szimi82 (2012) Poland Contact Improvisation festival WarSaw Flow 2012 – Jam. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyaHk7KN9bY [accessed 29/11/16]

PERFORM fundacja artystyczna (2014) GLOBAL UNDERSCORE with Nancy Stark-Smith. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOGLMZdm2uA [accessed 29/11/16].

RoehamptonDance, (2011) Contact Improvisation jam 20th May 2011. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdKZlryJ4HY [accessed 29/11/16].

Kaitlin.(2012) Underscore Drawings. Available from http://seattlecilab.blogspot.co.uk/2012_07_01_archive.html accessed [4/12/2016].

During this week’s session we explored different platforms for weight baring and contact between the two bodies, this was very inspiring and I feel like this lesson has been a turning point for me within contact improvisation. We looked at leading from the pelvis, using a front to front connection and exploring the torso and pelvis as a platform, I started to think as to why I hadn’t explored this before within my improvisation and contact improvisation, and then it dawned on me… its very difficult! I felt limited within my own improvisation as I struggled as to embody myself within my pelvis and really let myself take the lead of my body, which lead to me using a lot of habitual movement. However, when we brought the attention of the lesson to using the pelvis and torso has a platform with another body, it started to make sense, I noticed my movement started to flow a lot more, I felt new and creative movement was explored. I also noticed myself starting to release more into the other body.

 

We moved this session on by experimenting with different parts of balance within the body, using one body as a base and the other body finding balances to create creative movements. I was unsure about placing my weight upon something so fragile and seemingly unstable as body part such as the knee or shoulder, however I really started to understand the ability of something so small, as I felt stable as the body being lifter and the body being base. We started to experiment with having the bodies move in and out of the balances we had explored, this is something I really had only experimented within table top, so finding the release and confidence to do it from kneeling was unnerving, I hadn’t fully realised how important it was to keep the connection and breath to ensure a safe landing ensuring momentum and flow. As the lifter, I started to notice when my partner had gotten tense and managed to work myself around them to help and create a stable base for my partner’s body.

 

During the session we entered a jam situation, however unlike previous weeks where it was an open jam, we started with a score of minimum of 2 people and maximum 4 people within the space at one given time. This was something that scared me and I began to worry that it would knock my confidence within the space, creating my body to tense and my movement to become habitual, I originally thought I’d be exposed with some much space compared to what we are used to and with everyone’s eyes on me. My mind was completely changed as soon as I entered the jam, forcing myself in I began to work with another body and my fears just went away, I started to forget that I was in a jam and become completely embodied within my partner’s movement which is something I had never experience before in my dance training. The only part of the score that I really struggled with was the feeling of needing to come out the space to give the other bodies a chance within the jam, as I started to embody my partner’s movement I felt like there was so much more to explore, but just not enough time to get the full amount out of my partner.  “Using an understanding of structured improvisation, we can move beyond the familiar frame of dance and consider the embodiment of other improvisational practice” (Keefe, 237, 2003) This is something I started to realize during the jam part of this weeks session, as we were limited to 4 people in the space maximum I started to pick up the pace a little bit more than I would normally, which enabled me to explored more of partners body and movement as I knew I had to leave the space to able to let others explore movement for themselves.

 

 

 

 

Jam

 

This week’s jam felt different to all the other jams we had, had before. I felt a new confidence within my movement, movement bank and my creative skills. I think going into the jam session with a positive mental attitude made a really big difference to how experimental and creative my movements are. This is something I plan to do for the next couple of jams we have left in this semester. I have also started to notice not only in this weeks jam but in the sessions we have had this week that I am starting to release a lot more and having a lot more trust within my peers and my peers body, which is enhancing my movement and helping me to stray away from habitual movement.

 

Bibliography

 

Keefe, M. What’s the score? Improvisation in Everyday Life. In Albright, A. C., & Gere, D. (2003). Taken by surprise: A dance improvisation reader. Middletown, Conneticut: Wesleyan University Press.

This week we worked with a release and contact based company called feet off the ground who are an all female company. We explored different lifts and counter balances, some we had never explored before, by exploring these new lifts and counter balances I was able to work with new bodies I had not necessarily worked with before, this gave me an opportunity to experience a different connection within my own body and just working with another body in a whole.
Towards the end of the workshop with feet off the ground, we learnt a release and contact phrase, even though we only had 45 minutes to learn and perform, I felt positive with my skills and the end result. After the workshop I reflected on the day and reflected on how I can put everything we’ve learnt into a jam situation, I feel I have more movement to explore within my own body.

 

‘How do we use the three stages of preparation to develop confidence in weight baring lifts?’

We chose to base out research lab around this question because we felt it was a common flaw in most of the classes practice. We based our research to back up our research lab on this weeks reading ‘Exposed to Gravity’. We found it really related to our research lab, as it talks about a man who found new confidence within CI, finding the trust and connection in another body, finding grounding through the floor even in weight baring lifts, ‘on top of Alan’s shoulders I could feel the ground through his body solidly supporting me against gravity” (Curtis, 1998, 158). Curtis and Ptashek also discuss gaining fearlessness through using momentum and weight exchange.
To make sure we gained all the research we needed we spit the 20-minute session in two halves’, starting off with exercises we have explored before such as body surfing incorporating table top, with their starting position and ‘safe’ position table top, we wanted to see if they explored new movement and challenged themselves to work their way through to table top from body surfing.
We then upped the difficulty of the task so their safe position was now one from table top and one from standing, challenging them further to look at movement they wouldn’t have necessarily found working from the normal starting and safe positions.
During this exercise we found that many duets had started to explore with new movement, they started to find the standing connection earlier on which allowed them to explore movement for longer. We didn’t want to chose pacific songs, as Curtis explains “Alan, discouraged this because the body tends to move to the internal rhythm of the shifting weight, sensation and the communication that goes back and forth between the dancers.” (Curtis, 1998, 158). We wanted them to explore at their own pace, which we realised very early on they it was a very slow pace, which made each of the movements controlled, it also meant they kept their connection, allowing movements to flow better.
‘Keep your eyes open, don’t get lost inside your head. Look for opportunities to support your partner, move in underneath them. Don’t give or take weight without listening for the agreement of your partner’s body’(Curtis, 1998, 158), We used this quote within our session because as a group, as we researched for a question we noticed that whilst in a jam we started to plan what we wanted to do, we got lost in all the different ideas we wanted to explore, we stopped listening to our partner’s body and the connection started to leave.

For the second part of our workshop we still wanted the group to explore the transitions between getting from the floor to standing, but we decided to go in reverse so we started with both bodies standing in the space, and we asked them to reverse the practice, so they go from standing to table top and then back to standing again, we also banned body surfing.
For the second stage of this exercise, we carried on with the same idea, but we banned table top and body surfing. We did this because we wanted the bodies in the space to find different ways of moving across the space, ways they had never thought about moving and by restricting the movements they were allowed to do this made them stray away from their habitual movements.
We felt even though the group found the exercises difficult, it managed to challenge them and create new movement even if the group didn’t recognise it in themselves.
We saw a change in the confidence in the group, it was really easy to spot groups that were taking the time to explore and exploring ways to move the connection between the bodies.
In the second set of exercises we used the quote ‘Mutual trust is based on uncompromised attention, so stay in the present moment’ (Curtis, 1998, 158). We used this quote because we felt it was relevant to the group at the time, as they were moving from weight baring lifts to different points on the body, the trust between the two bodies was the main thing needed to maintain the flow and connection.

Photos from our workshop.

 

Bibliography
Curtis, B. (1988). Exposed to Gravity. Contact Quarterly/ Contact Improvisation Sourcebook I, Vol. 13

We watched two videos at the start of this week’s session, revisiting the idea of the over and under dancer and watching more examples of anchors and leavers.
Investigation #1 with Martin Keogh and Neige Christenson, in this video the male was more dominant, using his body more as the under dancer, working with a lot less momentum.
They found stillness quite often and found weight baring lifts to use this stillness in and balance, they’re work seemed effortless almost as if the movement had been choreographed.
Comparing Keogh and Christenson’s work to the work of Mäkinen & Akkanen, I recognised more variety of movement, with the female offering platforms for the male. They created riskier weight baring lifts and explored more throughout this idea of platforms and jigsaw pieces slotting together. They had constant body connection, which I don’t think Keogh and Christenson had all the time, using anchors and leavers, rolling points and platforms.

We started practically walking around the space, thinking about releasing into the floor using our breath. Taking it in turns to say ‘3,2,1’ and trusting the other bodies in the space to catch us as we released our bodies into the floor. During this task I focused on releasing the muscular tension through my legs and mainly my thighs as I have realised this is where I hold a lot of my tension when trying ‘release’.

We spent the rest of the session exploring ways of ‘going up’ using different kineaspheres, lifting from the floor, to table top and then to standing and jumping lifts.
We started off body surfing, and making sure the connection is kept between the two bodies and then exploring how we could take the body surfing into a table top weight bare.
This is something I really struggled to explore, as I felt the connection between the two bodies disappear and we stopped releasing into each others bodies. After exploring it further with other bodies in the space, it still didn’t get any easier. Am I not releasing my body? Am I not fixing the right points in my body to create the idea of a jigsaw? I am not making full connection to start with? As I started to question myself as I was exploring this exercise I started to notice that instead of working with the other body, I tend to place myself into the ‘right’ position and then release and carry on, meaning the connection was lost and my body had tense up, I started to release it wasn’t the transition from the floor to table top to standing that was going wrong for me, I had lost the connection and the release before I had even started to think about the transitions. This is something I wont to explore and work with within class next week and it will always be something that I think about during contact.

 

Jam

 

This week I felt was a turning point for me in the jam, I felt my confidence levels grow in a matter of minutes. I thought about all the my questions and queries I had from the lesson and took this into the jam with me, making sure when I started within connecting with other bodies I thought about releasing and keeping the connection especially through the weight baring lifts.
Through doing this I felt the weight baring lifts were easier than in class, I felt confident in taking some up or letting myself be taken up, I also started to play around with the transitions between the floor, table top and standing, it was only baby steps, but it has made me feel a lot more confident to use these new skills more often with other bodies in the space.

Bibliography

Neige Christeneon(2009) The play of weight. Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ltq6y06E8ew accessed 8 November 2016].

Omegabranch (2011) Contact improvisation Mirva Makinen and Otto Akkanen. Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMLbWxujoGw [accessed 8 November 2016].