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].