Contact Improvisation

“In Contact improvisation, one finds oneself in circumstances that demand accessing support from any area of one’s own body surface, in physical contact with any area of another person’s body surface, both of which are in motion. In this situation one is not able to rely on habits, the reflexes take over and the rest is history” (Lepkoff, 2008) This, to me, is important to realise that within contact improvisation habitual movement struggles to take over your body whilst you’re in motion with another body. I have noticed this within my own practice, straying far from habitual movement with other bodies, however, my journey in and out of the contact jam and in-between finding different bodies to work with tends to stray back to habitual movement.
“In order to change habitual movement patterns one needed to address the functioning of the whole organism, the mind as well as the body” (Lepkoff, 1999)
This is something that I feel I need to make the connection between whilst working on my own improvisation and I believe it’s an important thing to master.

In this week’s session we started to look at different ways to move across other bodies using surfing and the idea of over and under dancer to get across the space, whilst keeping the connection at the torso/hips.
At the start, I noticed that the movement was difficult to keep the movement flowing, as I kept moving through the space I noticed this was because the connection kept breaking between the two bodies.
What surfaces of the skin needed to make contact? How was the two parts of the body supposed to stay in contact?
I started to think of the bodies moving more as a jigsaw piece rather than two separate parts of the body and releasing myself more into the space of the body.
Looking at different ways to weight bare through surfing and the over and under dancer, using table top and keeping the connection and lifting whilst your partner was acting as the over dancer, become extremely difficult.  If felt odd within my body. How was my partner supposed to know when I wanted to roll?
How was I supposed to move myself into table top without hurting my partner?
These are questions I still haven’t answered within my own body as of yet and questions I want to explore within the next contact session and the next jam.

We started to explore ways of weight baring to use in the improve jams.
I realised that momentum was a key part of weight baring lifts, using this to move both bodies, and the more momentum I built the more the movement felt comfortable, it flowed better and the two bodies released a lot more into each other.
I learnt that throughout any weight baring lifts I attempt to do, I must always focus on ‘going down to go up’ and finding different anchors within your body.I started to use the top of my back/shoulders as an anchor.
Being able to release into my partner was fine, however I struggled with being lifted and I noticed within myself that I offered to be the base more than I offered to be lifted. This is something to do with my previous training as always being the ‘base’, it’s something I need to focus on and work with, within jam’s and other weight baring exercises, until I combat my fear of being lifted.

I started to learn throughout most of the exercise we were going through during the session that, trust, confidence, momentum and ‘safe’ practice, are the most important things during weight baring lifts.
For example, the pulling exercise, if the momentum and trust wasn’t there between the two bodies, the exercise wouldn’t work, finding the balance of these between two bodies is so important.

I notice that in the wrap around leg kick lift, momentum and making sure the two bodies fit as a jigsaw piece, this is something me and my partner struggled to grasp, on getting the bodies in the correct places so they fit together, and having the momentum to get us round, it took us quite a while to get the hang of this.
This exercise is something I want to explore further within the contact jam next week.

 Contact Jam

This week’s jam felt good, I felt I explored a lot with the movement we learnt the week before and some weight baring lifts, however I struggled to intertwine a lot of the weight baring lifts as I didn’t know how to place them and to initiate them with the other bodies in the space.
I’m starting to focus more on having a connection and conversation with my partner during the jam’s, to make the movement work between us.
Within myself I need to learnt to accept when something doesn’t work and don’t try and force movement upon my partner, instead let the movement flow and see where the two bodies end up.
Sometimes the most amazing movements start from an accidental movement.

Bibliography
Daniel Lepkoff (1999) What is release technique?. [online] Available fromhttp://www.daniellepkoff.com/Writings/What%20is%20Release.php[Accessed 30^th October 2016].

Daniel Lepkoff (2008) Contact Improvisation: A Question?. [online] Available from http://www.daniellepkoff.com/Writings/CI%20A%20question.php [Accessed 30^th October 2016]

 

Is stillness really stillness? Are our bodies moving without us even being aware of this?

From watching Steve Paxton’s Small dance video, the answers to these questions become obvious, the reflexes we have within our body, the twitches of the fingers, an itch on my body or the slight rocking of weight between the feet all cause us to move even when we believe our bodies are ‘still’.
Attempting to do this at the start of the session I found near impossible to ignore any reflexes or movement your body wanted to do, I did at points give into my reflexes. However, this exercise brought to life the smalldance video in my own body, and I felt where most of my reflexes come from and now my body is never still within the space.
As we proceeded more within our reflexes, feeling them and moving with them, I found movement that I never knew I could initiate from, for example I started to experiment with my little finger, which for me create non habitual movement.
We then started to look at three positions, table top, downward dog and child’s pose and how we could move within these positions, listening to our bodies and stretching and twisting with the body.

 

Bryon Brown discusses in ‘is contact a small dance?’ the idea of contact improvisation being ‘functional’ rather than ‘natural’, and I really thought about this idea of ‘functional’ during class and the improvisation jam this week.
‘it is functional to relax whilst falling because it takes less energy and it causes less energy upon impact’ (Brown, 1980-81, 73) ‘It is also functional to catch oneself with the arms because they can break the fall and not jar the system if the wrists, elbows and shoulders give with the weight’ (Brown, 1980-81,73)
This is something I kept thinking about during the improvisation jam and the class, and the more I practiced this the more the reading started to make sense. If we are not functional with our bodies how are we supposed to look after ourselves? How are we supposed to look after the other bodies within the space? How are we supposed to have safe practice?

 

We looked this week at trusting the other bodies within the space to catch us in a trust fall exercise.
‘bring attention to the fact that sensing the weight of the body from within also form part of situated and shared experience’ (Ravn, 2010, 21)
During this exercise I thought about sensing my weight and then releasing the weight into my peer’s body, I also thought about this when catching another body and sensing what part of the body needed to be held.
I found that I adapted to this exercise better than I thought I would, and was able to fully release myself and trust the other bodies to catch me.
Being lifted into the air was a difficult concept to grasp at first but as soon as I was up in the air all my anxiety went and I felt confident within myself and my peer’s.

 

Research Lab –

 

‘How does sensation and imagery help combat habitual movement?’

 

We explored the idea of sensation and imagery through touch, and explored how the same imagery and sensations can feel so different on different bodies and how this can affect our movement and thought patterns whilst moving with another body.

‘ ‘Simple’ physical contact involves feelings of pressure, of temperature, of roughness and smoothness, of resistance, and form’ (Smith,3)
We wanted to give the group as may different sensory and imagery ideas to work with as possible, giving them different pressures to work with and how that effect the way they moved, giving them an idea of resistance between to the two bodies (Magnetization)  and giving them different body parts to work with this idea of resistance and pressure, for example, their feet had to magnetized together and they had to create movement around that, I realised that this was difficult to start with, however it pushed the group to create movement and experiment with movement that they hadn’t thought of before.

It was really interesting to watch how the different bodies found different ways of moving round the magnetization, one couple used the floor and the idea of an over and under dancer which was extremely interesting to watch.

Overall we had three exercises that we did with the group, the first entail exercise that we did was to get the group into this idea of imagery and bringing their attention into the space.
‘with the eyes closed and putting our body image out of mind, we build a very different picture of our presence’ (Brown, 1980-81, 75)
Many people within the group struggled with the first exercise and found it difficult to let the imagery take over their body, letting themselves be distracted by their own minds and body.

There was positive and negative feedback from the group at the end of the class, many found it difficult to have many things to think about in the last conversation touch task, and they said how they didn’t feel as though they combatted habitual movement, however from watching the group I feel like there was lots of movement created that wouldn’t necessarily have been created in a normal class.
Reflecting back on the class I feel that we had too many imagery and sensations for the group to think about whilst doing the last task which could be why the group struggled so much.

Bibliography –

Smith,R (2016). Kinaesthesia and Touching Reality. [online] Available at: http://www.19.bbk.ac.uk/articles/10.16995/ntn.691/ [Accessed 13 Oct. 2016]

‘Sensing weight in movement’. Full text available By: Ravn, SusanneJournal of Dance & Somatic Practices, 2010, Vol. 2 Issue 1

Paxton, S. (2009) Small Dance. Available from:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sJKEXUtv44 (Accessed 23th October 2016)

Brown, B. Is Contact a Small Dance? contact improvisation sourcebook I. Vol. 6

 

 

Tuesday’s Class

 

We started this week with a somatic exercise, which led into moving round in our lower kinesphere, twisting and rolling to find non-habitual movements. During this exercise, I started to remove myself away from habitual movement, and began to explore the concept of swinging and making circles with my body. I started to play with the speed of the swings and rolls and how the momentum can affect my movement. I started to feel a lot more confident within myself, rebounding of the other bodies instead of stopping my movements and moving into a different space. As I confident within my movement I started to close my eyes, “consciousness might even be bypassed; improvisers migh0t ‘sink past the conscious mind into more appropriate states” (Paxton, 2010, 131), I feel as though I bypassed my conscious mind whilst my eyes were closed focusing more within my internal body, the muscles within my toes and how they were moving, forming movements from there.
Moving into working with partners, holding each other’s heads as we moved, to start with I struggled to fully release my head, and I found myself repeating the same movements. I explored mainly my higher kinesphere, mainly because I worried about explore my middle and lower kinesphere.
I also struggled to choose my own pathways and not follow the way that Sophie was leading head, as well as I struggled to keep myself from leading Sophie’s pathways as it was hard to guess which was she was going to move.
I have however found during this exercise, which I started to explore more during the improvisation jam on Thursday, to release my neck and head into the bodies.
I started to let them carry the weight of my head and started to explore the movement that this created.

This exercise moved into head connection, the movement that me and Sophie created whilst exploring this exercise really surprised me because I never really understood the phrase ‘let two bodies become one’ until this exercise.
As we started to connect through other body parts and we started to explore over and under dancer, I started to close my eyes and just let the connection between mine and Sophie’s body parts lead my movement.
As we started to walk around the space, focusing completely on the floor and what space we were going to walk towards, I started to feel as though my whole body had embedded into my eyes, that only reason my body was moving forward was because my eyes were willing my body to move.
My body started to response to what it saw and at this time the sense of sight in my body was heightened.

As we moved into making eye contact with the other bodies within the space and creating movement, I worked with Fenya and we started to play with how far we could go, still keeping the eye contact, and how close we could go, moving round in a circle shoulder to shoulder. It really helped me especially within the improvisation jam, as I used it to initiate movement, following the eye contact and then moving into something from that. I felt that sense of conversation between the eyes.

“Dancers taught the roll in a western way (to achieve external form alone) tended to reproduce habitual actions associated with the performance of a forward roll/somersault, rather than the aikido roll” (Paxton, 2010, 125) whilst we were learning the aikido roll, this quote was right at the front of my head. To my it is something that I could see in myself, I started to convert back to more of a contemporary style roll rather than the aikido roll, which would have made me struggle when we started to proceed the roll from standing, I had to take the roll very slowly to begin with and concentrate fully on what part of my body was moving when.
Thursday’s Improvisation Jam

 

This week’s improvisation jam, felt to me a little more difficult than last week, I feel like I struggled a lot within the weight baring, as I wasn’t too sure on how to initiate it or how to really do this with my partner. I also felt with the music being slower and more relaxed that it was harder to put yourself back into the improvisation jam, and I started to realise how hard it is to work within a group larger than two within contact improvisation.
“The dancer feels anxious, thinks judgmental, self-deprecating thoughts, recalls previous experiences of humiliation, gets scared of other people’s judgement, and in response often initiates habitual (usually recognizable) movement forms” (Paxton, 2010, 132)
Whilst reflecting on the improvisation jam after class and whilst re-reading parts of Paxton’s “Interior techniques”  I started to realise that my problem is more within myself than the actual concept of the ‘jam’, I seem to struggle with the idea of not being as good as my partner or getting stuck and not really knowing where to go with it, again leaving my partner without anywhere to go, this idea of not being good enough I feel holds my back and stops me from exploring my whole movement as well exploring more of the jam.
This is something I determined to work on and improve by the end of the module so I can reach and go beyond my full potential.

Bibliography –

Steve Paxton’s “Interior Techniques”: Contact Improvisation and Political Power. Full Text Available By: Turner, Robert. TDR: The Drama Review, Fall2010, Vol. 54 Issue 3, p123-135, 13p, 5 Black and White Photographs

During the first sensory exercise, placing my hands over Laura and being the over body, especially trying to roll Laura over from the hips, really surprised me with how much you have to release yourself to fully explore the tasks at hand.Whilst Laura’s hands were placed between my lower back and in between my shoulder blades, I found tension between and around my shoulders that I had never noticed before which led me to wonder as to why I had tension there? What was I doing within my dance practice to collect tension there? So I focused a lot more during practical classes on loosening my upper body, and I’ve noticed a lot less tension within my body.
As the exercise move forward we looked at the power of ‘non touch’ which as Laura lifted her hands away from my back I still felt the connection between me and my partner, and the stretch Laura had made and the connection I had made between my lower back and my shoulder blades, I realised that connection is still there and can cause different types of movement even when the touch is barely made, I experimented with this during the improvisation jam.

During the whole first exercise I realised how important sensory movement is during contact improvisation, When I placed my body over Laura’s and we experimented with an over and under dancer, it took me a second to realised where my body was in relation to hers and to fully release onto her.
I started to think about the connection between the breathing and if I was to start moving how this would affect Laura and how she would move with me and the possibilities of movement that could be created.
The Weight baring and trust exercise also brought my attention to sensory movement, as it was important to really understand where your partner can take your weight and which parts of there/your body are stable enough to hold the other person’s weight, yet still be interesting and unique.
‘To be alive and to inhabit a body is to be continuously and radically in relation with the world, with others, and with what we make of them’ (Bannon and Holt, 2012, 217) . Ellsworth argument in the ‘Touch’ reading, really relates to how I felt during not along this exercise but towards contact improvisation in a whole, I feel like I need to start making relation with how I feel towards other people and make the connection from myself to them.

The one thing that really scared me about contact improvisation was trying to remake connection after it had broken and where to take it.
Doing the exercise which included sitting back to back with my partner and exploring the movement first just through the back and then leading towards the floor and over and under movement.
At first I found this difficult as I wasn’t sure as which way to move with Chloe and how to make the connection, after breaking the connection and returning to the original back to back position, I closed my eyes and started to zone into my spine and the vertebrates and feeling them along Chloe’s back and making the full connection, the exercise started to become easier and the movement just flowed into other movement.
I learnt during this exercise that if something didn’t go to plan or you lose the connection, not to just give up and move on to another person to make the contact with, but to return to the original position and offer them something different.

When we were first told about the improvisation jam on a Thursday evening and how we would be mostly dancing in the dark, especially with a foreign body in the space, I have to admit it was the last thing in the world that I wanted to do.
However, after being the space and starting with a few warm up exercises including making a ‘conversation’ between you and your partner, I think really helped me to take a deep breath and go for it.
I never thought I would walk out the class and be excited for the week that is to follow, I felt comfortable with the people around me and moving in ways that I never really thought my body would, making the connection with people and having the conversation in the dark through touch. Dancing in the dark, really helped my confidence especially with the glow from the ‘outside world’ really made me feel like I was in a different place entirely.
Working within the contact with partner was easier for me, as I could experiment more with movement and the things we have learnt within the past couple of weeks during contact improvisation.
Being able to stand back and watch the movement that was forming was incredibly interesting as well, seeing how different bodies moved with different people, and I found myself thinking ‘I could try and start with that kind of movement next week’ or ‘I could try and experiment with that next week and see how it ends up’

‘In our culture touch itself has become a vulnerable commodity. We know that in the unifying moment of touch there lies the potential for unequal power relations that can be detrimental to one or both parties.’ (Bannon and Holt, 2012, 219), This quote really does show some of my thinking towards contact improvisation and it is especially a fear of mine, something I know that I will overcome with time and my confidence will grow.

Overall, I’ve started the process of understanding the communication of touch between two people and how little or bold that touch can be can fully vary the movement create.
To me it’s a game of ‘give and take’ the more of your body you give to your partner and the more trust you put into your partner to support you and flow with you, the more movement and flow you will have.

Bibliography –

Bannon, Fiona; Holt, Duncan. (2012) Touch: Experience and knowledge,Journal of Dance & Somatic Practices Vol. 3.

 

The first session of contact improvisation, brought my attention to the difference between contact improvisation, choreographed contact and improvisation.

By watching the video ‘Blush’ (youtube, 2012) I noticed that choreographed contact is a faster paced piece of choreography, the weight baring lifts are riskier and the contact between the pair is hardly any with each movement being in sync with another.

Where as in contact improvisation, the movement is slower, with each surface that comes into contact with another body being fully explored, with the sense of performance not being an aspect, this is shown through the video ‘Contact improvisation jam Berlin – K77’ (youtube, 2010) where it is clear that each weight lifting movement is based around communication and touch with each lift clearly being based around levers and anchors.

 

We looked into weight baring, response and trust tasks, I noticed that during the touch/response task that, the longer you touch the person and guide/move them with your touch the more chance they have to explore the full range of movement and the further they can move away from habitual movement.

‘One of the most important elements of contact improvisation is communication by touch’ (Heitkamp, 2003, 256), this quote I see as transferring what you want your partner to do through how hard, fast you touch them and how long your touch lingers for through to your partner through nothing but your touch.

I noticed through Laura’s touch, that I started to think more about where Laura wanted my body to go and how she wanted me to move rather than what my mind was saying for my body to do, I could of explored this task more if I hadn’t of resisted Laura’s touch and moved more slowly so I could fully go about my movement. I could of also used more levels, as reflecting back I was mainly on floor, I didn’t fully feel comfortable with movement on a middle or higher plane.

 

I am unsure about whether the closed eye walking task made me feel uncomfortable and isolated or made me explore my movements more.
I don’t know whether being in such close contact with people made creating movement easier within a non judgemental environment or whether there was too much fear/nerves to full explore this movement.

I found having my eyes closed made me think more about my awareness of my other senses and how the touch of someone else’s body could effect my own movements.

During the contact floor jam, I felt that being able to create movement from a single touch of any part of anyone’s body made creating movement easier and made it more natural and less forced to touch to create.

 

During the partner trust work, I notice that if you did not have complete trust within your partner the exercise would not work.

‘it is amazing how much information is transmitted through touch’ (Heitkamp, 2003, 258) as quoted by Heitkamp, I feel that if this information should be passed through the surface connection and the two bodies should become whole, making the trust tasks possible.
there were a few moments during this task where it worked for me, however I feel as our trust and focus gradually develops this should improve.

 

‘Because Consciousness can be felt to change according to what it experiences. If a gap of consciousness occurs at a critical moment, we lose an opportunity to learn from the moment’ (Paxton, 2003, 177) This is something I have found difficult through the past year of improvisation, keeping my mind focused on the movement at hand and being able to let my body flow with what’s happening around me rather than overthinking each situation and losing my connectivity and flow, when I enable myself to do this, I will in myself become better within this module.

 

Bibliography

 

Paxton, S. Drafting Interior Techniques. In Stark-Smith, N.  A Subjective History of Contact Improvisation. In Albright, A. C., & Gere, D. (2003).Taken by surprise: A dance improvisation reader. Middletown, Conn: Wesleyan. University Press.

 

Heitkamp, D. (2003). Moving from the Skin: An Exploratorium. Contact Quarterly/ Contact Improvisation Sourcebook II, Vol. 28:2. Pp.

 

Themalcomme. (2012). Blush part 5 on 5.avi. [online Video]. 12 february 2016. Available from: http://youtube.com/watch?v=igK7FNpbq84. [accessed: 27 September 2016].

 

Juri Schmidt. (2010). Contact improvisation jam – berlin K77. [online video] 8 March 2016. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDhhKmCVVdo. [accessed: 27 September 2016]