In my practice this week I attempted to change the dynamics in my performance. I feel this is the last part of my habitual nature. Due to last week really beginning to lose my habitual movement patterns, developing my improvisations into a much freer generation of new movement, I feel I can move this further by changing the dynamic and the quality of the movements I create and perform. I have a very habitual nature to be balletic and lyrical in my movements and I feel turning to a sharp, strong dynamic, contrasting with my habits, will push my practice further.
Relaxation at the beginning of the session greatly helped me to engage the body, finding areas that my body felt needed more focus and attention. Lying on the floor with slow movements enabled me to build the practice slowly which would then help me learn my body’s full extensions through deep indulgence. This led into floor movements and patterns where I felt I could begin experimenting with new dynamic approaches.
Starting the experimentation by recapping the strategies of thick skinning and impulse and expanding on these methods helped me to develop on these skills. I attempted to sense where my partner was when thick skinning rather than watching and following their movement, however I found this very difficult. I would constantly be naturally looking back to my partner which I struggled to combat. I had to open my other senses such as hearing and sensitivity to my partner which really challenged me. When experimenting with impulses, I found different imagery would affect the strengths and results of impulses using metaphors like pretending to be a cat, trying to wrestle and pretending to be seaweed. Each of these creates a different type and strength of impulse, with the cat being playful, wrestling strong and the seaweed weak. The image I found easiest to explore was being a piece of seaweed. This is because the dynamic created was flowing and soft, leading to each movement being a result of the last movement meaning I was never stuck unsure where to go next. Contrary to this, I found the wrestling the most difficult image as it was the opposite of seaweed. Due to it having a much stronger more aggressive dynamic the movements became staccato and broken so each new impulse would need to be thought up. There was less flow between impulses and therefore each impulse would be a break. Additionally, I found this image showed me the limits of my comfort zone and required me to push this which was a challenge as I didn’t feel comfortable being aggressive. It was hard to find these boundaries and pushed the extremes, pushing the range of expression that we show and allow others to witness.
Experimentation this week was once again a huge challenge. This was due to the use of one of Thomas Lehmen’s score called ‘Functions’ which was created due to inspiration from Niklas Luhmann’s ‘Tool Box’ approach to creating material (Husseman, , 32). Lehmen created the ‘Functions’ score as “an attempt to transpose such a creative tool into the field of choreography and to use it as a source for the collaborative creation of scores” with this particular score including “key operations of communications” (Husseman, , 32). I found this score a challenge due to the set roles of performers for example, interpreter and manipulator, and not being able to deviate from these roles. When viewing the score being performed I learnt that the mediators begin to create a purpose for the material, causing the performers to creatively think about what they are doing. I also found that often the observers appeared to be in the way at times, making the space become overly busy. A discovery I made also was what happened when a performer attempted to resist an impulse that had been created by a manipulator. This was interesting due to the resistance creating a new impulse and a stronger dynamic and creating a more powerful relationship. I found this was more exciting than when performers followed an impulse as it was less expected.
When performing, I found that my most frequently used role was interpreter or manipulator. Through this I discovered the difficulty in being an interpreter was that when you were manipulated it was difficult to keep my intentions of developing the movement that was being shown. This is due to the manipulator often preventing me from seeing the material being generated and the need for me to split my attention between them. I learnt however that when the piece was separated it appeared half the performers were soft with the other half hard and I fell into the softness category. This showed me that when I was focusing on the details of the score and the roles I resulted back to my habitual dynamic that I had been trying to avoid.
The Jam this week furthered the exploration of this score however the material was generated through the performer’s life pathway. This challenged me greatly emotionally due to the sensitivity needed for each performer. This is due to the task being so personal there was a fear to intrude on someone else’s life and experiences. I found it much harder to be the material role due to not wanting to be questioned and being nervous of what life events others will interpret my movement as. However, I also learnt that often when you do share your experiences and feelings, other performers would be able to relate to them, creating a deep connection between performers through interpretation. I found that when performing the manipulator I could develop the strategy of thick skinning as well as the impulse which I had discovered earlier. Before the jam I would manipulate using impulse due to my mind portraying manipulation as a contact physical movement. However in the jam I found you can manipulate a person simply through thick skinning as by getting in their way and blocking their paths from a close proximity they are forced to change.
The piece finished with a solo dancer who was in the role of manipulator which was really interesting to witness and experience. I found the idea of performers manipulating themselves and their own movement really exciting to watch as new, even more un habitual movement would be generated by impulses and prevention of free movement.