Dance Improvisation and Reflective Practice

This week aimed to be even more experimental in the way I used my body, further reducing my habitual patterns. This led to me becoming much more reflective, thinking back to what I had learnt in previous experiments to determine what my habits were and methods we had already explored to combat them. This relates back to what Suzanne Little researched, finding “the key skills/attributes of self-reflection and self-directed learning were highlighted and deemed crucial to the development of well-rounded, independent lifelong learners” (Little, 2010, 38). Here she is claiming that to become a more productive learner, using time autonomously, you would need to have developed these skills of reflection. To begin the experimentation we used imagery in which restricted the movements we did. The images, such as the head being attracted to the sit bones and having knives for legs and spaghetti for arms, disconnected me from the use of habitual movement due to the way that many movements I would usually result back to did not fit within the images created. This meant that I found myself creating completely new movement to fit the image. The final image given (all cells in the body are having a race and are all determined to win) was most influential to my practice. I felt this image pushed me to let go and I found much more freedom as I felt out of control trying to move every part of my body at the same time, engaging even the smaller parts such as fingers. I found that for this I remained fairly upright and stationary due to exploring how fast each part could move at the same time. I experienced a loss of conscious thought and with this came a loss of set codified movement that I would normally show. Creating new movement I have generally always struggled with therefore learning this method was highly beneficial to me. With this theme established, we continued into a solo and I found that this became much slower with falls and I was magnetised to the floor more than I had been earlier. I feel this was due to my body being tired and I would listen closer to what the body wanted to do. I fount that within this solo it was much easier to create and indulge in movement, stretching and pushing my limitations, as all of my body had been made engaged and ready from the image.

 

Following this, I learnt more strategies but this time to manipulate movement rather than generate it. Strategies such as accumulation, diminishment and retrograde, I found are interesting ways of developing already created movement. In bigger scores, I learnt this could be used to form duos with other performers, avoiding direct copying but still forming a relationship. Creating a duo through manipulation rather than duplicating in a large score was much more challenging due to it being much more difficult to a viewer or performer on the outside of the space to identify the relationships. It often began to look like a selection of multiple solo’s and lots of different ideas with no clear developments and ties between performers. The use of the strategies however persuaded me again to use less habitual movements as it often needed to be related to other performer’s movements without being the same.

 

I found making this shared choice of movement between performers without communicating through words would emerge through being empathetic towards other performers while also being clear in my intentions. I learnt this from the paper from Monica Riberio and Agar Fonesca they look to find “how communication takes place among dancers during dance improvisation”, finding that it is due to a type of cognition in the body and in relation with the partners (Riberiro and Fonseca, 2011, 71-72). They concluded that “empathy allows the sharing of modes of thinking-feeling the dance so that a group of dancers can decide together when, where, how and which movement to do” (Riberiro and Fonseca, 2011, 82). These results influenced me as in my own practice I attempted to use empathy in order to connect with other performers. This meant I could sense and share other people’s intentions and movement decisions, recognising the means for their choices. Decisions could then be made between us to create effective choreography through improvisation.

 

The video watched within this session was influential to me in this week’s Jam.

I was inspired by the use of contact and close work, maintaining relationships with others but changing between partners. I experimented with this proximity within the jam through the use of ‘thick skin’. I found myself discovering new ways I could stay close to another person, using the floor and filling the space around them with different arm of leg movements. However, in this practice I found less exploration and that I’d repeat similar movements.

 

The jam this week was a massive breakthrough for me. I found that for the first time throughout the scores I didn’t think about what I was doing or what step I would do next or what would look most ‘attractive’ to an audience member. My movement suddenly became much less habitual and more flowing, with each movement leading into another and being created in the moment; I felt I spent much less time thinking about what move was going to come next. The main strategy learnt in the jam that led me to this discovery was the use of impulse. This is because and impulse gave a starting point meaning that when a phrase began to run out I could straight away generate something new rather than resulting back to a habitual step.

 

The rule in the piece that you couldn’t enter made the score more difficult; the score became frustrating because if you found there was something to add to it in the form of a new idea or a development to a current relation you wouldn’t be able to and when you had the opportunity the space was clear and the group were gone. The use of the tide was interesting to me due to you being completely unaware of who was going to enter the space and therefore who you would need to connect with in performance. To me this was a positive as it helped improve my skills of thinking on my feet and dancing in the moment. This also linked to my loss of habitual movement as there was no time at all to plan. The down side to the tide effect was that movement of the tide to clear the space was a group majority decision and therefore you may lose a piece of work you were enjoying.

 

This jam was massively influential to me. This is due to the changes in the score (adding the tide and not being able to enter the space) while mainly being my sudden discovery in losing habitual patterns. This felt like a great step forward for me in producing work that is original and creative rather than based on codified steps. I hope to continue this further in weeks to come, experiencing and discovering now my limits but also how far I can stretch my ability to overcome limitations to extend my practice.

 

Buckwalter, M. (2010) Composing While Dancing, An Improviser’s Companion. USA: University of Wisconsin Press.

Ribeiro, M. M. and Fonseca, A. (2011) The empathy and the structuring sharing modes of movement sequences in the improvisation of contemporary dance. Research in Dance Education, 12 (2) 71-85.

I found this week’s improvisation the most challenging so far. We aimed to explore composition in space and time, abandoning the security systems usually used to structure time and instead working with felt time. Writing down the part of the reading that inspired me most greatly helped with finding a focus which could be a new starting point for movement. I wrote:

(De Spain, 2014, 109)

This inspired me due to the idea that you could show the theme or intention of a piece by the placement of the dancer and the way in which they face. I found this interesting as it can either emphasise what the movement is showing but can also change the whole piece and interpretation. I therefore attempted to use this in my improvisations, thinking about what I was trying to show and how the face or position in space would affect this. I could then create movement from this as a starting point.

 

The first exercise taught me my general habitual tendency’s within space. Through this I found that I generally am much more interested in finding area’s of space that are empty, while I was often attracted to the edges of the space avoiding the middle.  I felt the idea of listening to the space was really challenging, due to the fact that the sense of seeing tended to take over. I was influenced greater by what I saw and it was hard to ignore this sense and focus on listening. In this exercise I learnt that I was influenced a lot by other people; I found when others moved I would also, often going to where they had just been. However, this I kept finding that others would have the same intention and that when moving to a space another performer would get there first and I’d have to change my direction and intention.

 

Through attempting to measure two minutes without the use of a clock and simply trying to feel it taught me that felt time was much different too the clock time. I found that my felt time was much shorter than clock time, feeling like two minutes should have ended much sooner than it did and that the two minutes went slowly. However, in the earlier exercise when told we had 7 minutes but actually taking 19 on a task felt the opposite. The length of time spent felt much shorter than 19 minutes. I found, therefore, that when you are doing something engaging and active the time didn’t go as quickly whereas when you are sat doing very little time was much harder to measure.

 

The next exercise was the task I found most tough due to needing to distinguish a clear beginning, middle and end. This was challenging due to me not being sure how to make it obvious. I found that habitually I would do a shorter beginning and end section with the middle section longer, suggesting a ABA structure. For me, to make it clear I commonly attempted to make the middle section contrast, often having the beginning and end on the floor and the middle standing or vice versa. My partner pointed out and taught me these habitual patterns, enabling me to find ways to combat them. When I was given the limitation too stay on one level the full time the level of difficulty heightened for me and I was struggling to find different ways to create clear sections. I attempted to change the dynamics for each section while also attempting to alter my habitual timing pattern so that the sections were different lengths. When trying to change the times, I found that they often didn’t change as much as I felt; reflecting back on the idea that felt time isn’t an accurate measure of clock time.

 

The final exercise we used a score similar to that of Nina Martin. Through this I learnt the importance and difficulty of felt time greater. It was difficult to judge how long each section needed to last for while also keep the set forms of the relationships in the space. This is due to the intentions of dancers being unclear and therefore you may have to suddenly enter or exit the space unexpectedly because another dancer has joint of left. Martin uses this technique in order to develop a “quick thinking on your feet” (Buckwalter, 2010, 62) technique in the dancers as the score “creates dynamic shifts and eventually a flow, as the dancers welcome fast-paced sudden shifts” (Buckwalter, 2010, 62). This helped me in developing these skills but also skills of awareness and engagement, enabling me to notice further what the piece needed and how I could add that. This may have been through me performing a solo and bringing in a new idea or forming a group with other dancers, showing my relationship to them by space and movement developments. The quote from the readings I began with influenced my decisions, remembering that “two people standing close together are linked” and that a soloist upstage can appear lonely yet downstage would invite audiences in (De Spain, 2014, 109). This made me think more carefully about where on the stage I should stand in relation to others and where I should enter and exit.

 

Buckwalter, M. (2010) Composing while dancing: An Improviser’s Companion. Madison, WI, USA: The University of Wisconsin Press.

De Spain, K. (2014) Landscape of the Now. USA: Oxford University Press.

Today’s experimentation focused on the ideas of attention and intention, related also to the form of dance. I found the beginning exercise much more engaging and effective due to learning of the idea that the body is always ready to move. My general warming up was enhanced by this as I felt I was more dynamic and creative in the way I prepared my body. This also made me conscious to which body parts needed more time and focus, enabling me to spend more time on them, while also preparing me mentally for the creative aspect of improvisation. Deborah Hay’s analysis of there being no front and that the body is made up of thousands of cells (De Spain, 2014, 94) impacted my movement choices. This was due to me focusing less on the way I was facing while ensuring I filled the space effectively. I also became aware of my full surface, providing the difference between awareness and attention as attention be an intentional full focus on something, closely observing this, where awareness involves you noticing something and being receptive but not constantly fixating on it (De Spain, 2014, 168). These worked in conjunction with each other as being aware meant I could note an aspect, leading to me being able to decide if it needed further attention. The idea of no front also reminded me that an audience member could be viewing the dance from any angle and therefore my movement needed to involve both the front, back and the sides of the body to interest all spaces around me. Focusing on the body being made of a high amount of taught me to have an awareness of the full surface of the body. This led to me finding new moves and experimenting with the body parts that often aren’t used, such as the fingers or elbow, creating movement that was led by that body part.

 

Through the next exercise of continue, develop, change, I learnt that my unconscious preference of movement is to develop. Being observed and also observing others improvise with this idea in their mind, noting points of development and change taught me that the dancer’s intentions are often much less obvious to an audience than they realise, which could answer the question as to why many practitioners do not use intentionality. Steve Paxton said “What I try to do is not intend and to find out” (De Spain, 2014, 70) which may be seen as a better option as it leaves the movement to be open to interpretation. I found that as I was dancing, in order to establish a movement, a high amount of repetition was needed. My partner’s clap for when they found it had been established arrived much later than I expected, leaving me expecting my movement to have become boring by the time I was set to change. Adding to this, I learnt that changing movement was much clearer when there was a strong change in the dynamics.

 

Adding attention to the exercise, in the form of each new movement needing an intention or theme, made the movement become much more therapeutic. This was one way in which form influenced improvisation. This effect was due to there being more connection established with the movement, making it harder to change; you had time to attend to the body’s needs and wants allowing for indulgence in the movement. Using attention contrasted with the playful nature of the previous task, creating a more glazed, indulged quality.

 

The score we used for our jam contained different forms of relationship. I found that this form reflected how I would categorise my own form. I focused on this greatly when participating, learning that when too many people were in the space the relationships became unclear while also others may join the group, pushing it to be too big requiring you leave. This related to the part I found hardest, judgement of when to enter or leave the space. The reason this became hard was due to not knowing other people’s intentions and therefore what you intend to do may not be possible if another participant changes. From this I found the best option was to follow my gut instinct and not spend time deciding. In the first two sections there was limited movement which created a restriction; however I learnt that through this there are still endless possibilities. This was by decisions as to whether to continue the same movement or to change frequently and when to add stillness. This task developed my awareness when improvising as there was a constant need to be aware of other people; I would need to note when the person leading the group changes movement but also when any other participants joined.

 

At the end of the session, I wrote down any key words or phrases that I felt influenced my work, describing best what I thought or felt throughout the improvisation. I have included a photograph of this below.

De Spain, K. (2014) Landscape of the Now. USA: Oxford University Press.

The aim of this week’s improvisation was to play with modes of inquiry to discover when habitual movement arises and how to respond to it. The use of tracking is highlighted as a key fundamental of improvisation through the book ‘Landscape of the Now’ by Kent De Spain. From this reading, I learnt how there are many strands of tracking with it being described through the metaphor “If improvisation can be seen as a process of mapping the unknown, tracking is the practice of drawing and occasionally glancing at the map.” (De Spain, 2014, 52) To me, this suggested how tracking can become replayed into a practical, through creating an original pattern of movement which is then sporadically referred to and used in the process of further experimentation; mentally documenting what worked, what didn’t, what could be used again and where to go next.

 

A first experiment taught me to really think about the difference between movement and dancing. By speeding up and slowing down improvisations I altered the ability to think and plan which movement I would do next, which movement would look and feel the nicest here. I felt, when the dance was sped up; the ability to plan was lost, with movements coming naturally and being led by the previous movement rather than by thought. This linked to Nina Martin’s idea that not focusing on the movement and just letting it happen led to movement being created. (De Spain, 2014, 101) This made me nervous and led to me repeating movements as I felt what I was doing looked ugly or wrong. This, too me, felt like just movements and no real dance. However, as the speed became slower, I was able to track movements much easier as I could begin to think more about what I was doing and therefore remembered the sequence. This, I felt, was more like dancing, due to it having a sense of being and fluidity throughout.

 

The next task, think imagine do, caused me to feel I was able to combat against the use of habitual movement due to having the time to discover new ways of moving that was not my first instinct. I enjoyed this as it opened my eyes to different places I could take a sequence. Adding Steve Paxton’s idea of ‘not going back’ where every movement had to take you somewhere new and could not be repeated led me to heighten my range of movement. Without the process of think, imagine, do I believe I would have been much less successful in following Paxton’s idea, as the extra time to think allowed me to track clearly where I’d been and what I had already done, finding different movement to perform.

 

The practicing of improvisation through a ‘jam’ was a completely new experience for me and one which seemed daunting. I was anxious approaching this due to being unaware what to expect. Despite this, I found the experience a huge learning curve for my own practice, looking deeper into my movement study than I have before.

The use of silence captured me most, generating an atmosphere that caused me to think and feel every move that I did. Silence helped to pull me away from stresses and negative thoughts of everyday life while leaving me focusing on myself. It caused the experience to be lethargic and at times hypnotic. The use of pacing between each cycle aided this by giving time to think: concentrating on the breath and feeling a deeper connection throughout the whole body. I worked my feet into the ground which made me feel calmer; I could use this time to look back and track what I had done in the previous section. Nancy Stark-Smith’s analysis of a “Zoom function” (De Spain, 2014, 51)  helped me with the tracking of each movement as it teaches that it is not necessary to focus constantly on what you are doing but looking deeper and recognising each movement occasionally. This allowed me to fully enjoy the feeling of each movement flowing into the next, while keeping engagement with what I had done and where I had been. However, I found tracking harder than anticipated as I would begin to get lost in the flow so when it was required to develop the material it felt more disjointed. Slow motion allowed for me to deeply feel all the movements I was performing, finding length and indulgence as each move could be fully extended. This also helped me to find the true size of my kinesphere, teaching me how far my body can reach and stretch too; reaching further than I had discovered before.

 

De Spain, K. (2014) Landscape of the Now. USA: Oxford University Press.

Improvisation. To me, a daunting challenge where there is a need for on the spot decisions and constant generation of new, original movement. What is right? What is wrong? These feelings, inhibitions, influencing my practice. Reading ‘Dear Practice… The experience of improvising’ by Vida L Midgelow (2012) helped greatly in conquering these emotions. She showed that there are moments in everyone’s practice where they feel lost and unsure of what to do next, posing the question “what if nothing happens- what if we are waiting forever” (Midgelow, 2012, 10) when discussing how an improvisation would begin with no plan. Within the article, she shows the dancer answering all her own questions about improvisation, teaching me that “every movement has within it seeds of another movement” (Midgelow, 2012, 13). This showed me that I need not be nervous and to allow movements to flow from one another, going out there with no plan, and not being worried about whether the movement looks ‘right’. I would not be the only one with moments on angst, but to indulge in these moments and allow them to take me somewhere new.

 

Our piece attended to show how the playful action of throwing and catching a bean bag can be changed and structured to create an innovative piece. We created a finite score based on developments of this simple movement, beginning with the simplest form of movement and then moving through the developments. Each pair within the group was performing different developments and began at different times. This allowed for all the developments to build up, creating layers of movement and making the contrasts between each become clearer. We fixed the order in which the developments were shown while also fixing when each new pair joined the group, However, the time in which we changed between each development was unfixed, leaving for the decision of when to move to show the next development a choice made in the performance. Due to the need of each pair changing at a similar time, we discovered there was a need for awareness to others. We added to this, also exposing the need for awareness to space in order to keep the piece moving around the space while not colliding with one another. This, on the other hand, created a limitation as too how explicit the piece was in relation to the intention as the dancers were weaving round each other so each different development moved. This means it was hard for the audience to follow a development clearly and state exactly what development each performing pair was showing. This could have been improved by setting the point in which each pair moved to the next development, possibly including a pause between each. Additionally, it could have been altered so that each pair took a different development and remained on this throughout the whole piece. The developments would have then layered by each partnership joining in on top of the original pair. Although, this would have led to the piece becoming infinite as once the last couple had joined in with the final development as the top layer, it could continue forever too no definite ending.

 

Midgelow, V. L. (2012) Dear Practice… The experience of improvising. Choreographic Practices, 2 (1) 9-24.