I did not attend the lesson this week due to illness and so I will be writing this blog in response to the jam and the readings.

“People tend to think that visualisation with be visual, but in fact visualisation can involve different senses than just seeing.” – Barbara Dilley, “Two streams: Many Ways.” (Buckwalter, 2010, 91).

The reading in “Composing while dancing” is about The Dancing Image.  It talks about the exterior perspective, and how there is an “orchestra of senses, including the kinaesthetic, involved in the perception, making the watching of a dance a full-bodied experience.” (Buckwalter, 2010, 91).  This to me, means that all the senses are involved when watching a dance.  As well as the eyes and ears, you are able to feel the movements being performed, as you get a taste as to what the dance is about and why the dancer is performing it in a certain way.

It then goes on to talk about the Interior perspective.  Buckwalter talks about how “heightened sensory awareness  and an accompanying sense of connectivity can translate imagery into movement.”  (Buckwalter, 2010, 96). To me, this means that your awareness of the space and what is happening around you, can aid in translating an image you wish to achieve, into a movement phrase.  I found this helpful, as if i enhance my awareness of what is happening around me, then when I am improvising, I can apply my awareness to my movement and creating the desired image.

The Jam.

In the jam this week, we explored the use of thick skinning and impulsing whilst improvising.  I really enjoyed both of these tasks, as it enabled me to work in a way which I had to be aware of the space, the movement happening around me, and my partner.  When thick skinning,  at first I found it difficult to do all of this at once, but as we warmed into the movement, it became easier, and it felt more natural.  I felt the same when taking part in the impulsing where you would send an impulse into your partner, to manipulate their movement.  I also found this interesting, as you could explore the different ways in which you could send an impulse, as well as being in control of where your partners would travel, and the movements they would do.

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

“Space both determines and is determined by the improvisation occurring within it.” (De Spain, 2014, 108).

 This week’s improvisation focused on the ideas of space and time and how they can both shape an improvisation. One of the first tasks in class required us to walk around the room, and stop when we believed 2 minutes had passed. This opened my eyes as to how we sometimes perceive time as being faster or slower than it actually is.

 “If you are concerned about how you are seen or what you are doing, time will press on your mind and squelch your creativity. If, on the other hand, you play with time, mold time, laugh at time, literally “take” your time, you can use it to bring energy.” (De Spain, 2014, 114).

 I really worked with this quote when taking part in the tasks set. In partners, we had to time each other dancing a short phrase of movement. The phrase had to have a beginning, middle and end, which were dictated by the person dancing. The purpose of this task was to see how well we could perceive time by using our internal body clock.

My results from the 2 minute improvisation task, where we had to have a beginning, middle and end.

The results show that each section decreases in time. I found this task quite challenging as I started to run out of movements. I think that the decrease in time for each section is the result of me being more confident in my movements towards the beginning, and as the 2 minutes went on I became more aware of what I was doing and so had less confidence in my ability.

In reference to the quote about time… when taking part in the above task I found that I could relate to the above quote. In the beginning and start of the middle section I felt that I could take my time, and mold the time to fit around my own improvisation. However, I became more aware of time as I became more concerned with what I was doing. This started to affect my creativity and therefore I could not perform as well.

The next task involved a ‘chance’ score, where the time, number of dancers and relationships where picked at random.

I found that experiencing this score from the viewpoint of a dancer was both interesting and challenging.   I took part in the duet section. At first, I didn’t take into account the time allowance of the piece, and just involved all my creativity into the duet, sometimes following my partner. However, half way through another dancer came into the space. This really caught me off guard, and so I became more aware of the time allowance. I started to panic because of this and so I became more aware of the timing. Therefore, I exited the stage as I lost track of where I though we were in the time allowance. Repeating this task again, I once again found myself losing track of the time limit, and therefore the duet I took part in ran too long, resulting in the quartet having to finish early.

I think that having an internal awareness of time and use of space can be valuable when improvising. If you do not have this, how do you know when to bring the improvisation to an end? How do you know where in the space you have no yet explored?

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

This week, the readings were about form, attention and intention. With the said readings in mind, I ensured that I paid close attention to these aspects when improvising in class.

We took part in various exercises in class, but the one that interested and challenged me the most was the ‘continue, develop, change’ task. We first had to do this as a soloist. Moving around the room we had to improvise movement, which we could then continue, develop or change. I found this challenging, as after a while I ran out of movements that I could easily develop. I found that changing and continuing the movement was not as difficult as you could change it to anything, or continue one specific movement. However, after a while I felt that I ran out of movements that I had not already used within this task, so it became increasingly difficult to continue, change or develop. Because there was no specific intention to the movement that I was doing, I felt that the task was more challenging. Therefore, if I had a specific intention that I wanted to apply to my movement, I may have found it easier to complete this task.

Another task that I found useful in relation to attention was leading an improvisation with a specific body part. Drawing attention to one specific body part helped me to find new and interesting movement. As well as this, attending to one body part made it easier to continue, change and develop the movement, as you could pay particular attention to that one area, exploring every possible movement, which could be achieved in this area.

In Kent De Spain’s book ‘Landscape of the Now’, he talks about attention as:

 “The ability to sense how the movements in the present moment relate to the movements that have come before, to feel them in space and time, to connect them to the movements of others.” (De Spain, 2014, 167).

 I found that this quote really helped me to explore my body and movement closely when leading with a specific body part. It helped me to connect the movements that I had done previously, with any movement that it could lead too. It also allowed me to connect the movement with the space around me. I began to use a wider area of the performance space, enabling me to use bigger and more varied movements. As I became more and more involved and comfortable within this task, I found that this allowed me to think of an intention that could drive my movement.   This again helped me to link the movements previous to the ones that I was doing in the moment.

Questions which arose after discussing the readings on Form, Intention and Attention.

In relation to these questions, I found myself thinking about how I use form, attention and intention in my own improvisations. In ‘Composing while Dancing’, by Buckwalter, she says:

“There are many different ways to consider form in dance… the shape of the body in movement, arrangement of bodies in space, or the shape of the body in time.”(Buckwalter, 2010, 34).

 This made me think about how I used the space in my improvisations. I found that I often did not explore a lot of the space, and instead I only use either a strip or small area whilst dancing. So, when I come to the improvising class next week, I will push myself to the limits of the space.

As well as this, I will make sure that I distinguish between Attention and Awareness when improvising. Kent De Spain in ‘Landscape of the Now’, explains attention as “a telephoto lens,” and awareness as a “wide angle.”(De Spain, 2014, 68). This means that attention is focusing on one specific thing, whilst awareness is focusing on everything around you as well as the specific thing. In the next class, I will make sure that I focus on everything in the space as well as my movements, as I often lose focus on my form.

The score used in our improvisation jam that focused on attention, form and intention.

This weeks improvisation jam really opened my eyes as to how space can affect movement and spacial pathways.  Only having a small space to work in really limited the pathways and size of the movements you could do.  From taking part in this score, I found that different relationships can form both intentionally and unintentionally.  When observing from the side, I noticed that at times people would create duets, trios and quartets without realising.  I found this really interesting, how people had no idea that they were involved in these relationships.  However, unintentional relationships often appeared as more interesting and intriguing, as they would not copy the other person, which often happened a lot with intentional relationships.

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. New York, NY, USA: Oxford University Press.

Moving around the room slowly and carefully, I began to explore my body.  This exercise helped me to warm up and allowed me to really focus on the parts of my body that needed stretching. Therefore, this made me more aware of what I can do before every class, to prepare myself for the movement and tasks set.  However, I felt that the almost slow-motion pace that we were enduring whilst moving around the room, highlighted the habitual movements that I often fall into when I am unsure as to where I want to move next.   After this, we began to move at a faster pace, until it became physically demanding and almost exhausting. Even though this became difficult, I stopped thinking about what I was doing, and just let my body do what felt natural.

The next task involved us thinking, imagining and moving. I thought of a movement, imagined myself dancing it and then doing it. At first I found this really difficult as I would sometimes imagine myself doing a really technical and advanced movement, then when I would try it, I found that I didn’t look the way I imagined. Because of this I would refer back to habitual movements, and movements which looked good. Deborah Hay talks about how the body is an ‘imagined condition,’ (De Spain, 2014, 93) and following this, De Spain explains that thinking of the body as being ‘a powerful tool for breaking out of personally or culturally ingrained habits of body use and body awareness.’ (De Spain, 2014, 93). This really helped me to break out of the habitual movements. Instead of thinking of something that will look good, I thought and imagined how I could go from one movement to another in an interesting and exciting way. This was more successful and I really started to get into the task, exploring new ways of moving and finding new movements. De Spain says ‘As I am improvising, I am noticing certain aspects of what is happening to me, keeping track of them… so that I can use them to inform my choice-making.’ (De Spain, 2014, 45). The notion of tracking is an important process in improvisation and during the ‘think, imagine, move’ task I was unconsciously noting where I had been in the space, and which movements I had previously done, so that I didn’t feel like I was going round in circles.

In the following tasks, I applied the notion of tracking and the body so that I could again note where I had been before, and where I could go from the previous movement, ensuring I don’t revert back to habitual movements. In partners, one person would improvise, and shout out any body part or movement that they would do or see. The other would write down anything that the person improvising would shout out, or anything that they would see that person doing.

Using these, one person would shout out a word and the person improvising would have to do this specific action or involve the body part. I found this extremely difficult, as it was confusing to listen to your partner and track at the same time. Therefore, I often found myself repeating movements, instead of finding new ways to portray the action.

After this lesson, I felt more at ease about improvisation, and I feel like tracking could be a useful way to find new and innovative movements. I also found new ways of unlocking habitual movements, which I can apply whilst improvising.

This week I took part in my first ever ‘Improvisation Jam.’  I was feeling nervous about this as I wasn’t sure what it would involve, but I was excited as to what could happen.  We took the concept of tracking, and during each stage, we would have to create movement, which was performed in slow motion.  Each stage would progress and using the original movement in stage 1, we had to translate it into a different body part.  Between each stage there would be a 2 minute section of slow-motion walking, which I found quite difficult as we would have to remember the previous movement phrase whilst doing this.

Overall, I found the Jam very interesting, and I enjoyed this new way of moving.  Therefore, I feel very optimistic about the ‘Improvisation Jams’ ahead.

De Spain, K. (2014) The Landscape of the Now – A Topography of Movement Improvisation. United States of America: Oxford University Press.

When it comes to Improvisation, I always thought that it was the process of creating innovative and exciting new movements, on the spot without any prior thought as to what would come next. You’re constantly worrying that what you’re doing is wrong. In “Dear Practice…The experience of Improvising” by Midgelow, the dancer states “but what if nothing happens- what if we are waiting forever?” Before I began to explore Improvisation through the activities set in class, this is how I felt. The process of improvisation at first seemed daunting, due to the lack of structure and direction. However, using the reading by Midgelow and tasks set in class, I started to become open to the idea of just going with your instinct, and what happens will happen.

In partners, we had to throw a beanbag to each other, whilst moving around the room. To avoid bumping into others, we had to use our peripheral vision, which is something that may be needed when improvising within a group. This really opened my eyes as to how difficult improvising within a group could be, as you have to be aware of what everyone else is doing, as well as focusing on yourself. The second time we did this, if you heard anyone else in the room drop the beanbag, then you had to drop to the floor. This gave a slight structure to the task, as each time you heard the beanbag on the floor, you had to perform the same movement. This gave me the understanding that even when improvising, there can still be a structure interwoven in the movement, that helps you get from A to B. We repeated the original task, each time adding a new element. Each time we did the exercise, it opened up a new element to improvisation.

In groups, we created a finite score, comprised of the various developments of the task set in partners. To successfully work as part of a larger group, I had to have whole group, small group and self-awareness, so that I could focus on others while also focusing on what I was doing. I constantly have to make choices while working in this group. How are we going to enter and exit the stage? In pairs, as a soloist or as a group? How are we going to incorporate all the elements of the previous task, into a group formation? Once these decisions were made, we began improvising, deciding on what actions and movements would be fixed, and what would be unfixed. As a group, we decided how we would know when to change the element of the task, and in partners, we would have to decide at which moment this would be. As I took part in the group score, I was discovering how my decisions influenced everyone else in the group. When I changed task, they had to change task. This made me understand how it is not only self-awareness that is important, it is also your awareness of everyone else in the space, and the space itself. If I’m not aware of the space, then how am I meant to make use of it.

One part that stood out to me the most in the reading, is when Practice says ‘give up expectations of pre-knowledge and, in some senses, control.’ (Midgelow, 2012, 11). To begin with, I found this extremely difficult. Giving up control and just going for it is easier said than done. But once I started to explore improvisation through this reading, and through class tasks, it became easier, and I am slowly starting to understand how to do this.

Midgelow, V L. (2012)  Dear Practice … : The experience of improvising. Choreographic Practices, 2 (1) 10-11.