Contact improvisation - 28/3/2014

This was the last time we worked doing contact improvisation with the guest teacher. I found many important things, which I consider very meaningful in the field of learning and teaching the improvisation and especially the contact improvisation.

We begun the class doing improvisation with objects, which we had chosen and which was meaningfull to us. I chose camera, because it has been very important object to me during my stay here in Portugal. It is been for me way to remember things and tell the story of my stay here. I never go here anywhere without camera, because there is always something which surprises me or makes happy, so the camera is for me the thing, that saves the important moments I have lived here.

I think that improvising with objectives is very good way to make a trip to ourselves and our relationships with objects. When we presented our short improvising compositions to the others, it was interesting to see that in many compositions, what kind of relationship people have to their objects, which they have picked. The movements and the voice together helped a lot to realize, what kinds of stories was behind the object and the person, who did the improvisation. Even though we can see and sense, what is the story behind the improvisation, I think that it is important that we don’t do conclusion, which goes very further. The story behind the movements and voice can be totally different to the person who made it than for the audience. Soi f we want to know the meaning for the person, we should first ask it from the person who made the composition.

We made also contact improvisation with pairs and it was extremly hard, but at the same time very interesting, because it really challenge you to think. The two main things in the contact improvisation are that, you can’t use force when you are doing movements with other people. The another thing is that you have to control your body, even though you will support and be supported by another person. You can’t give your whole weight to the arms of another. We learned that you can do the contact improvisation in the upper level (standing) and of course in the low level (in floor). It was much easier to do that on standing because the possibilities to support and be supported by were much more wilder. You could also let the another lead you and move you from place to another. I realized and learned that contact improvisation is very exact team work and the persons, who are doing it, are blend to each others as they were only one person.  

Improvising with pairs or in groups - 25/3/2014

Our class focused today lots of the contact improvisation and differents kinds of typical characteristics of imporovisation you can work with pair or in group. We practiced three different kinds of techniques you can work with others. First was to receive and give the weight. In this technique you have to be very relaxed and follow and feel really closely what the antoher is doing and response to the movement. When the other is giving weight to your body, you have to be prepared to receive the weight and support the another. You can give your weight with any part of your body (head, the middle body, hands, arms, legs) or support also with any part of your body.

The next technique was very close to the previous one, but this time you had to lift up your pair. The important thing was to concentrate to find the center of the others body and with center of your body to lift her/his up (abdominal, but also legs). Then the movement would be in balance and then it would be more easier to lift another up and you would have more strenght to do that. But you have to be very careful when you lift another, that you get the strenght from the legs and hold your back straight. Without remembering these you can very easily get injuries and hurt yourself. 

Last technique we learned was opposite forces. You can do with your pair lots of thing with this techinique. You can go for example up and down easily when you both are keeping backs against the others or hands locked to each others. You can spin your pair on the floor just going the opposite way than your pair. This is the main thing in this techinque: you have to use our body weight to going opposite way than your pair. But you have to remember to be also very careful, when you spin your pair that the arms are going right and that they won’t twist and go out of alignment.

In the end of the class we improvisated with these three techniques and also with one from the previous class: balancing on the others body. I think that it was really good practice to improvisate with these four techniques and combine these together. It was very easy and fluent to combine these techniques and follow the movement of your pair. It is more complicated in group of three, but the group did very well job, when they presented their improvisation to us.

This class was very interesting and I learn lots of new things during this class. These all are something I can work with the children and the young in the future as a teacher.

Movement after another – 21/3/2014

In this class I learned a lot of new thing about the improvisation. The basic things you have to keep in your mind is the level of the movement, the direction of the movement, the rhytm, the dynamic, the tempo (speed of the movement: fast, slow, pauses) and the contact to another persons and the balance inside the group (fill the space differently, choose different directions than others -> have the balance inside the group). When you keep these elements in your mind, you can create lots of different and varieting ”choreographies”, which are interesting and also suprising for the dancers but also the audience.

By changing these elements and using them actively in different improvising exercises, you can create lots of different series of the movements. Only by changing direction or the rhytm, the same pack of movements comes totally different and it is completely different from the original version and for the viewer, it is totally new ”choreography”.  

We did also excellent exercise where we first create five different movements (A, B, C, D, E) by ourselves. We practice this for a while and then showed it to the teacher. Then the teacher said another way for the letters (for example B, C, D, E, A) and we had to learn this by changing the order of the movements. After we had done this, we had to do the serie of the movement from the end till beginning.

For changing also the order of the movements, we can create every time a new series of the movements and it looks always different, even though the movements are the same. And this all is improvisation, because creating movements comes from the first thought and we don’t create absolutelly right order for the movements. And always in improvisation there is something, which is not the exactly the same than before. Sometimes it can be also very scary for the dancer, because you are not sure what is going to wait you, when you are presenting your improvisation choreography. But this gives you a lot of freedom and excitement for dancing. 

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http://parkwaypsgrade6.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/improv.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mbira_cross-rhythm.jpg

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Dance and acrobatics- 18/3/2014

Acroyoga (http://www.kinetichive.com/?attachment_id=10)

Dancing and improvising include also lots of acrobatics and often you need to control your body very carefully. Today’s class we started with different contact exercises, where we first get to know our body and our pair’s body and feel how they work together. We layed down top of each other and bit by bit change this to small movements and finally to the different balance positions. Other was balancing and other was supporting the balance position. This was little bit similar than acroyoga.

I see that these kinds of exercises are very good for the children and the young. For example some of the children are not so into dancing, so through these kinds of exercises they can realize that dancing and improvising is lot more wide field and you need different skills in that. Also some young people love to dance, but hate for example to do gymnastics. When they realize that they have to also enhance these more acrobatic skills to be better dancers, they often get motivation and started to do more, for example gymnastics, and also learn to like these kinds of exercises, because they can develop them to be better dancers. So it is very important to show during the classes that dancing and improvising is more than learning steps and choreographies. It is also team work, learn to work with different persons and it develop so many skills, for example patience, to take other people into account and learn to know your body better and learn to love it.

In the end of the class, we tried software called IsadorCore, where you can change the picture, which the program is showing. For example one interesting was, that softwhere only showed the movement which moved. If you stayed still, you couldn’t see yourself from the computer. This was very good program to get to know, because this is something which students would like and be interested in, too. Students are different and if you can bring technological perspect to the dance classes, it is sure that some of the students will get so much more motivation during the classes. I also think that software would be great also when you are doing some dance presentations in some school’s celebrations, for example the end of the semester or the whole year. This software would bring a totally new perspective for the dancing and improvising.    

IsadorCore
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Land and sea – 17/3/2014

This monday we started our class near the train station in Cruz Quebrada. Our first exercise concentrated moving very near the wall, which was full of graffities. During the task we moved in different speeds depending what kinds of sounds we heard around us. It was good start for the class and it was first very easy to invent different movements. But after a while I face the same problem which I have had before. My movements started to be very similar and there was no much variation between different movements. This is interesting phenomenon for me, because it doesn’t come very often but when it comes, it’s very difficult to get rid of it.

This same problem continued to be in almost every  exercise, which we did also in the rest of the class. I have to try to think different strategies how I could overcome this problem. First thing is that, I should not think too much what I’m doing and not to be too critical of my movements. I should let go and do different movements in a flow. Every movement doesn’t have to be so beautiful and clean, but they can be whatever I want them to be. I have to think also that this is the unique experience to try different movements and find new ways of use my body and its limits.  So I have to reduce my thinking and just dance, imitate and improvise without thinking. Let’s see how this works out in the next classes.

I loved to do exercises in the beach and I’m so happy that we try different places to do improvisations. I think that very interesting exercise was, when we did different sounds and your pair have to do different movements and react to those sounds. In this exercise I noticied that I did movement, which came first to my mind. Because we didn’t had music but the sounds of our pair did, I did lots of different movements, which I don’t normally do. So this exercise was also an excellent way to discover new movements. Music affects a lot what you are doing, so it was good only to follow the sounds and let them be your guides. This was something I learned in this class.