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.