Bibliography

Aaron Brando (2010) Contact Improvisation: Blake Nellis and Brando @ Earthdance. [Online Video] Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQRF2sLK1vY.

Bannon, F. and Holt, D. (2011) Touch: Experience and Knowledge. Journal of Dance & Somatic Practices, 3(1&2) 215-225.

Brown, B. (1997) Is Contact a Small Dance? Contact Quarterly: Contact Improvisation Sourcebook, 1(6) 72-75.

Curtis, B. and Ptashek, A. (1988) Exposed to Gravity. Contact Quaterly/Improvisation Sourcebook. 13(2) 156-162.

dancetechtv (2013) An Emergent Underscore: a conversation with Nancy Stark Smith, London.[online video] Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzG609NWp1Y.

Heitkamp, D. (2003). Moving from the Skin: An Exploratorium. Contact Quarterly/Contact Improvisation Sourcebook II, Vol. 28:2. 256-264.

Keefe, M. (2003) What’s the score? Improvisation in Everyday Life. In: Albright, A. C., & Gere, D.Taken by surprise: A dance improvisation reader. Middletown, Conn: Wesleyan University Press, 229-237.

Lepkoff, D. (2008) Contact Improvisation: A Question? [online] Available from: http://www.daniellepkoff.com/Writings/CI%20A%20question.php.

Lepkoff, D. (1999) What is Release Technique? [online] Available from: http://www.daniellepkoff.com/Writings/What%20is%20Release.php.

Neige Christenson (2009) The Play of Weight. [Online Video] Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ltq6y06E8ew.

Nelson, L (dir.) (2006) Contact Improvisational Archive DVD #2: Magnesium; Peripheral Vision; Soft Pallet. [DVD] East Charleston: VIDEODA.

Omegabranch (2011) Contact Improvisation Mirva Mäkinen & Otto Akkanen. [Online video] Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMLbWxujoGw.

Paxton, S. (2003) Drafting Interior Techniques. In: Nancy Stark-Smith A Subjective History of Contact Improvisation. In: Albright, A. C., & Gere, D. Taken by surprise: A dance improvisation reader. Middletown, Conn: Wesleyan University Press, 175-184.

Ravn, S. (2010) Sensing Weight in Movement. Journal of Dance and Somatic Practices, 2(1) 21-34.

Stover, J. (1989) Some Considerations When Structuring an Improvisation (to be seen by an audience). Contact Quarterly/Contact Improvisation Sourcebook. 1(4) 185.

Turner, R. (2010) Steve Paxton’s ‘Interior Techniques’: Contact Improvisation and Political Power. TDR: The Drama Review, 54(3), 123-135.

Woodhull, A. (1997) Center of Gravity. Contact Quarterly/Contact Improvisation Sourcebook I, 4, 43-48.

ZayacZhe (2009) steve paxton. smalldance. [online video] Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sJKEXUtv44&feature=youtu.be.

Wednesday 2nd December – Lesson Ten

Nancy Stark-Smith’s Underscore

“I’ve had, the time of my life, and I never felt this way before” – Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes

I have really enjoyed the challenge of making a choreographed contact duet, although it was difficult at first to know how to approach it; whether we should improvise and take movements from that, or treat it like a normal choreographic project and include a stimulus/theme. Sophie and I knew that we wanted to include many of the different aspects of contact improvisation in the duet, for example, breath, surfing and rolling, manipulation, lifts and weight bearing, therefore our approach was more systematic and planned as opposed to set improvisation. As we began to set material we found organic ways to transition into each ‘section’ of the duet; we didn’t use much improvisation as a means of finding material as we both wanted to take our time to find actions that complemented those already in the duet. With each rehearsal we went back and edited the work that we’d already done, making movements more controlled and light and fixing the logistics of the lifts we hadn’t worked out yet. We had finished making material by our 5th rehearsal and had 3 left to perfect the performance of it, so we felt quite confident going into the assessment, although the last minute nerves had us both a bit stressed. I think Soph and I worked really well together because we had similar areas of strength and weakness and so felt comfortable working with each other and were not afraid to tell one another when something wasn’t working.

Creating a choreographed contact duet helped me to get a better perspective on my contact improvisation practice; I realised that if movements go wrong when you’re taking your time on them then they’re also going to go wrong in a jam setting, so there’s no need to get worked up over them. At the beginning on the module I spent a lot of time ‘over thinking’ in the jam, I would get really hung up on not knowing what would happen if I went in and made contact with someone. In my second contact blog I wrote “Perhaps with enough practice I won’t have any hesitancy and will throw myself doubt-free into an improvisation” which I feel confident in saying I have now achieved. In our last jam I didn’t have any hesitancy or doubts about dancing with people or by myself, or even entering and exiting. I think confidence in yourself and your ability to adapt to change has a big effect in feeling comfortable with contact improvisation, it took me a while to find this self belief but since doing so, each CI jam has been more enjoyable and fun.

I think Nancy Stark-Smith’s Underscore was more enjoyable this time around than when we looked at it last year because I was familiar with it and my body remembered how to move itself through each section. Before we began the score Kirsty said to us “You’ll probably find that you’ll have more freedom than you’ve been used to” which I completely disagreed with. When I had done the Underscore before I felt restricted in what and when I was able to do something, I felt that I was being told how to improvise instead of being left to my own devises. However once we actually began to dance the Underscore I felt that I was moving through each phase with ease and wasn’t really aware of ‘what I should be doing’ because my body was already doing what it wanted and needed. I think this change from restriction to freedom has happened because I am listening to my body now, and noticing what it is saying, instead of trying to make it listen to me.

The biggest difference, for me, about the Underscore compared to a normal CI jam is that I find it easier to move my body and incorporate dynamic changes. In some jams I have struggled to keep myself ‘in the zone’ and have found it hard to make my improvisation varied. After our first class of CI I wrote in my blog “When my improvisation is solo I struggle to find innovative ways of using my body and start deciding in my head what type of movement I’ll do next as a means of escaping my conventional pathways” and I know for certain that this has been happening less and less throughout my training, but especially during my practice of the Underscore. As we went through each stage of the score I relaxed into my body and let my mind be clear, thus all of my movements were influenced by the people in the space and the impulses I had. This is something I have been aiming to do, as stated in my blog after our third lesson: “I just need to focus on listening to the sensations of the group so that I can unconsciously relax into it”.

I worked with Nicole and Lauren at lot during our performance of the Underscore as they are my usual ‘go to’ connections. This is because I feel extremely comfortable throwing anything at them as I know they will be able to respond and help me to develop a connection through some of my more extreme ideas. I try not to rely on dancing with just them because I feel that I would be restricting my own, as well as their development of CI, therefore I do try and make connections with other people in the space. At one point in the Underscore I worked Emma and the type of connection we had was so different to the connections I have with Lauren and Nicole that it taught me a new way of dancing with somebody. Emma and I used movements identifiable to the skinesphere part of the score, while keeping in close bodily contact, in our upper kinespheres and the sensation of this type of communication was a new and interesting experience for me. Our connection was a way of manipulating and influencing a partner without it being too forceful or dominating, which my usual style can be, so I was really able to learn from this connection and use it again later in the score.

Working through each stage of the Underscore allowed me to focus in on myself and truly listen to how my body wanted to move and where it needed to go. After our first CI lesson I wrote in my blog “Perhaps I need to work on finding that light when it is just me”, meaning that I struggle to dance by myself because I feel like all the attention is on me and I don’t like all that pressure. But after studying CI for ten weeks and spending time on the Underscore I now don’t feel that there is pressure on me when I dance as a soloist; I feel free to move however I like, and I feel content with the attention that may or may not be focused on me.  When I dance by myself now, I can absorb myself into the sensation of moving and can be oblivious to what anyone else is doing in the space. This was a quality I wrote about after our fifth lesson as I wanted to include it in my choreographed duet. I have always thought that contact improvisation looks better when the dancers are absorbed in what they’re doing, and I wanted the audience to receive this quality from me and Sophie; I think we did achieve this, especially during the breath moments and the eye contact to initiate going in and out of the floor.

As a whole, this module has been the biggest form of self exploration for me and I have really enjoyed learning about and improving my improvisational skills. The contact element was the biggest challenge I have been faced with in a long time, every week I was dreading what new thing would be introduced to us and there were a few times that I just wanted to give up. But I stuck with it and I’m so pleased that I did! As a class we have all become so much closer and more in-tune with one another’s bodies, which I think will benefit us all in future modules, for example revisiting rep next semester, as we will be more in sync with each other which should make unison work run smoothly. I am going to miss my weekly jams but we do have open studios next year, so it’s not over just yet!

 


 

dancetechtv (2013) An Emergent Underscore: a conversation with Nancy Stark Smith, London.[online video] Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzG609NWp1Y [Accessed 6 December 2015].

Wednesday 25th November – Lesson Nine

Research Questions and Scores

“Okay, ready?”

In preparation for making our own scores this week we read Some Considerations When Structuring an Improvisation (to be seen by an audience) by Jamie Stover. In the article Stover considers what is important when writing a score and asks “How does my dance fulfill or not fulfill existing contextual aesthetic expectations and parameters for dance” (Stover, 1989) which I think is a very interesting question. Usually our scores are done in a circle or as a whole room, there isn’t ever a real audience so we haven’t spent much/any time thinking about tailoring our improvisations to them. But after reading Stover’s article, Perhaps there is a way to shake up our predicable jamming pattern?

Our score, titled ‘The Halfway Score’ required everyone to stand in a line down the center of the room, they had space in front and behind them, and our only rule was that they had to enter the space with someone else. We spaced our score in this way to change the normal aesthetic and therefore expectations of the performers, a decision that was directly inspired by Stover’s article. We developed an entrance strategy because we wanted to know what effect that would have on the movements in the space. We also decided to pre-set some people, not for any particular reason, but just to challenge what we’re used to when beginning a jam. Once the performers were in the space they could dance by themselves or with others and could exit however they liked, but we wanted to be clear that they were not allowed to enter the space by themselves. As a final challenge we used two tracks of music during our score, Whitesuperstructure by Robert Lippok and 404 by Knife Party, with the intention of creating an atmosphere that would hopefully effect the dynamics of the improvisation.

I think our limitations threw people quite a bit, it appeared as if they weren’t clear which space to use, the one in front or the one at the back. The entrance strategy also seemed to confused people initially but towards the end of the score I think everyone had got their heads around it. My guess would be that placing the class in the center created the mindset of being the audience, which would hinder the process of anyone wanting to join in, especially as we pre-set people in the space. From an actual audience members perspective, the front half of the room was the primary performance space and the back half was used much more fleetingly; if people went in it they didn’t stay for very long compared to how long the dancers stayed in the front half of the space. I think this was because people mostly had their backs to it, and I would assume that dancing in it might develop feelings of isolation and separation, due to the fact that it was blocked of by a line of bodies. The thing I found most interesting about our score is that very few people responded to the music in a positive way, Whitesuperstructure is an electronic song that is quite light and repetitive, so it could easily become background noise to the improvisation and not have an effect on the performers. However 404 is a dance track with a heavy beat, so I expected this to motivate the dancers to increase their tempo and use fast, heavy, intense dynamics. But, possibly because 404 is such a dominating track, most of the dancers fought against being influenced by the music and kept at their medium dynamics.

Having done scores a lot in our improvisation module last year I was quite excited to participate in one again, having to deal with limitations and structures was more challenging this time around because I was trying to dance with another person, but still a fun learning experience. For Yasmin’s group’s score we had so insure that there was never more than six people in the space; this limitation helped to motivate me to actually go into the performance, to fill the space that someone leaving had just made. I never liked limitations of how many bodies in the space last year but this time around it didn’t stress me out as I thought it would. Claire’s group’s Sensory Score  involved a lot of changes of limitations and tasks which challenged my improvisation and aided my use of non-habitual movements but I struggled to keep a connection/contact with a partner because we were both listening out for instructions instead of listening to each other. I found my most interesting improvisation came from Becca’s group’s Mouse Trap Score; I was the first person in the space and chose to walk around the parameters of the performance area that they had taped out. After covering the whole circumference, I found myself having a movement based conversation with Nicole. We were almost competing with each other, seeing who could ‘out dance’ the other; I would move, Nicole would respond, I would answer back, she would talk over me, and so on. This was the first time I had improvised like this and it was really fun, my movements weren’t necessarily non-habitual, but they were used in a new organic way which made them feel non-habitual.

 This week is the first time that I feel a sense of achievement with contact improvisation; I have a set of skills that I can list off and know that I can be thrown into a jam setting and make my way through it, although I wouldn’t want to jam with professionals just quite yet! I know how to change the dynamics of my movements, I can improvise on my own or with others, I can give and take weight, and I can enter and exit the space. My backwards rolls have improved, and I can now forward roll and Aikido roll and (attempt) a cartwheel; I now know different ways to use a table top position, and my personal highlight, I can handstand over a partner in table top. I also can stop panicking about trying to make weight bearing happen, as all I need to do is make a frame in the space and wait, or locate someone in a frame position and head towards them. I didn’t think there would be much for me to take from this contact improvisation module, but I’ve actually really enjoyed it and will be sad to not study it anymore, especially as I now feel like I’ve got it.

In terms of progress, I think I have learnt a lot about how to interact with other people over the course of this module. I was very hesitant in the first few weeks to properly approach people, to share an idea with them, or to ask them to respond to my movements. I would say that my personal hangups effected how willing I was to ‘go with the flow’ because I have to consciously stop myself from saying no to people, and to let them be dominant in the partnership. I’m more than happy to take charge, manipulate the movements and lead the improvisation but this module has helped me to fight against this habit and take a more relaxed approach to CI. Now that we’re at the end I can see how much my confidence and self expression when dancing by myself has improved, and I can identify that I have made progress with weight baring, even though I still struggle with giving myself as the over dancer. Also looking back at each week, I realise that I have a tendency to work with a set group of people because I know how they move and can predict their intentions; they’re my ‘safe’ choice. But I believe that I challenge myself more than I used to, and I know that my ability to improvise/enjoyment of improvisation has improved, which is all I could have really asked for.


Stover, J. (1989) Some Considerations When Structuring an Improvisation (to be seen by an audience). Contact Quarterly/Contact Improvisation Sourcebook. 1(4) 185.

 

Wednesday 18th November – Lesson Eight

Contact Research Labs – Structuring, Investigating, Performing and Reflecting.

“I’m hearing you, but no.”

I hadn’t thought about it much before, but life is an improvisation. We have structures (scores), routines (habitual patterns),  repeated activities (choreography) and we have spontaneity (improvisation). In Maura Keefe’s What’s the Score?: Structured Improvisation as a National Pastime she discuss the idea of sport, specifically baseball, as reminding her of a structured improvisation, much like life: “I have come to further define the choreography of Baseball as a structured improvisation” (Keefe, 2003, 233). She draws a connection between structured improvisation and baseball because they both have guidelines that are followed over a capped time period that will have an effect on the outcome of that time. Structured improvisation follows a score which will guide the actions and choices made by the performers, and baseball players have a set of rules that create the outcome of a win, loose or draw. While the content of each is significantly different, the fundamental principles of the two are very alike.

In her article, Keefe also says that “while each dancer has his or her own task to accomplish, a particular feature of this improvisation is that one dancer wields a large effect on the actions and tasks of other dancers” (Keefe, 2003, 231). I believe that this relates directly to our own practice because we need to remember that our actions will have an effect of everyone else in the space; and also that we can allow ourselves to be effected by others. I experienced this first hand in Becca, Millie, Sophie and Charlotte’s lab, when we were improvising in a circle and had to adapt our dynamics to each new person that entered the space. In this task I found that I really had to project my awareness into the circle, so that I would notice who the new person to enter was, and what type of dynamic I had to do.

With this being our second and last week of research labs, my group wanted to tailor our thirty minutes to the needs of the class, therefore we focused our attention on tasks that would help everyone get back in touch with solo improvisation, and the use of imagery to aid the transition and development of dynamics. Using a bank of phrases such as “You’re moving through mud”, “Imagine that you’re in water”, “Imagine that all your body cells are racing against each other”, and “You’re weightless on the moon”, we challenged the class to dance as soloists, and then in duets, to respond to the imagery. We also included the task of changing the percentage, both of speed and of effort, to encourage the dancers to develop their movement responses. Working in duets appeared to be the most demanding part of the lab because the dancers had to incorporate reacting to imagery, varying their movement pace and effort, listening to their partner and responding to any physical contact. In most cases, when we asked the class to move at anything above fifty percent, they didn’t include any weight bearing or lift work, whereas when they were working below fifty percent they would do.

In our feedback session it was clarified that following specific imagery during a duet was hard; they either stopped responding to the imagery so that they could listen to their partner or stopped listening to their partner so that they could respond to the imagery. I think this made for a very visually interesting duet because the dancers would keep switching between these focuses and so were moving in unpredictable ways. Other phrases that we used that resulted in non-habitual movements were ‘moving through mud’ and ‘climbing up steep hill’; a lot of the dancers responded, at least initially, with quite stylized pedestrian movements, which haven’t really appeared in our contact practice thus far. My favourite imagery that we tasked the dancers with was “while moving at eighty percent, imagine that you’re in a race with a snail and the snail is winning” because this completely threw everyone and resulted in a range of responses, some pedestrian, some stylized, some released.

I found it quite difficult in this weeks jam to make any connection with people, I’m not sure why, perhaps because I’ve been focused on improving my solo work recently,  I’ve lost confidence in connecting with some one. A lot of times I would look around the space and see lots of huddles of people and didn’t know how to approach them and join myself to that group. I think this is largely because I’ve developed this intense apprehension about being the over dancer; even if the person lifting me has done it before, I’ve suddenly become hesitant and uncomfortable about going up. I don’t think it’s specifically about someone taking my weight, because when we’re on the lower kinespheres I’m fine with giving me weight to people, I think it’s being the over dancer in a lift that unsettles me. I would assume this is because I don’t practice being this role very often, so don’t have much confidence with it just down to the fact that it’s not as rehearsed as being the under.

I really enjoyed when we started to ‘play around’ in the jam; when we bought in the idea of making noise because I felt that the group opened up from the small huddles and I felt that I could  finally make connections with people and not have to overthink the possibility of being lifted. When I challenge myself to make my improvisation more playful I find that stop listening to my conscious thought and find ways to be original in my approach and response to others in the space. I think bringing in this idea helps to lift the energy in the improvisation and if anyone felt stuck, break them out of it and create new pathways and connections.

This Saturday we went to a contact improvisation and paring workshop which took us back to basics and refined our skills with surfing and rolling and introduced us to new ways of using a table top position in a duet. This improved my confidence with being the over dancer and I will definitely incorporate these into my choreographed duet, as Sophie and I want to push ourselves harder in the movements we chose. After having feedback on our finished duet, we have re-worked our beginning to show a stronger, more consistent connection. However, after the paring workshop I’m interested in making further development:

After breathing in our first position, I think we can challenge ourselves but using one of the balanced we learnt at the workshop, I’m thinking Sophie could go into a head stand and kick over my back instead of rolling over in table top? We could also change that Instead of me rolling Sophie away and then walking to meet her back to back, Soph could come to table top position, and I could roll over her, putting my hands down first and bringing my legs over second? I would also like to include the ‘spin on the floor roll’ and also the ‘counterbalance lift at the hips’ that we spent time on in the workshop, as I think these would be useful to us as transitions from our different  sections.


 

Keefe, M. (2003) What’s the score? Improvisation in Everyday Life. In: Albright, A. C., & Gere, D.Taken by surprise: A dance improvisation reader. Middletown, Conn: Wesleyan University Press, 229-237.

Wednesday 11th November – Lesson Seven

Integration: Going up and coming down. 

“I can see clearly now the rain has gone” – Johnny Nash

Reading Exposed to Gravity by Curtis and Ptashek was a reminder than CI is supposed to be fun; it’s aimed to be something that anyone can do, so there is little to no need to be stressed out about it. Curtis reminded me of this when he wrote “The method would have to come from my personal experience of how my body moves, not from copying how non-disabled people move” (Curtis and Ptashek, 1988, 156). His words advised me to remember that no two dancers are the same and thus the pointlessness of comparing myself to others because each experience in CI is different and unique to each person. Curtis also talks about “Micro-movement” and “dancing inside the body” (Curtis and Ptashek, 1988, 156) because it is important to find the dance inside yourself before you present it on the outside. If you want your movements to have meaning and be true to you, then you must listen to what is going on inside. If you couldn’t move your body but wanted to dance, what moves would you do, what would you want to express? I think that looking for the dance within ourselves is a good way of tuning into our bodily intentions and learning how to connect to that everlasting energy that our body has – which will help us keep going in hour long jams.

This week I felt a lot more confidence with bringing myself and my ideas into the space; I’ve been almost reluctant before to be too ‘bold’ in my solo improvisations and haven’t felt fully comfortable with seeing through some of the entrance ideas I’ve had while waiting to re-enter a jam. However, this week, probably because we had third years in our class and I wanted to show off, I felt myself release those inhibitions holding be back and just went for it. I let myself make bigger shapes, louder noises, and longer connections; which I think really allowed me to experiment with finding that inner energy and keep going in a 50min Jam. It’s almost annoying that I haven’t been doing this from the start, but I suppose this is why we reflect on each week, so that we can get a fuller understanding of our own practice. Having finally reached this ‘milestone’ of looking forward to a jam, and wanting to dance for the whole hour, I’m truly excited to see what I can bring to the space next time.

We were asked to watch two videos, ‘The play of weight’ by Martin Leogh and Neige Christenson, and ‘Contact Improvisation’ by Mirva Makinen and Otto Akkaen, and reflect on their use of dynamics and dominance. I think in Christenson’s video (Christenson, 2009) the woman has more dominance, because she is the over dancer more often, and initiates herself being the under dancer. I like that when they go into a lift or weight bearing that they’re both still moving; I’ve noticed that when I play with under and over dancer movements, that I tend to stop moving myself, and focus on the task, thus stopping the flow of the improvisation. In terms of dynamics I believe that they had a good range, they used stillness as well as interlocking movements, and because the flow never stopped it was interesting to watch. The second video with Makinen and Akkaen (Omegabranch, 2011) was not as interesting to be because it felt like they kept repeating movements and weren’t exploring anything. I noticed that they didn’t look at each other much which I thought affected their connection; however they did have an equal distribution of under and over dancer, so I wouldn’t say there was a specifically dominant character.

This week saw us struggle with taking weight into our higher kinespheres and I definitely felt this conflict. I wanted to pick people up, to support them in the air, and to safely return them to the floor; but I could seem to get the right grip and found myself working against the momentum. Lifts that require me to be a support post, like the paper clip lift, I’m good with; but one’s like the cradle lift are a challenge. I think this is because I don’t have the courage to take that weight above my centre because I don’t really know what to do with it once it’s there; or if I’m being lifted, I don’t believe that my weight could be lifted up to someone’s shoulder. Not because ‘I’m too heavy’ – I’m over this now – but because I just don’t believe it’s possible, unless they’re a beast in the gym. To quote a popular phrase “Do you even lift?”

Something that I thought I would massively struggle with, but was pleasantly surprised, were the Aikido rolls. When we watched the video I instantly wrote these off, my brain just went “No way. Not a chance. Get me out of this lesson, this is getting way too intense” but obviously I was being over dramatic, because when I actually attempted these with Millie it only took a few tries before we were doing consecutive rolls. The surfing and rolling was another element of CI that I had no desire to try because the video freaked me out, but as soon as I started dancing with Lauren we just went for it and I found myself moving all over the place. We traveled from one end of the room to the other without breaking contact or trying to lead each other and it was such a nice feeling of being completely released and being connected to that one person, that I’m more than happy to do this in every jam.

I think this is a reoccurring theme in my CI practice; Kirsty introduces us to an idea and I decide that it is impossible and that I’m really not going to like it. Then I actually have a go and discover that it’s not that hard, and after a few attempts, realise that it’s quite fun and I don’t even care if it goes wrong because I am now determined to do it until it’s right. You’d think I would have learnt by now to trust that I’m not going to be asked to do something that isn’t possible by everyone in the class, and that I don’t need to panic every time we move on to more complex modes of connection – but no. Maybe next week I can keep my s*** together and not have an internal melt down?

In the jam we were introduced to the concept of dancing with a partner without making physical contact. YES! I’ve been looking forward to this because I’ve been looking for a way to enter a jam without it having to be solo, or interrupting a pre-formed duet. When in the jam I connected with Lauren, and after some surfing and rolling we entered into this non-touching contact, which I really enjoyed. This gave me the opportunity to incorporate breath as more than just initiation for my own movements as well as using the space to change the dynamic of our duet. I also explored this idea with Becca, I wanted to enter in such a way that made someone enter with me, so I chose to stand directly in front of her and essentially ‘get up in her grill’ until she reacted. Because our duet began in almost an aggressive manor, we spent our time dancing together manipulating the space to be close and then far from each other, really testing the boundaries of keeping our connection without touching.

Sophie and I are using this non-physical partnership in our choreographed duet, but so far I’m not sure that we’ve kept our connection:

We’re playing around with the use of breath and going in and out of contact during this section of the duet. I’m now interested to see how this will progress and develop after this week’s exploration; perhaps we don’t include the physical touch for this part at all?

 


Curtis, B. and Ptashek, A. (1988) Exposed to Gravity. Contact Quaterly/Improvisation Sourcebook. 13(2) 156-162.

Neige Christenson (2009) the play of weight. [Online Video] Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ltq6y06E8ew [Accessed 15 November 2015].

Omegabranch (2011) Contact Improvisation Mirva Mäkinen & Otto Akkanen. [Online video] Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMLbWxujoGw [Accessed 15 November 2015].