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.