Contact Research Labs – Structuring, investigating, performing and reflecting. 

“I’m 75% confidant with Contact Improvisation”

I feel like 75 is a big number, like that’s only 25 away from being “100% confidant” – that feels daunting. I think if I allow myself to believe that I only feel 50% confident then if something goes wrong, or I have a bad day then it doesn’t really matter ‘because I’m not very good at contact’. I think allowing myself to say that I feel largely confidant with CI opens myself up to potential criticism like “I thought you said you were good”. Maybe this is a deep rooted insecurity that’s not specific to contact improvisation because realistically, with regards to my contact practice, there isn’t much that I don’t feel confidant with. Sure, I have an ongoing struggle with entering the space and following through with wanting to bring something into the improvisation, and I’m not great at taking my own weight into my hands (eg/ cannot do a handstand), and some times the fluidity of my movements is lacking but I think that all falls in the 25% that I’m yet to attain.

This week we read online articles by Daniel Lepkoff about Release Technique and Contact Improvisation. In What is Release Technique he discusses the relationship between intention and aesthetic, stating that “by the time an intention has been realised in a physical action, it is too late to alter how this action is played out” (Lepkoff, 1999). This is particularly prominent to us in our practice of CI, especially when we feel that it’s all going a bit wrong. It is so easy to watch footage or think about a session and pick out moments when we did something ‘ugly’ or a movement that was loud and awkward. But actually, those could have been moments where we were following our bodily intentions and listening to the sensations of those actions. I really don’t think it’s important what my practice looks like, maybe because my previous dance training didn’t have much emphasis on aesthetic I’m not that bothered, but I’d rather focus on moving with intention and feeling the sensation of connecting my head to my torso and following on with my legs. Personally I think CI looks the best when the dancers are absorbed in themselves and oblivious to what they’re doing with their bodies. But how do I get this quality into my choreographed duet?

Lepkoff also identifies an “underlying technique needed to prepare for and survive…contact improvisation” (Lepkoff, 2008) which I feel contradicts the purpose of CI and the universal appeal of it. Steve Paxton didn’t make CI with the intention of it becoming a technique, or for it to only be accessible to those who possessed a certain set of skills. Contact Improvisation was the name of an activity that anyone could do, where people would meet and throw themselves at each other, quite literally, to find new ways of using the body. However, the style of contact improvisation that I’m currently learning, and plain improvisation before that, has a strong composition element. How can I be improvising if I’m thinking about using the floor, varying my dynamics or making contact with someone? Obviously we need these reminders to allow us to learn to incorporate these elements without thinking, but where do we draw the line of using ‘strategies’ consciously and unconsciously? This is something I would like to explore further in our next research lab, as I think it would be beneficial to experiment with improvising with zero conscious thought.

For this weeks research lab my group presented exercises on strengthening eye contact and intentions within weight bearing work. We had done a practice run through of our tasks earlier in the week and had a mini feedback session between ourselves so that we knew what to expect as an outcome from the lab on Wednesday,  however it was still intriguing to watch the class undertake our exercises (detailed in the pictures below).

 

 

With the eye contact exercise I watched some partners keep that connection easily, where as others would loose it and have to stop and find it again. I think the people that approached the task with a lot of focus and determination found it easier to keep their eyes on their partner, even when the movement really stretched their ability. Having experienced a similar exercise for another group’s lab, I know that being even a little bit distracted makes it so much harder to keep looking into someones eyes. In the feedback we gathered from the class it was pointed out that it was difficult to break and start anew with a different partner, that once they’d found a solid connection with a person they didn’t want to let that go. This wasn’t too surprising to hear as having done the exercise ourselves we understood the reluctance to leave a newly formed connection – but I  think that having this established will help us as a class to stay in the jams, and stay dancing with one person for longer, because we’ll be wanting to exhaust the connection that we enter the space with. For me, I try not to leave a jam if I still have something to bring to it, when my mind goes blank is when I’ll usually retreat, but if I focus on finding strong connections with people then I think I can keep myself engaged for longer.

Our exercises on intention in weight bearing were the ones I was most excited to work on as the aim of the task was the most personal – I over think a lot during improvised weight bearing, and having a better understanding of the strength of my classmates would help to put my mind at ease, and hopefully our lab helped to do the same for everyone else. It was interesting that when we asked the class to find 3 positions, they all chose ones that stayed in their middle kinesphere and more detailed than the ones I’ve seen used in the Jams. Perhaps this is because they had time to play around with ideas, and in the jams you’re following your senses, which won’t always lead you into ‘interesting positions’ – which were mentioned in our feedback. A few dancers stated that they struggled to find ‘interesting positions’ – which wasn’t a requirement of the task, which leads me to think that we’re now looking to create that ‘aesthetic’ that Lepkoff was talking about, within our weight bearing poses(Lepkoff, 2008). Other things mentioned in our feedback session was that the over dancer’s exit strategy was effected by who was initiating the movement, which I think helped to identify ways to avoid habitual patterns; also the shape of the position played a big part in how long each dancer would hold it for; some structures put more strain on the under or over dancer, and so their partner wouldn’t hold it for too long as they were concerned about the well being of their friend.

I found all the research labs this week to be beneficial to my practice, as they proved to me that I was more capable than I thought I was, and that I’d been short changing some of my classmates, as they could take more weight than I had believed they could. My favorite task of the week was the ‘flying’ exercise from Yasmin’s group – I usually hate being lifted, but taking part in their lab was actually a lot of fun, and I hope we get to touch on that particular task again.

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Lepkoff, D. (1999) What is Release Technique? Daniel Lepkoff. Available from http://www.daniellepkoff.com/Writings/What%20is%20Release.php. [Accessed 25/10/2015].

Lepkoff, D. (2008) Contact Improvisation: A Question? Daniel Lepkoff. Available from http://www.daniellepkoff.com/Writings/CI%20A%20question.php. [Accessed 25/10/2015].

 

Sharing Gravity and (out of) Balance – Off the floor, Awareness, Disorientation and Letting Go.

“Practice, practice, practice”

I think the last time I was able to make and hold a handstand position was in year 4, me and my friends would stand in a circle on the field and sing a chant about the rugrats characters before throwing ourselves forward with ease into a handstand, not caring if our summer dresses fell down to our waists. Now a days going upside down doesn’t come quite as easily to me. When we were first told to go into a handstand or cartwheel my instant reaction was ‘lol no’ but actually, even though I struggle to get my hips up, I can feel that with each days practice I’m getting slightly more height and holding it for a millisecond longer than the last attempt. To hold these upside down positions efficiently I know I need to increase my upper body strength, specifically in my arms, and continue to work on lifting my hips and engaging my core.

When I think about my practice this week I keep coming back to the movements that I use to initiate contact with another person. In most cases I will use my arms to guide or wrap around my partner, and basically apply the ‘thick skin’ technique, but with more physical contact. I would like to focus on using bigger gestures, or more direct movements to begin contact; I started playing with this idea in the CI jam, because there were more of us, there were more opportunities to enter the space with the intention of using someone to make a balance position, or give my weight to them, where as when it is one on one, I feel the need to make a connection with them before any specific contact work. Perhaps once we start working in the upper kinesphere I will find it easier to avoid wrapping arm gestures?

In preparation for this week we read Is Contact a Small Dance? by Byron Brown and Sensing Weight in Movement by Susanne Ravn. I found these articles a little confusing but from what I did understand they have been very useful to me in understanding my own CI practice a little better. In Is Contact a Small Dance? Byron Brown states that “We learn to use our bodies in necessary and efficient ways in order to relate to our environment and a moving partner” (Brown, 1997, 73), which has explained to me why some days my practice feels better than others. CI is heavily influenced, I think, on who you’re working with and the environment of that relationship; if one of you is pre-occupied or stressed,  self-conscious, tired, or irritated, then that is going to have an impact on how present you can be in the space, and how much effort and attention you can give to your partner. I have experienced this first hand, last week I was not solely focused on the improv’ jam and felt that I couldn’t connect to the group; whereas this week I gave all my attention to the jam and as a result I could enter and exit the space and still be able to find a connection with people. Obviously, fluctuating between being in and out of the space has its own difficulties and that is something I aim to work on more next week, but as a direct comparison between weeks 3 & 4, this week was much more settled and comfortable.

In her article Sensing Weight in Movement Ravn mentions that for some dancers “the sense of weight…is related to a sense of giving up control of movement to let the body be connected to gravity” (Ravn, 2010, 24). This got me thinking that perhaps I’m still hesitant to give my weight to someone, not because it’s a personal hang up, but because it is me releasing control, which is something I don’t like to do. Usually in an improvisation, I will be one of the people to enter the space with a new idea, or with the intention of starting something different. ‘An Instigator’ if you will. I like this role because I have control over that idea, I have control over its structure, its purpose and when its achieved its goal I know that I helped to do that. Maybe it’s more of an ego thing than a control thing, but in any case, that’s what I like to do. I will try to push myself into joining an already formed idea or being a part of the team instead of the leader, but if I feel like that’s not working out for me, then this is my default. I’m hoping that now this idea has been highlighted I can give more focus to releasing that control, as well as weight, and enjoy being a part of the process and not thinking about the product.

This week saw the start of our first Research Lab, we had to write down all our questions and thoughts about CI and pick two that we wanted to focus on. My group chose the questions “How do we incorporate eye contact” and “How can we clarify intent”. We felt that these were the most prominent to us personally as when we watched the videos of our contact practice these were the things we felt were lacking. The aim for our ‘eye contact’ exercises is to strengthen the connection between make physical contact at the same time as eye contact; and for our ‘intent’ exercises we hope to clarify that we’re all a lot stronger than we give each other credit for, and to discuss whether it is more effective for the under or over dancer to decide when to move out of a balance position. I’m particularly interested to see the results of our ‘intention’ exercises, as I struggle with knowing how long to hold a balance position, and whether the under dancer was intending to hold it for a longer/shorter time than me.

 

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

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

 

Releasing the head and activating the eyes: Allowing the weight of the head and focus of the eyes to assist easy changes of direction and level.

“How are our bodies?” – Kirsty Russell

Achy af! That’s how my body has felt all week. Fortunately, discussing the reading and watching footage of contact improvisation meant that we didn’t have to spend that much time moving this week, although I’m sure we’ll make up for that in week four!

I found it interesting that the footage of Magnesium by Steve Paxton (Nelson, 2006)  from 1972 and the video of Blake Nellis and Brando (Aaron Brando, 2010) contacting from 2010 showed two very different sides of CI. As Paxton is ‘the father’ of contact improv’ I think his footage showed the most authentic examples of people improvising through physical contact. In the video, I saw people who were experimenting with how to give their weight to someone else and how to use another persons body to support their own . Perhaps because the setting of the film was in a sports hall with crash mats dotted around I was influenced to believe that these people were still learning the art of CI and were more likely to make mistakes and fall than Nellis and Brando. In my notes from watching the Magnesium video I’ve written ‘loud, no fear, v.speedy’, which sums up their style of CI really. The performers were just throwing themselves at one another, falling onto someone who themselves was falling; nothing in the footage looked premeditated or practiced and surprisingly I thought it actually looked quite fun.

Nellis and Brando’s exploration of CI was very different to the style shown from 1972; I felt that they carried each other a lot and had minimal use of falling and catching. The pace of the movement was quite slow and steady, even when they did have a shift in dynamics I don’t think it was to the extend to have significance. I would describe the style of improv’ in this video with the words dip, dive and roll because the dancers stayed at middle height so were not too far from the ground to travel around the space and each other. In class we have explored the idea of the ‘under and over dancer’, in Nellis and Brando’s video I can see a lot of under and over, and they exchange the rolls often where as in the 1972 video I couldn’t identify any exchange although I do think they used the concept. I found Nellis and Brando’s exploration very engaging because they never really left each other to find each other again; although this duet is improvised and the one I will be a part of is choreographed, I found it useful to watch how they stayed together for the whole time. I’m hoping to find a way to keep a connection like that while having literal distance between myself and my partner.

We read about Steve Paxton’s interior techniques this week, the reading was interesting because it highlighted some of Paxton’s intentions for CI and why he developed the practice. In the article, the issue of tension is discussed as Paxton believed that tension needed to be avoided because it inhabited the movements of the participants as they experience fear at the unfamiliar (Turner, 2010, 131). Well, I can testify to this! I was holding onto a lot of tension this week and I know it had a negative impact on my practice. I found it extremely difficult to engage with the group improvisation and found myself sitting up and detaching, not because I couldn’t physically do anything but because mentally I was having a freak out. I was so aware of my consciousness and felt that everyone else was in this ‘zen’ state that I couldn’t focus and as a result I was just saying to myself “I don’t know what to do”. Paxton explained that tensions could be resolved by “going back to bodily sensations and relaxing” (Turner, 2010, 131) which we did when we released control of our heads to a partner. I was the partner holding the head first, so when it came to me relaxing and trusting someone else with my head I knew what was going to happen which I think helped with focusing on the sensation. I felt myself taking non-habitual pathways once control was returned to me because I’d been so tuned into the sensation of being lead by my partner. I just need to focus on listening to the sensations of the group so that in the next class improvisation I’ll be able to ‘unconsciously’ relax into it.

 

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Aaron Brando (2010) Contact Improvisation: Blake Nellis & Brando @ Earthdance. [Online Video] Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQRF2sLK1vY [Accessed 17/10/2015].

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

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

 

The rolling point and the interchangeable role of the under and over dancer. 

 “It is the quality of touch rather than the quantity of touch that is of primary importance in our development.” – (Bannon and Holt, 2011, 216)

I wanted to enter this week with a more positive mind set, I expected that we’d be doing more weight bearing work and didn’t want to approach it with premeditated negativity. Starting class with a basic exercise of pulling people up from the floor helped me to feel more comfortable with giving my weight to people. I found it very reassuring that  everyone  was confidant with solely bringing a person up to standing. In this weeks reading the authors write that how we are touched teaches us how to define boundaries in response to sensory information(Bannon and Holt, 2011, 216); both the pulling someone from the floor exercise and trailing a partner to find points of contact was useful for me in understanding this idea. It was easier to respond to my partner’s contact when the touch was driven by purpose and intent. Bannon and Holt also describe that in dance the touch that is most interesting is “touch that stimulates awareness, excites curiosity and increases a facility to form accessible active knowledge” (Bannon and Holt, 2011, 216), which explains why touch is so important to contact improvisation.

Although I’m beginning to allow myself to trust my classmates, I was quite resistant to give them my weight in the under and over duets. However by the end of the session, and especially the end of the contact jam, I felt more comfortable in fully releasing my weight to another person, and actually am finding the duets quite fun. If I were to summarise my struggles with this week it would be ‘trusting other people’ but I don’t want to dwell on this too much; my reservations aren’t holding me back from attempting anything in class so I don’t need to give to much attention to them. Perhaps with enough practice I won’t have any hesitancy and will throw myself doubt-free into an improvisation.

Creating contact frames is something I have done before so I feel more confidant being the frame than the person making contact. I don’t think I’m the only one to feel this way, as when this was done as a group activity everyone that made contact with me was reserved about how much weight they released control over. I found this almost frustrating as I knew I could take all their weight, I just needed them to trust me (the irony here is ridiculous!) I hoping that we’ll have more time to work on these structures so that we can go in and out of them with ease in future jams.

I’m unsure how to strengthen my connections with people, is it something that will come in time, or is there something I can actively do? I’m also interested in working on making a smoother transition from improvising to contact work; maybe if I put more of my own weight into my hands, and not always being in a standing position, I might move into contact work more easily.

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