November entry

November entry

This month we continued to explore the body and its development. The understanding was improving through exploring the human development from infant to adult as well as evolutionary, with comparisons to other creatures of the nature, such as amoeba, star fish, sea squirt, Lancelet and fish. Throughout the sessions with Natalie Garrett, using the imagery of these creatures we have been drawing our awareness to the systems in our bodies, in order to deepen the understanding and improve the movement quality. For example, when thinking about living cells in the body brought a strong sense of energy flows for me. Understanding the mouthing pattern and how it influences our development and integration to the world, helped me understand movement patterns with high kinesthetical awareness, like when having in mind digestive system.

As we were doing some hands-on work with different partners and bringing awareness from cell to organs to bony construction of the body, different body systems and movement patterns gave me a wide theoretical understanding and also physical inhabiting of the material. I think most of all it brought kinesthetical awareness. Working with other people gave a sense that this material is applied to all human beings, some of it even to the whole living species.

The development of the technical side in my dance practice was highly supported by doing phrase work, as well as practicing Feldenkrais method. The momentum, articulation of the spine, flow between movements and more efficient ways of moving were particularly developed as well as the idea of seeing and being seen, which is strongly developing my ability to perform by gaining my confidence. The idea of quiet ribs improved my alignment and the easiness of movements; keeping my nervous system in control, which allow to inhabit a non-stressful physical activity even when involving complex movements.
Repetitiveness of the same moving and hands-on scores during self-practice deepened the understanding even further.

The introduction to Authentic Movement practice strongly informed my FMP project, improving my understanding of the relation between movement and emotional aspects - the whole interrelation within the soma.

Differently compared to some other people in class, I do not find myself uncomfortable when stimulating digestive system, it is rather interesting me and I push my boundaries exploring it as much as I can. Sometimes it seems that I can almost feel the processes within, especially when the physical touch is involved. That reminds me the class we had last year with Kerstin Wellhofer where we explored the digestive system.

Soft spine, or pre-spinal concepts more than anything improved my technical side of dancing, greater articulation of the movements.

Mouthing pattern was really interesting for me, as I did not have this knowledge about how these patterns develop and the effect of it that may occur if something is missing in the development of infant. I did not feel like having any problems with it, or as if something would be undeveloped yet; it was impressive to me, that when we physically explored mouthing pattern, it felt extremely familiar to me, as if coming back to basics of the movement patterns of the body. It seemed that I can actually physically feel it and not just understanding theoretically. It also brought awareness to how I perceive touch, because it involved touching the face, which is not as common; we often avoid touching the face, it is considered as such an intimate space and may be sensitive perceptively. I notice myself also being guarded and sensitive when receiving touch on my face. However, it feels quite nice and inviting, offering different kind of experience and rather stimulating inner awareness when the face and the head is touched. Although, i became even more guarded, sensitive and a little bit less open for the touch of my head after the accident in the class when I experienced a strong hit to my head. I think it affected the whole practice for a while, and it will take time for me to let go of the fear to experience it again and it will take a bit of work on my nervous system.

I have noticed, that I looked at videos about infant development before we actually went through that material in class. However, I still find it useful, because that gave me a more efficient and quicker understanding of what was discussed and physically done in class, even though only then the material started to make sense, and the information given through a number of classes settled and came together as a whole journey.

Furthermore, the classes with Nicola Conibere is further informing my dance practice in choreographic aspects as well as allowing me to explore my creating and performing abilities in a more free way by awakening the playfulness. I keep surprising myself with the ability to instantly respond to the material. It seems to me that my vocal and physical responses become more and more drastic. Sometimes I feel as if it unfolds my 'wild spirit' and helps me to perform in a more playful way that I did not dare to do before. It is clearly gaining my confidence as an artist, changing my perspective on letting myself to push the boundaries and opening a number of possibilities for creative work.

I feel that I am in the middle of the process and I am going to continue to focus on the same technical details as before as I can already feel the progress but it seems to have a potential for further development. The system that interests me most is nervous system , and I feel it to be one of the most difficult systems of the body to understand and explore, and this is going to be an additional thing to focus on more in the coming sessions.
I am currently watching some videos in relation to nervous system, and there is one that really interests me and is informing my practice;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbh5l0b2-0o

Back on track of discoveries

After the summer break up we are back to University, developing our artistic abilities through dance practice and research. Movement Studies 3 - the main set of sessions supporting us this last year at University consists of various practice methods. Most of them consists of or strongly relates to Somatic Practices, such as Skinner Releasing Technique, Feldenkrais, Body-Mind Centering, improving theoretical/intellectual and practical understanding and deepening our knowledge about such practices, covering general understanding of Somatic Practice field. So far it is offering improvisational based work as well as set phrase work, often also related to composition and choreography along with technique improvement. All the practices are strongly informed by theoretical research and discussions in class.

Personally for me it really feels as ongoing work continuing from last two years. I very often catch myself recalling my previous experiences in such work, which, in my opinion, helps me to develop my own dance practice even further. For example, I also relate feedback that I got previously, which helps me to persistently work on things that my dancing body needs particularly, and in complex with new material and emphasis, only after few weeks I can already feel the results.
Experiential Anatomy seminars and practices firstly reminded me what I already knew about my body systems, awakening the awareness in my body of particular ones, such as muscles, skeleton, nervous  system, etc. deepening it by layering them - bringing it all together in the light one by one, which is my perception. Narrowing it down a bit, depending on the day and class, I am currently focusing on these things:

- Spine; especially how to keep it soft, flexible as well as noticing the shape and form in order to keep the spaces open and use it in the most possible released state and ways that do not create any pressure or damage on it.

An interesting thing that influenced my moving and knowledge, was looking at pictures and drawings of animal skeletons, and the videos I have watched of moving animals, as their movements contain the least effort and are so smooth, the way they keep their postures at all times is incredible. Cat family species left particular impression.

Another thing that I was particularly focusing on, which are also bones - ribs. However, what interests me, is what is called QUIET RIBS. I noticed that focusing on this idea really takes away a lot of tension and pressure off upper body, rather making a sense of lightness and easiness as well as even grace. This is especially noticeable doing phrases on Tuesday sessions.

-Next thing I am working on at the moment is related to feedback that I got last year in technique class is Momentum. This idea of letting things flow, letting go of thinking too much seem to be really beneficial already, as I find myself embodying and even remembering the material much quicker somehow.  Makes me wonder, where this might lead and what more this could unfold in my practice?

I also tend to focus on my inner experiences so deep that it often affects my relation to outer world and this can really affect the relation with my audience in the future, so EYE LEVEL, idea of seeing and being seen when moving is something I try to focus more and more hoping to inhabit the outer awareness.


I strongly believe, that intellectual information that we get has a massive impact in my improvement. For example, articles about Somatics and Perception that we've been given to read as one of the tasks, informed me by giving different perspective on how I perceive, and gave such a deep understanding about my body that I become physically aware about in my dance practice as well as general well-being. The visual information - videos I have watched in particularly, that explained so much about living body from cell to development of systems and senses , and, therefore, perception, were about babies and their development, cells itself, and a few about animal behavior and systems their bodies contain in comparison to human's.
The information gathered from those videos informed me as a human, as a woman as much as a dancer.
One,particularly interested me, I watched on Youtube, called "Inside the living body" which explained and shown in very detail about all I have mentioned above. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBIYwiktPsQ



Summarizing,  I think this module is really supporting my practice in intellectual and practical way so far, as well as supporting my expectations of what I intend to improve this year, which is flexibility, expanding my kinesthetic awareness and broadening the range of my perception and explore somatic practices even more, as this is the emphasis of my current interest in dance practice, highly supporting my dissertation research.

Contact Improvisation
Class with Oliver Scott

This time I felt really tired, and my body didn't really feel like working and as perceptual, so it could take much new information. Adequately, my partner felt the same way this time. Even though some hands-on work involving lots of rocking and squeezing the muscles released both of us and made the bodies more prepared for moving, we still kept quite passive.
However, I found it really interesting and useful to witness other people moving together; it was really enjoyable noticing the flow. After a bit of time working with the same partner, you can take more risks, increase the speed; even though movements become quite risky, I think this is the way to push the boundaries and explore unexplored, and it sometimes looks more complicated than it actually is, because if you trust your partner and are able to balance between softness and tensions that are needed for a bit of control and balance, as well as to initiate further moving, it is completely acceptable and these risks even should be taken. It is also very useful to find new movements for duets and partnership, that can be used choreografically in the future. furthermore, it is absolutely beautiful to watch.

Contact Improvisation
Class with Oliver Scott


This class interested me, when doing the warm up, which was somatic-practice-like, very still and individual. after some time given for arriving when being more less still, laying on the floor. A little bit later, laying on our front, we started to focus on opening the vision sense. Very gently; noticing the distance that is needed for the vision to become clear, not blurry. Also, it is about opening the perception of the whole body - even though you lift your head and look straight in front of you, you can also become aware of what is behind and around you too - "seeing with the back of your head".When you lift your head, letting the back of it lead, you can easily open the senses as well as visible spaces and become really sensible to what is around you.


The fun bit, developing quick reacting and inhabiting quick release in the body was running around and sliding through the floor - becoming instantly soft. It also developed awareness of the spaces and people arround, as taking the risk doing such a quick and strong movement, you may hit somebody and cause injury, so this practice can be considered really dimensionally and dynamically vivid.


Later on we continued practicing the contact technique from previous class. Working with John with our eyes closed, was very interesting to me, as I was able to explore how much weight I can take and what adjustments I can do in order to be enough support for the partner who's bigger than me. We also involved some lifts, which is always fun.
I find it useful to work with my eyes closed, as you become more responsive and all the other senses when vision is taken away become more perceptual and I tend to think less and go with the flow more, let it go more, with my eyes closed; it is a pure play.

Contact Improvisation
Class with Oliver Scott

We began the class with the discussion about what Contact Improvisation touching a little bit history of it.

Then we started to work with the technique. We focused on changing the momentum, changing the dynamic instantly- about body to be able to adapt when we need to involve some tension, in order to keep the contact continous and keep the balance as well as find the softness in order to keep the flow.
When you walk and brush somebody, giving an impulse to go down and, following, go down yourself - there is such an interesting energy flow, the tensions transfer into release within the body; this helps to make the action really effortless and natural, taking away all the thoughts about how to move correctly, but rather naturally. It felt to me as such a strong energy.

Contact improvisation task mainly consisted of  leaning on or onto somebody qualities, playing with tensions and letting go, noticing how much effort we need to hold somebody - to be a support. Thinking ahead, if not overthinking, might help, as the person moving towards the floor has to concentrate on the possible shifts to be made whilst keeping the contact (sliding motions ere particularly involved in this practice).
Score turned into traveling keeping the same moving qualities, but having the sense of direction. We were trying to avoid dropping, make the movements be smooth and continuous.Also, the supporting person tried to keep pretty still, not trying to help the mover to go towards the floor the easiest ways possible - not taking them to the floor by adjusting the body, but rather be solid, in order to not shorten the way down and let the mover find their own ways to adapt to the support. It really challenged me, as you have to allow people move around you sometimes finding quite complicated ways, but still keep protecting them in a way, to avoid injuries. as a mover, I found it challenging to keep constant contact all the way to the floor without loosing the support and contact.
Walking around the room and playing with these qualities with lots of different people was really interesting, as your body has to adjust to everyone instantly; you have to consider, register and adapt really quickly, because every body is different, and sometimes it is difficult to realise how much of a support you have to offer as well as how much of weight and pressure you can give.Non-verbal negotiation is also an interesting moment, when using the body language you make a decision which one of you is going to give the support and which one is going over.
Being quite small I noticed that my body is such a solid and strong structure, which can support and hold so much more weight going over my body.

The contact, when you go over somebody's back (the supporting person is in a reliable box possition) - it is quite difficult to make sure that the person who is going over your back reaches the floor safely and softly- it is up to you as well as up to the mover.

This was a really useful practice, opening the technique of moving in contact, strongly imforming me as a mover and CI practitioner.

Guest Class
Charley M.

We did a lot of walking for warm up, releasing body to the ground, seeing where we are today, recognising the energy of the day. Working turned into running, increasing the energy level of the class as well as awakening the bodies. We played with walking making different size of steps, forwards, backwards, sideways; this encouraged me to notice the distance between myself and other people, challenging speeding up to almost dangerous level, which increased perception and speed of reaction - it was tried to make the distance as little as possible, almost running into someone, but managing to quickly escape and not hit anybody. I really enjoyed that, and it was really drawing my attention to the class, awakening my perceptions for the right focus.
Spatial awareness was also developed when some instructions have been involved - in your mind, choose two other people in the room, and try to keep the same distance from both of them at all times, making a triangle. Later on, we were running through these triangles, trying to break the triangle in the very middle of it.
Later on, we worked towards finding the softest and most effortless ways of going down and up again. Charley explained the technique details very clearly, which helped to achieve the softness of movements. The qualities involved rolling, sliding down (noting the top of the foot),sliding on the front of the thighs and go through, simple dropping; interesting to find the technique starting from kneeling and using the back foot to initiate the movement.
In order to achieve better quality, some simple exercises have been done; repetitiveness of it helps to really inhabit the motion in the most effortless way and catch the momentum.

Work in contact travelling through the space
-pushing each other giving resistance
-moving around the leading person, surrounding him
-Placing hands on partner's body to encourage or suggest the movement
-playing with the idea of when one of the partner's goes down, the other has to make the way towards standing.

Really enjoyed the playfulness. The previous exercises were really usefull, as the body was fully ready to move  and explore.

Improvisation class with Katye Coe


This class was in collaboration with music students. At the beggining, we looked at the scores they had from previous improvisation class that they had. After a quick discussion, we went for a little walk around the building in order to find the potential space that we could work in. We chose a staircase at the back of the building. There also was a piano and some kind of cage, which we used when exploring sounds that we can make around ourselves. It was also interesting, how we used the piano when improvising playing using drum sticks.
We have decided to go for a nature-like sounds that we could make, and I focused on making sounds that would indicate rain, using my voice, my fingertips, knocking, and movements of my feet which offered louder sounds, that reminded thunder. After a few runs playing on the staircase with sounds and rhythms we made another score, complimenting it by setting some cues and making spatial decisions, giving the potential performance a choreographical setting.
It was very interesting trying to push the boundaries and exploring the environment, using it in order to find some new sounds and possibilities to make it. Collaboration with music students gave a little bit more opennes to possibilities, because of the difference between skills that dancers and musicians had, we were able to share them and offer different things that haven't been explored yet. Music students offered different rhythms that dancers could explore, and dance students, being more advanced and open for improvisation in general, by easily letting go and tempting to push the boundaries and break the inhabited structures, encouraged more opennes, which expanded the variety of sounds that has been found, registered and transfered into the movement, using mainly only the body as a tool.
I think this way of work is very interesting, and it is a good way and tool for work making. It offers to explore something unexpected and uninhabited. It is very playful and up-and-coming, if you are open-minded. Noticing the variety of the production and theme differences in the performances that has been made during this class, it is almost imposible to clasify this work, as all of them were completely different.
I would like to explore it more when the opportunity arrises.

Experiential Anatomy
Class with Polly Hudson

This time we were focusing on tracing the clavical bone, shoulder blades and all the way down the arms finding bones through touch and movements by squeezing it and moving in different ways. Both sides have been explored at the same time, by receiving the hands-on work with two other people, really being supported of their touch when being upstanding,
The hands-on work, as it tend to do, really released all the tensions that my upper body held and made me feel really light. Even when the touch was gone, my arms still felt weightless, however, somehow became not as usefull anymore, as probably felt too released to feel a need to be moved. Although, the other body parts somehow became more engaged and open for moving.
When I was offering the touch and support for one of the partners, I noticed their arms being heavy and the range of the movements,that felt desired to be accepted, was limited. It rather felt like requiring the support from outside, finding an interesting particular way to receive the support and give weight of the arms.
During the partner graphics on the floor , when clavical bone has been traced with the fingertips, made me feel disorientated. However, it was a nice work, developing kinaesthetic sense within my body, particularly releasing the upper body, offering different quality to my movements, offering an interesting focus on different body parts when moving.

Work with poems

Improvisation class with Katye Coe
Work with poems

This time we were working with poems. It was a composition exercise, where we worked in groups, using few different poems, that we have never knew before. Whilst someone reading, we were asked to move, regardless of wether the words were stimulating and inviting movements, or negating it. When I was moving, I had a sense that you can almost apply the words you hear to yourself; I also found it as a nice play with rhythms; body apearance gives different meaning to the poem. As a witness I also noticed that the juxtaposition of the moving body and the poem becomes a meaningful interaction.
It was also interesting, in relation of how words and movements leaves traces in memory in relation to each other. You start to remember movement by word, or vice versa.
After individual explorations and discussion about it, we made a group score, and after practicing it, I found out, that when it all comes together, it becomes a lot about composition and finding the possible variations of it. This intrigues my imagination and invites for further playing and motivates for further development.

Skull

Experiential Anatomy;     Polly Hudson
SKULL

During this session we worked focusing on skull.Before we started hands-on work and moving, we had a discussion about it. It made me think about various things and facts about skull, which gave me deeper understanding about it, which affects my kinaesthetical awareness and as a result, also affects my moving and its quality.

Human brain is big evolutionary change in comparison to animals.
Skull function is to protect the brain.
Skull is a second heaviest body part (after pelvic).
It has most complex bone structure.
Nose is a cartilage, not a bone.
Skull became smaller evolutionary.
Giraffe has the same amount of vertebrae as human.

The rest of the class contained hands-on work and improvisational moving concentrating on skull and letting it to be the leading point stimulating moving. This specific ness was an interesting exploration, inviting different movements. Although, it made me dizzy and I had to start thinking about the balance of the floating skull but not overfloating. It challenged me and I took my time exploring these boundaries.