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.