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