An inspiration for this week’s lesson was Steve Paxton’s, ‘Small Dance.’ The video consisted of a skeletal figure making very small adjustments in the body which showed us that in order to balance when standing up, this was a natural thing for the body to do. We then took five minutes to then notice the adjustments that our own bodies would make, which I found a really strange sensation. Although I was already aware that the body was never completely still when standing, I felt when I took time to actually focus on these movements they seemed really exaggerated and it felt like I was moving loads. This worked as a positive for me because I was then able to easily find momentum for the next exercise, where we had to allow our body to fall with gravity rather than prevent ourselves from falling. Although I found the momentum part of the exercise quite easy, I still feel that I held back a bit when falling to the floor. Although I do feel I use I use the floor a lot when dancing by myself, actually getting to the floor in this exercise was more of a challenge because I was thinking too much about it. I felt quite anxious because one my wrists was quite weak this week, and I didn’t want to make it feel worse for myself so was trying to fall to the floor in a way which wouldn’t put to much strain on too it.
A different exercise that we did in this class was what Kayla called the cat and owner exercise, where one dancer had to be an owner, making supports for the cat, and the person acting as the cat had to move around the owner finding different supports. I actually really enjoyed this exercise as I thought it was an interesting way to think about contact improvisation. As I am quite both a visual and physical learner, this method of imagery helped me to stay in complete contact with my partner, and move in a fluid way.
Susan Ravn’s article explained how to give and receive weight in a safe and sensible manor. It consisted of a study of different dance styles Ballet, Contemporary and Butoh and explained how depending on your background, you would hold yourself differentlly. A point which stood out for me in this article was how the sense of feeling weighted is central to contemporary dance. I will take this in to concideration and try to sense my weight more to help ground myself as i feel perhaps my background in dance consists a lot of ballet so my weight isn’t exactly always right.
Sensing weight in movement’. Full text available By: Ravn, Susanne Journal of Dance & Somatic Practices, 2010, Vol. 2 Issue 1, p21-34, 14p.