This weeks lesson was based on using gravity and beginning to take some movement out of floor. This is something that personally I have never been comfortable with so I wasn’t exactly looking forward to this week’s lesson. We started with our eyes closed and concentrated on the motion of just staying really ‘still’. You think this should be easy but in reality it is really not, as I stood still I could feel small movements that I have previously never felt before. My knee’s kept twitching and I found it next to impossible to stand completely still. Kirsty then told us to stop fighting against these reflexes and to just go with the movement and see where it might take our bodies. As i began to soften into this idea, my body began to sway quite dramatically, for me it was now impossible to ignore these feelings, and it was strange not being completely in control of your own body. ‘the vertical is the vision – is the anchor’ (Ravn, 2010, 26) I remembered this quote after i performed this exercise and realised how untrue it was. When standing still I found it impossible to be still, whereas when I start an exercise laying on the floor I find it really easy to lay still. This made me think of something, Why are our feet not the most stable parts of our body?.
Also using weight changes and different placement of weight meant you really realised how much work your feet do just to keep the rest of your body balanced. As I was leaning forward with my eyes closed my feet had to work extra hard in order not to fall forward, something that before now I have never really thought about. We then worked on some movements showing us how to get in and out of the floor, like handstands and rolls etc… ‘I prefer to carry my weight when standing’ (Ravn, 2010, 22). This is a statement which I found directly relates to me, as I am so used to being on my feet, being flipped upside down just doesn’t feel natural to me. My leg muscles are definitely much stronger than my arms and this is something that I would like to change in the weeks moving forward. I don’t want to rely on standing upright so much and want to be able to explore different ways of moving. We then worked on putting our balance directly onto someone else, i worked with Lizzie as we walked around the space putting our weight onto each other. This was a lot harder than I thought it would be, it was very hard to balance and know how little movements from your partner would directly affect you. This relates to the reading from Bryon Brown where he asks the question ‘is contact a small dance?’ (Brown, 75) if i had used Lizzie’s movements to effect mine our placement could have become really big or even smaller.
We then looked for stable and non- stable places to put your weight during contact with a partner, I found with me and Sophie this came quite effortlessly and we didn’t ever really come to an abrupt stop during this exercise.While using our weight to balance we found some interesting shapes and movement which I will try and remember in order to work in contact with my duet partner! We then split into a circle and everyone had to go into the middle, say 1, 2, 3 and then just fall backwards. I liked this exercise and found it easy to give my weight to other people, I knew they would catch me and I felt comfortable trying it in all sections of the circle. I also observed that some people didn’t feel so comfortable doing that though, in fact some people didn’t even want to try. I hope this changes in passing weeks as then we can all eventually trust in each other completely. We then split into two groups and practised the crucifix lift, this was something I really enjoyed doing and I loved being up in the air observing how people balance my weight out in order to hold me correctly. As we then went onto lift other people you could see the confidence in our group growing and the lift began to get more and more efficient.
Why are some people comfortable with being lifted and others not?
Research Lab.
We were then set a task of creating research labs based on something we were interested in finding out about. Here is the poster me and my group made whilst this task was going on. 
We found that the use of eye contact was something we were all interested in and decided to base our research lab around how eye contact can effect improvisation? We also looked at key themes like momentum and weight balance and I am excited to present this to everyone else next lesson. We have since thought of exercises that we think will explore these problems in improv fully.
Brown, B., n.d. Is Contact a Small Dance? Contact Improvisation Soucebook I. Vol. 6 ed.
Ravn, S., 2010. ‘Sensing Weight in Movement’ Journal of Dance and Somatic Practices. Vol. 2 Issue 1