Contact Improvisation

I went into this week’s contact lesson with a very positive mind, I was confident with the research lab that we had created and I was interested to see what we would find. I was interested to see what everyone else had come up with and I was also excited to see what a contact improv lesson might feel like when it hadn’t been lead by Kirsty. This week our readings were online articles by Daniel Lepkoff, one about Release Technique and one about Contact Improvisation. These readings I found were the most interesting readings we have yet had. ‘The underlying technique needed to prepare for and survive the surprises of a Contact Improvisation duet is to pose and maintain a question.’ (Lepkoff, 2008). This statement from Contact Improvisation”: A question made me understand for the first time that contact is actually a question as a whole. There is no real right or wrong in contact improv, something that before now I have never really understood. For example I am always doubting myself in this practice, comparing myself to others and not understanding why what I do doesn’t look like everyone else.

The article posts questions that you could ask yourself when improvising such as, ‘what surfaces of my skin are being touched or touching?’ (Lepkoff, 2008). This is a question that I would never think about, but perhaps by putting this into practice, I may be able to improve what I am performing. The article has given me confidence and made me believe that not everyone can feel as confident as they look while dancing. What is Release Technique? also got me thinking differently about contact. ‘one needed to address the functioning of the whole organism, the mind as well as the body’ (Lepkoff, 1999). This is something that I have never really thought about before, I am always so concentrated on what my body is portraying. What am I actually thinking about as I improvise? I want to find the answer to this in the upcoming weeks. I also want to see if whatever I am thinking about while i’m improvising turns out to be something that is in fact holding my movement process back.

Research Lab- Eye contact in Contact Improvisation.

Our research lab was based on this, whether eye contact in fact improved or made contact improv awkward. We created 3 main exercises based on eye contact, but varying within eyes closed or eye contact from far away or up close.

The first exercise we chose was for everyone to get a partner, close their eyes and sit back to back and begin to improvise. The main point of this exercise was to see how fast people would relax into a new partner once we asked them to move, obviously keeping their eyes closed though!! As we asked the group to change partners, the awkwardness became apparent pretty much straight away. A room that was previously silent turned to laughter and timid gestures. The awkwardness between dancers returned and the improvisation seemed strange and timid. Although all the dancers found their new partner in under a minute, the connections between the new partner and their previous one was nowhere near as strong. By stripping away their eye contact it was hard for the bodies to find another clear way of connection, something that before I know I have been heavily reliant on. When we asked the group what they thought of this exercise they agreed with our observations, eye contact, or lack of, had become something in which was a hindrance to the way they were improvising.

We then moved onto the second exercise in which two dancers had to be together, improvise and then we would shout STOP and the dancers would have to force eye contact together no matter what position they were in. As we began this I saw what were some very interesting movements, as the girls looked for contact with their partner it was interesting to see the positions that the bodies went in. Some dancers had to lean back making the next movement in their improvisation different and definitely varied from the movement they had previously done. We then told them to try and head in the direction their eyes were looking at the end of the improv, this meant that most dancers were looking away from each other. This is something I found interesting, why are we more comfortable looking away from our partner than towards them? As soon as the dancers were allowed to look away again, they would release back into the notion that everything was ok. When asked about this exercise the group had a mixed response, some agreed that the eye contact was awkward, whereas others said that it helped them establish a better connection and they felt they could trust their partner more.

We then did an exercise based on eye contact across the room, in which you could just catch someone’s eye contact and then see where the improvisation could go from there. The connections made here were definitely the weakest from all the 3 exercises, dancers were panicking and trying to make connections out of nothing. I feel this is because they didn’t want to be the ones left without a partner as that would make them feel exposed. As the girls began to improvise I could see that these connections were fake, and were simply being done as that is what they thought they ‘had to’.

I feel eye contact in improvisation is still something that will be neglected in weeks to come, due to it making the movement awkward. As a society we run away from eye contact and I feel this is the same in dance, when forced it makes us tense and awkward. Something that in improvisation especially contact could never help the movement. I will try and work on eye contact in future weeks, but I don’t believe it will ever be something that will ever come naturally to me.

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Lepkoff, D. (1999) What is Release Technique? Daniel Lepkoff. Available from http://www.daniellepkoff.com/Writings/What%20is%20Release.php. [Accessed 27/10/2015].

Lepkoff, D. (2008) Contact Improvisation: A Question? Daniel Lepkoff. Available from http://www.daniellepkoff.com/Writings/CI%20A%20question.php. [Accessed 27/10/2015]

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.

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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

 

This week’s research was based on the head and how the weight of your head, which is surprisingly heavy!, influences how you are able to connect with someone else in contact. We began the lesson by watching two videos, one by Blake Nellis and Brando, and the other one by Steve Paxton. Although both these videos were examples of contact improvisation, it was amazing how obviously different they were. ‘Earthdance’ (2010) was very based on weight placement, and quite slow placed. It was almost as if both dancers knew exactly where the next one would end up, although we know this is next to impossible in contact!!  This movement placement was similar to ‘Magnesium’ (1972), but the difference between the control of the dancers seemed to be huge. In Paxton’s piece, it felt like people were almost throwing each other about and just hoping someone would be there to catch them. Whereas in Nellis & Brando’s piece, weight control was smooth and never used suddenly.

Through ‘Steve Paxton’s Interior Techniques’ I realised what it might look like ‘to achieve free, spontaneous movement’ (Turner, 2012, 126). In Magnesium, the dancers were using this free- flow movement, and although it could be messy at times, you could see the dynamics of the piece. Their ‘free movement’ would turn into a knock on effect to the next dancer, and they would start portraying the movement in the way that they had begun to feel it. As they were rolling and moving through the floor, you could see the dancers begin to take notice of specific body parts, and they would then concentrate on those for the next part of the phrase. As their contact began to get more rapid, the dancers started grabbing onto each others wrists and other body parts in order to create balance and counter- balance. In Earthdance you saw a use of all the body parts, in fact I don’t remember the two dancers ever really avoiding any parts of their body, contact was used everywhere. They also had a larger use of lifts and levels, which meant that a lot of balances also began to really travel. It also flowed so much that you couldn’t tell when one move ended and the next one started. These two pieces of contact taught me a lot, and I would really like to be able to get to that level of stability in contact during these research labs.

‘Dancers would get to know each other very well, developing trust and awareness of themselves and their dance partners’ (Turner, 2012, 127). This was certainly true in the first exercise we did in class, which involved being with a partner and being completely in control of their head! I went first as Millie began to lift my head and mould it slightly to the way she felt she wanted me to move. The vulnerability of someone holding your head was quite daunting and although I trusted Millie, it was still very hard to give the whole weight of my head to her. I did find that this exercise helped me break habitual movements, with Millie moving my head, I found interesting the ways I was able to move. At one point she rolled my head downwards to the floor and as all my body followed the sense of release was amazing.

When we switched to me holding Millie’s head however, I saw the massive responsibility of holding someone else’s head. It took a while for me to be able to pick up her head and actually fully trust myself with it. As she began to move it was interesting to see how the weight of the head not being held by her and that I was actually able to manipulate where and how she moved.

I realised from this task that there is a big difference from improvising with the use of the head and then improvising without. When we began improvising with different people starting from the movement of just the head, it was strange to see how you connected with some people and not others. I also found if difficult to use the lower half of my body to improv, using your head movement seems to flow more. Once I got up I found it tricky to change my habits of wanting to go back down to the floor again, which i definitely deemed as ‘safer’. My task for this week’s improvisation is to make sure I get used to using my legs, as I can’t always rely on the use of my arms and head in order to improvise.

I thoroughly enjoyed this lesson however and am excited for what next week’s task has to offer!

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Turner, R. (2010) Steve Paxton’s ‘Interior Techniques’: Contact Improvisation and Political Power. TDR: The Drama Review, 54(3), 123-135.

Nelson, L. (dir.) (2006) Contact Improvisation Archive DVD #2: Magnesium, Peripheral Vision, Soft Pallet. [DVD] East Charleston: VIDEODA.

Aaron Brando (2010) Contact Improvisation: Blake Nellis and Brando @ Earthdance. [Online Video] Available from:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQRF2sLK1vY [Accessed 11 October 2015].

 

The over and under dancer. A hard concept to get your head around when you think about it. How would I manage the logistics of being the over and the under dancer? I wondered before heading into this week’s task. After reading this weeks’ reading, ‘Touch: Experience and knowledge’ my mind started to open into the things we might get into this week.

‘Touch has become a vulnerable commodity’ (Holt & Bannon, 2012, pg. 219) I thought about this as we started an exercise that I believed tested this theory. We had to walk around the space and touch someone on the shoulder, and then they would sink to the floor. Once you were lying on the floor you had to wait for someone to come and help you back up again. To be in this situation did feel vulnerable, and to put all your trust into the fact that someone else had to help you up backed up this point. It was awkward making these connections and as Kirsty had to point out, the movements that we were using were definitely not ‘pure’. I found it difficult to trust that the other person could pull me up, making it hard to relax into these movements. Our authenticity of movement began to get better however and this was how I was finally able to relax into the exercise.

We then had to experiment with the roles of ‘over and under’. As we started back to back with a partner with our eyes closed, you could sense which way your partner was going to move. I thought this was very interesting, it meant your body reacted with what they were doing, almost as if you and your partner were one person. As me and Indre began to explore this more I thought it became very apparent that she was the over dancer, though thinking about it now, how were each of us sure what the other was thinking? Exploring movement with different partners meant sometimes your role changed, often I would find myself being over a dancer who otherwise I would have been certain would be happier with being over me.

‘Touch allows you to connect with one another’ (Holt & Bannon, 2012, pg. 221) When we did an exercise in which we experimented in movement placement, I found that finding weight placements with your partner could be quite difficult. I worked with Becca and as she improvised it was challenging to find a position in which I was confident she could hold my weight. It was also hard to use this touch sensation and go against your habitual movements. For example I ended up using Becca’s back to hold my weight often, when in fact, there could have been many other body parts which could have supported me just as well. This is something I hope to work on in future weeks.

I feel like as contact improvisation is going on I have started to become more confident with myself, I am no longer afraid to work with different people from which I would usually work with. I feel this is a successful attribute as sometimes you feel you connect better dancing with people that otherwise you maybe wouldn’t work with. From the aspects of the ‘over, under’ dancer, I feel I need to improve on this. My movement this week felt very habitual to me, and unlike last week I was struggling a lot more to persuade myself to move out of these techniques. I want to be able to trust that the ‘natural’ places you go for on your partner to support you aren’t always the best options. Next week I hope I will be able to support this further. This lesson taught me however that anyone can be the ‘over or under’ dancer, something that I was never taught throughout A Level dance practice.

How can I stop myself overthinking in contact improvisation? Eventually I would like to be able to have an solution to this problem.

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Holt, D. & Bannon, F., 2012. Journal of Dance and Somatic Practices

 

Contact Improvisation. The two words that I hated hearing throughout my A level dance practice. To me Contact Improvisation meant being scared to touch people that otherwise you wouldn’t even say two words to down the corridor. So as I went into week one of this practice it’s safe to say I was a little apprehensive.

Before I went to class I read this weeks’ set reading from Steve Paxton’s ‘Drafting Interior Techniques’ and that scared me even more. Why did he think contact improvisation was a technique ‘best described negatively’? (Paxton, 2003, 175).  It was here that I decided to find out in my own way why he disliked the technique so much!  As we started the class Kirsty showed us some examples of contact improvisation and now I began to see why people could enjoy it. Ultima Vez’ ‘Blush’ introduced me to movements I didn’t realise could even be excecuted so well, and I started to realise that maybe I would enjoy this technique after all.

We started off the class by being very grounded and moving round the space through the floor, I noticed that this began to become more natural to me as the exercise went on. As Heitkamp says in ‘Moving from the Skin: An Exploratorium’, ‘the skin is not merely a simple shell’ (Heitkamp, 2003, 257). I could tell as I carried on moving around the space that the skin makes connections with the floor, and it is harder to push or pull yourself in some directions than it is others. The fact that your skin is not just the shell of your body, but does in fact influence what movement you are able to excecute, means that you have to move where your skin ‘tells you’.

After carrying on this exercise for a while we were then told to find a partner and watch how they imporvised, picking up on habitual movements they used. As I watched my partner Sophie I saw that she did not play with levels much, her work was all very grounded. She also always used her head to start momemtum off, which made sense to me as the head is the heaviest part of your body. After telling these pointers to Sophie we then switched over, after I had finished my 2 minute or so improvisation I realised how dizzy I felt, and after hearing the pointers from Sophie I realised why. I start all of my movements from a circle whether it is a shoulder roll, or just rolling on the floor and it was this reason why I felt so dizzy! In order to change these habitual movements I feel I need to slow down and think about what movement I am going to do next. This is something I want to work on in the upcoming weeks. The ‘pulling, pushing and rolling’ movements that we had focused on this session actually gave me a lot of inspiration and made me think of the different ways I could move my body parts away or towards each other.

‘Being present is also an important element of Contact Improvisation’ (Heitkamp, 2003, 259). I believe you have to really think about your body and how it would react to other people’s in order to be successful in Contact Improvisation. While we were doing a hugging exercise in which we had to walk around the space with our eyes closed and hug other dancers, I began to see how different people’s bodies reacted to my touch. Some people would become rigid and awkward whereas others would just relax into the moment. In order to be good at contact improvisation I think you have to make yourself accessible to everyone and this is something I plan to do more in the coming weeks.

I can officially say I am no longer scared of Contact Improvisation. Something I never thought I would say!

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Heitkamp, D. (2003). Moving from the Skin: An Exploratorium. Contact Quarterly/Contact Improvisation Sourcebook II, Vol. 28:2. 256-264.

Paxton, S. (2003) Drafting Interior Techniques. In: Nancy Stark-Smith A Subjective History of Contact Improvisation. In: Albright, A. C., & Gere, D. Taken by surprise: A dance improvisation reader. Middletown, Conn: Wesleyan University Press, 175-184.