Category: 2014/2015

    My perception of what dance and movement is/could be has changed 180 degrees soon after the last 9 weeks . And I believe that the remaining 180 degrees will pivot in the next years. I still can’t believe how much I found about myself while experimenting with my body. And the most important thing for me here would be that I still want to continue this journey of improvisation art! I know that on the assessment day I did not succeed very well, because I tried to do my best, but the amount of information kind of distracted me when tried to adapt all 9 weeks knowledge in 3 hours session. At least I know that I tried… The most surprising thing for me is that finally now I understand how important in dance is EYES and AWARENESS. Of course, we touched more topics, but these two become very important and identifiable for me. And it does not matter weather me or somebody else is performing.  

   When I read those 5 learning outcomes form the handbook, I’m trying to scan myself from the very first class here. Now it is so funny that I felt so afraid to go into the score at the beginning. I was even afraid to use my body or talk about my experience in front of people in the studio. I did not believe in myself at all, but now I think  that all those outcomes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 complement one another and helped me to build myself. I would be absolutely nothing without those 5 phases…  

 

 

 
 

 

It is the last ‘rehearsal’ before the assessment. I should feel confident, because I know much more about my body and my movement. However, I can’t find my flow… 

 

This Monday was absolutely different from others. I found so many thing that could distract me! For example – my bobby pins inside my hair. This is only one example, but after I felt that they bother me, I started to think how much little (or big) things influence my movements… Needless to say that I felt exactly the same during the score as well. Here, I was wondering that you always lose a little bit of yourself, when you try to find connection between others and the self-expression is almost impossible if you have to follow somebody. And it is not because I thought: I’m too good to follow my partner. I found that then I am starting to think too much and that results as a stopping device for my movement ‘freedom’ and creativity.  

I believe that these thoughts responded to me in our trio score tried to improve and not over think about our habitual movements. If I thought that my movement vocabulary is very poor, probably I wouldn’t make too much contact with the audience or my score members and that could lead us to the gap of awareness between each others. Also, if I did not over think my every single step, I would create more unpredictable decisions and enrich not only the score but my own movement experience… However, it is still a shame that I can evaluate my work in class only by finding what I have done wrong and how could I improve myself. Hopefully, I’m going to learn from my mistakes and awake my awareness next time. And of course, I don’t know how many ‘next times’ I will need to succeed and feel confident with what I’m doing… But it is worth to wait for that flow…

In the beginning, I was not sure if I understand what does it mean score. For me this word had so many definitions and translations that all I could do was to guess how to adapt it to the improvisation. It is funny, because it was the 7 th week  and all the lectures before had specific scores and I had to manage it … However now, when we had to create our score, the meaning became very clear… And I really enjoyed that, because now I think it is easier to improve everything if you have a score… Even in my daily life, not only for improvisation. Moreover, it sounds better than the task and it motivates more to do or explore something… Continue reading “Week 7: Scores”

This week was different. Somehow I felt like I’m starting to know/understand/interpret what is/could be improvisation. And the reading… It was very different from previous ones. Much more harder, much more scientific, but, on the other hand, much more gripping…

In my opinion, these two questions: How is it possible to make a shared choice of movements during improvisation between two or more dancers, without previous agreement and without communication through words?   and   Can we call choreography what we see when we watch a dance improvisation?  kind of complement each other and seek to a common response. However, I don’t know exact how to answer properly and logically, but that’s what I’m thinking: Continue reading “Week 5: Finding pathways”

 ” You are a part of space.”- Anna Halprin. 

[Sometimes it is so ridiculous, that only now I have started to notice  how important and powerful my eyes or other body senses could be during the dance, when I have been doing it since I was 6…]

I believe that all this lecture these Anna’s Halprin’s words leaded me. I found that it is so important to  find a spot in studio where I would like to be, because, if you find one, perhaps there you would feel better, dance better or improvise better, but the key point for me would be that also the time you spend, could be better as well. ”To be in the right place at the right time” – now this idiom has a new meaning for me!

Continue reading “Week 4”