As this week was our final improvisation class, we embedded most of the exercises and strategies into one lesson, in order to show how we have improved over the nine weeks.
The first exercise revisited Nancy Stark-Smiths underscore. Starting on the floor this time, made me feel more grounded and ready to dance as it helped me to stretch and feel what my body needed to do in order to be ready. I felt a lot more confident this time around in the score, as I allowed myself to adjust to my bodies needs and let myself go, which helped me have more freedom within the way I moved. Towards the end of the score different ideas were thrown in, for example we had to imagine that our left side was crumbling away and our right side was stretching out. This was fun to do as it helped me to think outside of the box in order to create different movements. Finally, standing with a different posture to your natural one was interesting as it made me realise how bad my posture actually is! This is because I chose to stand up as straight as I could, and this felt a lot different to my normal posture. We then had to decide on fifty different variations in order to get out of the position we was in, returning back to our first position between each one. I found this very difficult as it was extremely hard to think of so many different positions without returning to the same ones, especially in the short amount of time we had!
We also were introduced to a new exercise which involved the pelvis and the skull. During this we had to keep our hands on our partner’s pelvis and skull at all times while they danced creating a duet. I found this very enjoyable, however it was extremely hard because you had to more or less guess where your partner was going to move to next, so that you could follow and not let go of them. This involved a lot of focus and attention. However I think this will help me a lot during open scores when creating duets/trios as I can incorporate this movement.
I think that this time around our group score worked so much better! We introduced our own ending, which meant that we wouldn’t know how long it would definitely last for. Although I think that this worked a lot better as it made us more focused and aware of what was going on. Also making the limitations more dynamic worked a lot better as it made it more interesting to dance and to watch as it gave us more of a structure.
I really enjoyed working with the pop up scores, mainly because we were allowed the use of music. Although I do feel that the music does affect the improvisation, because dancers tend to go with the flow of the music, rather than using the freedom of their bodies.
The idea of a pop up score followed on into the jam. This week we created a 30 minute score, where we all had to include a solo each. We could also shout out limitations from some pieces of paper located at the front of the room. These limitations also included use of music. Again I didn’t enjoy having music in my improvisation because I feel it really limits you and your movements because I feel like I have to be in time with the music which affects the improvisation. Doing my solo was very daunting because we had to perform them in a certain order, which I didn’t enjoy because I didn’t feel ready to do a solo, as normally I like to join in when I feel is the right time and when I am ready to dance.
I have really enjoyed learning these new skills and creating new discoveries about myself and my own body. These past nine weeks have really helped shape my understanding of improvisation and I feel I have learnt so much! Before starting improvisation, I had no idea what to do in order to be able to improvise, and I think this is because I used to see improvising as a scary situation because I didn’t know what strategies were involved and how to move my body in a free flowing way and I also wasn’t confident enough to do this. Whereas after learning and experimenting the different structures and modes over the nine weeks, I think that I am more confident as a dancer and this will help me in the future, because as we learnt at the start when throwing bean bags around, improvisation is everywhere and not just in dance.