The lesson began by getting into pairs, I worked with Sophie. We began with myself standing in front of Sophie so that her hips where placed behind my back. We then began a spiral exercise which focused on releasing in the back and spiraling around each other. The exercise then extended so that we could use the spirals to incorporate different levels or facings into the exercise. I believe me and Sophie worked well whilst doing this as we really used a wide range of levels and wasn’t shy about putting our weight into each other. We then changed partners and were given the instruction that we both had to try and be the under dancer. I really enjoyed being given this direction and feel as though i work better when i have more of a clear pathway to follow.  We changed partners again and both had to try and be the over dancer. This exercise overall helped me to understand how i can stack my body in different ways around a partner to give them different surfaces to work from.

We then spent the remainder of the lesson refining and improving our scores from the previous week, using feedback from our tutor and our peers. We decided that we needed to add more direction to the score.

Our new scores rules are:

– A minimum of 4 people must be out of the space at all times.
-After the jam, everyone would exit the space. Once we were all out of the space someone would enter to begin a solo. This would then be formed into a duo or trio.
-Involve travel! When someone new enters your solo/duo or trio the direction of travel must be changed with the aim of getting to the other side of the space.
-Every time you are aware that someone new has entered the space you must consciously try to change the level in your solo/duo or trio.
-We would end the score with some of us doing the ‘small dance’. And once you felt connected to the space you would stop dancing when you felt ready so that the score wouldn’t just come to an abrupt end.

We performed the score to the class twice more and got the feedback that we need to ensure that all of the space is used rather than just sticking to the upstage area and also to make sure that we don’t just stick together as a large group but explore the areas of the stage in smaller sections.

Reading:

Koteen, D., Stark Smith, N. and Paxton, S. (2008) Caught Falling, The Confluence of Contact  Improvisation and Other Moving Ideas. Northampton: MA Contact Editions.