Standing stationary we noticed our body is in constant motion, moving side to side, forward and back. With minimal muscular effort, I was able to really sense the reflexes of the body that prevent me from falling as my muscles and bones communicate with gravity to stay in an effortless and changing alignment. I was continuously losing and regaining balance, creating a free-flowing unpredictable pattern of momentum and readjustment that was moving through my body, in which this sensation of continuous alignment, was named the Small Dance by Steve Paxton. We then began to develop the movement to take us off balance and how the momentum of the body’s reflexes can travel us across the room in any direction. At first the momentum pushed me to run a couple of steps either forward or back and I realised I was consciously thinking about which way my body was moving as I fought against gravity and the urge to fall instead of listening to my body’s impulses as I was worried I might bump into people. However as I eased into the momentum, I began to actively follow my body’s impulses, primarily taking me forward or to either side, as I began to fall to the floor. The first couple of times I fell all the way to the floor I noticed a sense of stiffness and doubt in my body – more to do with the fact I didn’t want to injury myself – but I soon realised that the floor will always be there to catch me which allowed me to release any muscular tension I had harboured and follow the body’s intention to move with force effortlessly. The idea of the small dance referred to Ravn’s exploration that a “dancer’s sensation of weighted mass of their bodies is influenced by ideas of what the body and movement should be like when dancing” and suggests that by having an awareness of your body, it’s impulses and constantly changing alignment will not only help you in safe practice but will allow you to experiment and discover new ways of shifting, moving and travelling through the space, taking note of where the weight is in the body and how this has an affect on the momentum or movement itself.

 “The small dance is also this kind of dialogue between my listening, observing and direction consciousness and my body, with its moving structure and its deep knowledge about movement, functional anatomy, needs, feelings and desires.”

In partners, we took the idea of one person being the cat and the other the cat owner. The cat owner became a base for the cat to balance, push, lift and explore different ways to keep in contact whereas the cat owner would only move in order to support her partner’s weight keeping their movement small and direct. Being the cat owner I was open to news ways I could become the under-dancer, which is a role I tend to shy away from. I experimented with supporting my partner’s weight without using my hands but instead using my back, hip and arms which broadened my awareness of the possibilities and points of contact and balance that I hadn’t previously tried before. However when I took the role of the cat, I was able to experiment more with balancing on different surfaces and using different body parts such as resting my thoracic spine, neck or knees on my partner. At the beginning my movement was slow and sustained as I was consciously thinking about ways to balance and keep in contact with my partner, however picking up the pace and momentum I found there was even more ways to move whilst remaining in contact as my partner would always be there to support my choices. This related to Ravn’s idea that a “dancer’s movement sensations are also actively influenced by other dancer’s movement, as these movement unfold in shared practise” . Our final task was to blur the roles of cat and cat owner and constantly change or become both roles as we created an improvised duet. Both Jade and I felt this was easier as we could follow a continuous flow of movement and respond to one another’s impulses and balances. This also allowed me to experiment with transitioning between being the under and over dancer and how I can support my partner’s weight on a higher level instead of going straight to the floor, by either lying or on all fours, as this is one of my habitual tendencies. Continuing this allowed my body to relax and release any tension so that my movement became effortless and unpredictable as I gained a stronger spatial awareness and an awareness of my partner’s impulses and body. This related to Brown’s suggestion that “the creative interplay arises from mutual awareness of weight, rhythm, momentum, environment, attitude and feeling” and therefore by having an awareness of my partner’s weight and momentum, we can not only move in a safe and sensible manner but we are also able to fully explore our creativity and discover new ways of keeping in contact. For example the more time we spent on the task, the more daring and comfortable we became – so much so that at one point, Jade had only her feet on the floor supporting my and her own weight.

In groups, we discussed topics for our research lab next week (see below for images) and decided on the question ‘how can we explore momentum alongside the idea of coming off the floor without using the support of our hands and how does this change when working with new or old partners?’

Jam

This week I didn’t really go with any intentions but instead I just wanted to move and see where the sensation of the small dance and momentum would take me. I also wanted to explore with taking other people’s weight but I didn’t want to stress this exploration too much as I wanted to follow the unconscious nature of my body’s impulses instead of intentionally thinking I need to be the under-dancer. The darkness of the room again made improvising easier as sometimes I couldn’t tell who I was in contact with allowing me to fully explore new ways to move and work with people I haven’t had a chance to. I was also surprised by the amount of times I took my partner’s weight and how easy it was to move from being the over dancer to transitioning to the under dancer and vice versa. This week I felt I properly let go of any tension or awkwardness in my body, explored new points of contact and followed not only my internal momentum but reacted to others instead of moving away. For example there was one point, where me and Robyn moved away from a cluster of people, and by maintaining contact with only our heads, ran around the room and fell to the floor forcefully before finding another way to balance on one another. I definitely pushed myself and was extremely happy with the direction my movement and sense of momentum took me in this week’s jam.

Citations

Brown, B. (1997) Is Contact a Small Dance? Contact Improvisation Sourcebook 1. (6)72-75.

Ravn, S. (2010) Sensing Weight in Movement. In: Journal of Dance & Somatic Practices, 2(1)21-34.

ZayacZhe. (2009) steve paxton. small dance. [online video] Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sJKEXUtv44 [Accessed 17 October 2014].

Hassmann, J. (2009) Explorations within the Small Dance. [online] Available from http://www.contactquarterly.com/contact-improvisation/webtexts/view/explorations-within-the-small-dance.php [Accessed 17 October 2014].