Like the previous session, we began by energising the space, which led to exploring our skinsphere and kinesphere. This not only provides an opportunity to get in the right mind-set but also ensures my body is free from habitual movement vocabulary as well as becoming comfortable and at ease when pressing and rolling around the space.
Afterwards, we were told to lay face down on our stomachs giving all of our weight and relaxing into the floor as we became dynamically heavy. Still maintaining this position, my partner lay horizontally across my back and instead of giving her weight to the floor, gave her weight to me. She then began rolling up and down my body slowly, pressing down on body parts which I don’t normally take notice of such as the back of my thighs or the thoracic spine. This related back to Duncan Holt’s idea of proprioception in Touch: Experience and Knowledge in which he states by touching an area of the body that is unfamiliar it “brings a freshness that you might appreciate as new sensory knowledge of your own anatomy and recognised in the context of your being.” This suggests that as my partner rolled over my body, it brought awareness to body parts I tend to not use or think about during improvisation, and therefore recognising a potential for movement in these body parts. When it came to rolling over my partner’s body, I realised at first I was still harbouring some weight as I didn’t want to injury her. However as I continued to roll up and down her body, I relaxed and eased into the movement as I realised that by holding tension in my body, I would injury both her and me. Taking into account the section on ‘What Students Tell Us’ in Touch: Experience and Knowledge, this exercise allowed me to gain a sense of closeness and trust with my partner, understanding the idea of touch being experimental and broadening my awareness and curiosity to the importance of touch.
“Touch allows you to connect with another, from my experience it has helped me engage with my group members to a higher level of trust”
The next couple of exercises developed on this sense of closeness and trust. First of all we sat back-to-back with our partners supporting one another’s weight as we began to move on the floor, always remaining in contact by our backs touching. The second exercise, my partner rolled along the floor continuously as I followed her using different body parts such as my back or shoulder to roll over her. When I was the person leading the movement in both exercises, I felt in control of what would happen next whereas in the back-to-back exercise when I followed my partner’s movement I felt dependent on her to ensure we moved safely. As my partner led me, my shoulders and back became a lot softer and relaxed as I put all my weight onto my partner relying on her movement to travel us across the space. However in the second exercise, where I had to move over my partner as she rolled, I realised I was thinking about the movement before actually moving and relied solely on my back or stomach to roll over her. As my partner continued to roll faster, I had less time to think about my movement and started using my chest, arms and ankles to pull myself across her. It made me realised that contact improvisation isn’t about making something look pretty but more the fact of creating something experimental and following the flow and pace of the movement and seeing where that takes you. Last week I asked ‘how will experimenting with touch change the way I move?’ and this exercise is simply just the beginning of using touch to explore the communication between physical contact as well as learning to release excess muscular tension and have the willingness to experience the natural flow of movement.
The next exercise we focused on gaining a sense of trust and balance with our partners. Firstly we were told to move in a ‘structural way’ placing body parts on the floor firmly. While watching, my partner would say pause and then find a way to balance or lean on my body as I maintained the paused position. When I was the one balancing on my partner, I had total faith that she had the strength to carry my weight and therefore became more daring with my balances – sometimes lifting my feet and hands off the floor and balancing solely on my partner with my back or stomach. I enjoyed being in control of when my partner would pause as it gave me an opportunity to experiment and use different body parts that I wouldn’t feel comfortable to do in normal dance practice.
Finally we merged all activities together performing a small, improvised duet. This not only allowed us to investigate with the idea of touch and communication between two dancers but also meant we could follow the flow of movement and play around with manipulation or dependency between one another. Afterwards we realised that if we were unsure of where the movement should go next, we always went back to back-to-back as it gave us a clear starting point to begin again. I also found that I would tend to follow my partner’s movement and balance or lean on her body instead of being the one to support her weight. I think this was more to do with the fact that I was much more confident in giving her my weight than in my strength to carry hers, simply because in previous experiences I’m always the one being lifted. In the next couple of weeks I hope to experiment a lot more with taking other people’s weight and being the under-dancer, which answers my question from last week where I asked ‘will I continue to break away from my comfort zone?’
Questions
- How much can we communicate through contact?
- How will we use touch to move away from habitual movement?
Citations
Bannon, F. and Holt, D. (2012) Touch: Experience and Knowledge. In: Journal of Dance & Somatic Practices, 3(1/2) 215-227.