What I did today? Week 8

Note: I was again not partipating in this workshop, I was only observing. Due to injury.

In this lesson we watched everyones performance, and then gave them feedback, then watched it again when they had taken on board some of our comments. There was one group in particular whose work stood out to me. This group was made up of 3 people, all from different types of movement backgroud, so they all brought something unique and different into the piece. The all seemed to work separately yet as a group at spesfic points when contact was made. When the contact was made, it was extremely interesting to watch them react to this accordingly, as with this type of improvisation, reacting to others and the atmosphere is a key skill that is needed for a successful piece.

It was interesting to witness everybody's performances and which ones worked with some sound, and which ones were more effective in silence. One group had sound which kept changing tempo, this gave their piece more depth as they could either go along with the tempo change and speed up or slow down according or juxtapose the music on perpose to create tension between the movement and the accompaning music.

What I did today: Week 7

Note: I was observing this workshop, not participating due to injury.

This workshop, again, follows on from the previous one. However, instead of using exercise balls to highlight the rolling point of contact, you just have to use the other person's centre as the rolling point of contact. This is called contact improvisation. People in my class found this quite tricky without having the ball to help and guide you on the sort of movements you should be making. Many people in the class felt embarrassed and stuck when it came to thinking up new ways of pouring your weight onto someone and rolling with this point of contact. With the ball it is easier to see when you lost the point of contact and how to not lose the contact again, whereas without it, you have to be very critical of yourself, and realise when you lose the contact and what went wrong. This can sometimes be something people struggle with. But, once people were aware of how to do this task, it was very beautiful to watch the types of movement people could come up with. From these movements, I noticed that I could infer some sort of 'story' or relationship. This jusy goes to show, that without trying movements can have so much meaning and impact.

What I did today: Week 6

Note: I was observing this lesson not participating. In this class the group warmed up by doing the Peggy Hackney pattterns of total body connectivity and the Makka-ho stretches. They were also introduced to a warm up called 'Douging' this is when you tap or hit down and up your body, like you are needing dough, this relaxes the pent up tension in your muscles.

This exercise is similar to how the class were
 using their core-distal connection.

The rest of this lesson the group were experimenting with pouring and giving their weight to an object rather than a person, for this they used exercise balls. This follows on from previous classes as they used their core-distal connection when rolling over these exercise balls, this shows how Peggy Hackney's patterns of total body connectivity can be applied to the movements we make in performance. Also, in this lesson they experimented with using the exercise ball as a rolling point on contact between two people, this meant that they had to give their weight not only to an object but also to the person on the other side. This, from observation, seemed quite tricky, as many people kept dropping thr ball and losing the connection between them. But once they learned to trust the other person and give more of their weight, the movements were much more fluid and they didn't drop the ball as much.

Then we all had to go back to our piece of writing about our familiar place (see previous blog posts), and re-write (from emotion memory) the same piece of writing with the key feelings we can remember writing down. Then we had to do some individual movements from these 'feelings' and then find 3 other people and teach them our movements. We were then given the task (for independent study) to create a improvisational movement piece using these movements and come up with some rules (e.g. always one person on the floor, when someone claps you have to change tempo etc.) to be performed next week.

Update on me...

In another class this week I injured myself, I have broken my elbow and it will take up to a year for me to have full movement in my joint again. This means movement will be extremely difficult for me, and i'm not entirely sure to the extent where I will be participating. This means that some of blog posts will not have relfextion on what I have been doing in class, but the emphasis will be moved onto what I have seen or have read in my independant study and in class. This is really upsetting, as I felt every week in movement I was getting more and more confident and free with my movements, it will be very hard to get back to this stage when I can participate again, as it has taken quite a few weeks for me to get to this stage.

What I did today: Week 5

In this session we had to do the same Peggy Hackney warm up, however, we had to do it at a different level (i.e. lying down). It felt very strange having done this warm up standing up for five weeks to go to lying down. Although, once you committ to it, the movements seem more easier and when we were lying on the floor.

From the task in my previous entry, we had to write our initial thoughts to the place we spent time at (for me it was starbucks). Some of the words I wrote down in the lesson were; "Relaxation" "Earthy" "Temptation". We then had to embody this emotional response individually and began to create different movements accordingly. I find individual movements quite tricky, as you only have your ideas and input to work with. To me, movement is much more effective as a collective as the different ideas and intrepretations makes for a much more effective and interesting piece. As the lessons progress and develop I feel so does my own theories and thoughts on movement, when are group of people are all moving communicating some thematic ideas, it is extremely powerful.

Emotion Memory

In last week's lesson we were given the task of going into a familiar place and observing what was happening in this place and our body's emotional reaction to this place. I chose Starbucks as it is a place we visit often, we had to sit here for 10 mins. Really trying to observe how you react to a certain place is extremely hard to put into words, and because you are trying to look out for things, I feel you act differently to how you would under normal circumstances. Although, being aware of yourself and others is an extremely important part of being a performance, as being in a state of readiness and awareness are key concepts of actor training.

What I did today: Week 4

During today's lesson we began with Pegggy Hackney's patterns of total body connectivity and the Makka-ho stretches which warms us up to be prepared and ready for our workshop. Here is some examples of the type of Makka-ho stretches we do: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6w

Today involved an individual exploration of improvisation. In this class we had to lean against a wall and give weight to the wall, and then explore ways of moving around our 'space' to express some sort of emotion. We had to do about 5 or 6 movements in this space and come up with a sort of movement 'score' in which we could do these movements. I experimented with speed/tempo and sound. Sound and tempo are very expressive of a certain mood, atmosphere or energy, so it was extremely useful to experiment with this to explore the different emotions that are communicated with movement and how these can be manipulated by using different techniques. We then had to watch these individual performances but you were also performing with two other people. It was really nice to see the juxtaposition in some of the pieces when performed side by side, the contrast for me gave extra emphasis on the extremes and intricacies of human emotion and how movement expresses our deepest feelings that the lexical language can only hint at. This lesson really opened up my eyes into the reasons behind doing this module and I feel that my understanding of movement grows with every lesson. 

What I did today: Week 3

As I have said before, every movement class begins with Peggy Hackney's Patterns of Total Body Connectivity which I explained in the previous post. 

This week was more of a continuation of last week's workshop so we started off with the same sitting and leaning our weight into another person's back but then we had to rock from side to side and then roll over the over person (this was called body surfing). I found this extremely difficult at first, as you have to completely trust the other person and be comfortable with them taking all your weight. I had a psychological barrier to this as I thought my partner wouldn't be able to support me and I would hurt myself. Overcoming this barrier, however, was a big milestone for me. Once I had done the body surfing I felt much more confident and free with my movements which created a more fluid 'body surf' which meant there was even less chance of getting hurt, because injuries occur when the body tenses up rather than allowing yourself to 'soften' into it. 

Therefore, this class was a major breakthrough for me in terms of confidence ans trust. I really enjoyed today's class.