class summary first week back

We started off the session by getting into partners and in turn stretching and massaging each other's bodies, concentrating on our partner's individual needs. We also vocalized the sense of touch we felt using our breathing, sighing and yawning. This allowed a stretch to go further with the help of the partner than if we were stretching individually.

 

After stretching we then proceeded to 'Wind' dance, making full use of the space and concentrating on our weight placement and the sense of energy from the floor and receiving energy from the rest of the group. We also explored our awareness of others, aiming to become more loose and ready with our bodies to prevent collisions. We then picked an animal to embody within our spines and made encounters in pairs, exploring the relationships that's formed. The rest of the group remained at the sides of the room throughout the encounters to ensure the rhythm continued.

 

We then moved onto a 'calling' exercise, experimenting with our vocal range in terms of calling to a place or person near or far. We then started to incorporate the body whilst calling, aiming to find the natural physical action that was appropriate. This allowed the exploration of the different interpretations and emotions e.g. negative or positive behind a phrase such as 'go away' or 'come here'.

 

We then applied this experimentation into the different sides of 'go away' and 'come here' to an exercise that we will call 'The Alien Game'. It started with experimenting with intonation and inflection to convey a meaning to a 'being' that does not understand the words. The next task was to isolate certain body parts whilst still aiming to convey the same meaning but without the use of physical action or facial expression. For example, using only the hips to accompany the phrase.

We found that not only was it difficult to not rely on the use of facial expression but also being the 'alien' within the exercise was challenging as it was hard to consciously block out the meaning behind the words and just concentrate on the other's use of movement.

 

To finish the session we moved onto an exercise that tried to find a walk that used conflicting physical actions e.g. feet pushing away and hands pulling in. We then used this positive/negative within encounters with a partner, pretending to cross them on a street.

 

We hope we have covered everything, if we have forgotten anything please feel free to add it!

 

 

Ali and Alannah xx