Emotions

I was had a chat with a 'dance' teacher a coupls of days ago and he was looking at emotions and passion. How do these 2 words define us as persons and as performers? The information I am getting through sesnsing travells along my body and transforms into emotions, that kind of bounce back out through my movement...does that make sense? well..it makes for me. I am very very sensitive person, so I think every little sensation I perceive brings the emotional layer to life, sometimes stronger than other times, but it's all the time there, present!

artist

kelly

Gemma's Research questions

Writing provides a handle for me to grip onto the complexities of practice and making.  Page spaces provide me with a place for reflection, gleaning and meaning making.  A space in which my dancing body can digest and find language in the imagery, narrative and thought processes which come with a dancing experience. Looking back over my first encounters with pages, drawing and writing intersect in order to word the happenings of a studio endeavour.  I notice description, notation dropping away, and the first flushes of imagination and expression seeping through my reflective accounts.  Now my writing provides a toolbox for research, practice and making.  It shifts, carries, supports and makes sense of the physical, emotional and cognitive reactions of a body as it acknowledges its presence and interaction with the world.

My reply:

Writing does play an interesting role in my life actually if I really think about it a bit deeper.
I hope you are ok with this little story of myself ... A few years ago, when I quit my latin and ballroom practice ( which was my love and passion at that point) I started writing poems !? I still have the book... I think writing those things down on some old comunist and yellow paper pages helped me overcome this massive crush..of not expressing myself anymore by using movemement, stepts, techniques etc... so at that piont it used to be another way of expressing myself and even of releasing my black and red thoughts that were inside me...now my writing actually tries to capture relevant moments of my movement, tries to reflect my emotional, sensorial and physical experience that I am having in a certain moment andwithin  certain space. It also keeps my memories alive and my writing also acts now as a resource for creating movement. I think it has a lot of roles in my life actually...it also communicates , it's like a network! I still think it needs to happen for longer!

Forced Entertainment

This is one of companies that intrigue me and inspire me in the same time....it's the only thing I have seen and it doesn't make sense....questions come up from watching them.

forced entertainment website

a piece from the piece

Solo material from freewriting after being on site.

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150896690711623&oid=430501290303863

Studio based material that shifts incredibly while performed on site!

just a thought about today

My dear Hayley, I believe we all come in contact with our boundaries...we are all challenged in different ways and I think boundaries define us as the humans we are! One of the things I enjoy the most in Writing Along Side experience is the unexpected, the surprise and the challenges...how can we put on a page what we feel and receive every single moment? If 'dancing' - or being, receiving, sensing- is known as an 'unique' and 'alive' moment ( somewhere in time and space) then is not there to be captured on a page...but does my page reflect my dance? or that particular moment? This is a strong experience for me that I am dealing with from the begining of this project and now it starts to make sense!

On the other hand... I am know challenged by:

eins zwei drei fir funf zecks ziben acht noin tzein
voerds ruckwerds seitwerds ran in die hoke horh das bein. (Joana sorry for this horrible writing, but it sort of makes sense for me)

different challenges

I enjoy using my body strenght

I enjoy sweating

I enjoy crawling on the grass ( even if my skin is so allergic to that!)

I enjoy playing my childhood game

I enjoy laughing while playing it.

I am looking forward to the sharing tomorrow!

Summer Dancing Festival 2012

I feel so lucky that I got the working scolarship within Summer Dancing Festival, here in Coventry so I will have the chance to observe close enough a variety of artists and even work with them! The festival has oficially started and I am taking part of Gemma's piece again, as our first collaboration happened last summer. She is a Phd candidate researching about how writing supports or influences the moving and the other way round as well. It is a challenging task for me...wrtiting along side...

Performance Day [Moda Dance Company]

It's just the morning...9 am company meeting, feeling quite calm and confident, is this maybe because it's an improvised piece? It's this because this is me today?
I am now feeling again the sensations that I had during performance projects period...performing, being on stage, being seen, been looked at...being resposible for what people see.
Energy within the piece, softness, true, honest movement, following what it is, being aware of scores, being aware actually of the whole self as well as the whole company on stage and off stage...
Costumes influence the movement and the body shapes and also the communication between 2 humans...

[taking my own notes]

And now let's SALSAAAAAA!!! For this session I am aiming to observ from outside and to think about how this practice can feed my essay!

Pilatesss

I am having a lot of pilates classes this term as I understand now that it is a very important practice for any performer as well as human. We focus more on the body parts that don't move, but stay still while performing any exercise. I also feel very connected to the breathing as the teacher also explains how the breathing should work in relation to every exercise ans how the breath travells through the body, simmilar principles to SRT classes, when we are encouraged to visualise how the breath travells across the body, around the bertebrae,etc. Another aim of the pilates practice is to control the body by using the deeper muscles and always taking time to focus on the natural position of the spine and on the 'quiet' ribs, so bringing the body to its natural paths and curvatures. I also enjoyed visualising the idea of paralel lines going across the body from the shoulders to hips and knees and toes.
Every class I can feel how my balance is improving and that I feeling much more grounded.

Body as energy system

This week my attention dropped over the body as energy system just by starting with Polly's SRT Class whan we had some new and exciting graphics. Tracing in a figure of 8 patterns of energy starting with the front of the feet and legs coming up to the skull, going over the face, torso and coming on the back of the legs. Also including the front and the back of the pelvis. While receiving all this delicate energy traces on the body partner A can evem sway from side to side and the when we work alone we can even imagine how fantom hands appreas and trace the pattenrs again and then disappear.
I think as a dancer it is vital to be aware of teh fact that the ENERGY keeps us alive together with all the organs and bones and blood and air. It is interesting to recognize what chemical rections happen into our body every instand we are alive and this is why I went back to Polly's handout about SRT and :
'the hunam body is seen not as a mind-body duality, but as a dynamic network of energies. The network is totally unified yet within it are complex, diverse autonomus patterns and forms of energy. Although there are reverberations within the network of energies, there is no linear pattern of cause and effect.'

underscore by katye coe [ 19.03.2012 ]

Today we have been introduced to a new type of practice, the underscore that leads into the contact improvisation. We were encouraged to arrive physicly (stretch, warm up, do what my body needs to do) into the space as well as energeticly ( and this is an important moment as I have remembered the energy graphics that Polly was talking about---> patherns of energy that cross our body all the time when we are alive, maybe even energies that keep us alive. So I integrated the SRT principles into my regular movement studies and I feel proud that I am now able to apply all knowledge in any class and that all th practices starts to interconnect and inter-relate, as a whole experience rather that separate practices). After the arriving phases we did dome preambulation, we found out about the kinaesphere and raveling with it as well as pverlaping it with other people. It's all about a series of choises, like choosing from a palette of 'colors' :

• touch
• attraction
• repulsion
• releasing
• sensing
• intersection
• copying
• I found this session very playful and I even had strong moments when I just could not stop laughing and smiling, but I felt like flying and the energy was amazing. This engagement took us into contact and I think the best part of this course for me is the contact improvisation practice ( it gives me a massive range of ideas and potential).

I just celebrate the fact that I can connect all practices we do into all classes and this journey starts to make a lot of sens. Moreover it's not just making sense, it's falling in love again with myself, it's about rediscovering myself, but this time in a natural way and I do celebrate that!

SRT [2nd year-term 2]

Starting lying on the floor and doing a body scan by releasing all tensions in the body. It feel like a necessity

now, maybe because of my period pains, all belly muscles get tensed and I need to stop them shaking...or maybe because now Skinner represents a vital and regular practice for me as a dancer and human...now I arrive more quickly into it!

This picture represents my view over the 'pulse' exercise, dropping down the pelvis and then dropping ino sliding, plyaing with the rhythm seemed to be the most challenging task as it need a very strong sense of play combined with seriousness and focus. It developed into galoping but leading with the pelvis, so it is a new approach of doing the gallop and I find it interesting as I am looking at how can I integrate different styles of movement into the somatic practices.

Site Work - Lia

We began the class with listening to the Ellen Terry Building History and trying to imagine how it looked like before: an old cinema. We started our movement exploration from the sensations that we had from listening to Lia telling us about how she came to the cinema with her family when she was a child and all the senstions she had from this experience.

• cinema/ noise
• popcorn
• movies/ stories
• people/ all ages
• relations
• laughter/ smile

All this words came to my mind and they represent somehow the trigger for my movement. Once the exploration has started, I had to choose 2 movements and to take them out, on the site. Finding 5 plces and integrate my 2 movements within those spaces/objects. Be aware of how the movement shifts or changes or stays the same once arrived into the site. I think it is interesting how the indoor practice is different from the site practice and how much it changes.
Scores:

• ALLOW BODY AND MIND TO BECOME TEXTURE
• CHANGE LEVELS
• ENTER AND EXIT SPACES
• FIND RELATIONS WITH OBJECTS
• EXPLORE FURTHER THE CYCLE OF 5 PLACES/OBJECTS
• EMBODY THE NATURE
• EXPLORE DIFFERENT ENERGIES

Studying Pina Bausch [routledge performance practitioners]

KONTAKTHOF (1978) by Pina Bausch

• performers walk up and down the stage showing the face, profile, back and theeth to the audience-> make the audience aware of their own implication in the process.
• 'the theatricality of the moment is enacted on the bodies of the performers themselves'
• 'i'm not interested in how they move as in what moves them'
• artists that have influenced her work: Marta Graham, Paul Sanasardo, Anna Sokolow,  Antony Tudor
• 'themes of gender construction and the poopsition of the sexes were explored in Bausch's early choreography, setting the tone for the work of her mature period'
• negotiations between 2 styles: george balanchine's ballet and merce cunningham's modern
• pag 10-11 (go back to them)

Improvisation- Steph

Steph Class
ONLY SET PHRASES...we went through them very quickly and I feel like a lot of the details were lost, were simply not present. Sarah usually goes very fast through her phrases, but her explanations are very rich and valuable, fact that I didn't feel in Steph's class. She just threw movement to us without offering so much "brain work', but I need to admit that the energy was fantastique!!! At some point the movement was so fast and my arms and shoulders got so tensed and I could really feel that! In the next moment SRT principles came to my mind and I took a moment and a released all that unnecessary tension out of my arms and shoulders and the chance was amazing! I could dance faster and easier! I started to enjoy those quick movements and my body had more volume and I started to expand myself!

I also noticed that I don't enjoy doing set phrases anymore, I feel restricted and copying the one who is teaching. But I do enjoy improvising, I love when the movement comes from myself, it is natural and MINE!!! I fell free and alive what I do what I feel like doing! I feel this is a massive change for me and I think I am on the right track!!!

Improvisation Session- Gemma

We had a very different improvisation session beginning with some sequences and continuing with using the movement and voice. We played with the idea of a set and clear movement progression on a diagonal. It is interesting to see how a dance group perceive so differently a simple movement and what transformations it can suffer. A very playful class opening up some senses and pushing my boundaries. I couldn't cross some of them...like improvising from a certain word, so there is a negotiation of what I can or cannot do when I have a little audience. SPONTANEITY is a key work of the next game...the "fortunately and unfortunately" story: move while telling your story phrase.
It was a special experience, based on games and playing rather than serious body study, which is great to have sometimes...but not all the time!

IPP sketch

Stages

I have become extremely intrigued by the relationship between the materials around us and the human being. One of many of my fascinations and indeed the trigger of my work is the fact that the materials can embody an image or the quality we are seeking in our lives, attribute that I have discovered within the IPP material exploration worskshops during both first and second year.
'It is not just the material in itself, it is an opening into the process of life within and around it' ( Andy Goldsworth).

Due to my interest in interdisciplinary work the process includes daily explorations into my personal practice, including intersections of writing, the use of the material and objects which can lead into an installation and a play with different types of light source. This layers may or may not be included in the final outcome but my intention is for the richness of the process.

Another thread of my process is my interest in the relationship between audience and performer, idea explored by artists like: Angela Woodhouse, Franko B and many others. I intend to draw the audience's attention to an acute awareness of the place and the present moment, a feeling of uncertainty, participation, duality and wonder.

Even if a massive part of this process is artists research I noticed that I tend to structure my own experience, thoughts and scores rather than applying other artists' concepts and procedures fact that brings originality and integrity to my art work. This is why this performance is a very personal and intimate one as it is inspired by my own thoughts, desires, aspirations and curiosities at this stage of my life in a certain relation to the world and traditions.

Stages

Within this project I have embraced the idea of 'not knowing what is going to happen' by allowing the movement and the phases to arrive to me rathen than making them happen, fact that represents a challenge for me as an artist. Therefore Stages is not 'shaped and fixed', but it has specific pathways leading into different improvisation scores. also represents a continuation of my first year IPP investigation, an ongoing process that can also lead into my Final Major Project the following year.

what???????????

http://www.sevensistersgroup.com/video/

'mockumentary' to ballroom dancing...
no cooment!

SRT Marina

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_BUBu1VH7g&list=UU8aaCcpIDdScTef7x1wjWTg&index=1&feature=plcp

again suspending the torso into the space and sending the skull into the air and allowing the spine  to curl naturally.  also a bit of help from my partner was vmore than welcome: brushing down the legs, up the arms and fingers, floating the head and torso, walking the spine, etc... I felt it as a reminder of my extremities going sideways and extending, but I also felt more grounded and rooted, supported and wider.
The idea of body mind unity arrived to me today...exploratin, curiosity, what is there/, feelings, sensitivity, beath through, giving a purpose, responses...

SRT Polly [23rd Feb 2012] -reflection

[gossima thread]

Just before the class I have noticed that I was arrivinh into my body...slowly and I felt like a special mood or a mist was covering me every second...
We went straight into the watchful state, in which I arrived very quicly because of last week practice and then we found ourselves a partner to soflen some body parts...leading into the whole body and the coming back. This happened as a dialogue between Jen and myself and I enjoyed a lot using different body parts ( neck, head, knees, elbows, spine) to send the softness into her body rather than my palm. It feels like a coin, as sending the softness into Jen also offered me a spongy feeling and a floating state. The torso raising fit extremly well after this duet as my whole body got 'pressed' as a sponge...and then floating up the tosro offered back my spine lenght and opened me up to the space again.
The focus drops into the open spaces of our body specially teh pelvic floor, torso and spine area. I felt like I had a huge ball inbetween my arms that shaped my body as a round one , offering me a lot of volume, weight and fluidity, as a image score for my movement....and then gossima thread appears and connects to the base of the middle fingers of each arm and sometimes dissolve into the space and reappear...my instinct leaded me through the curiosity and natural path...allowing the movement to find myself and to arrive. Balancing and suspending the torso inti the space almost feels liek flying a few seconds and then gliding on the floor again looking after the moment when it suspends again and it expands easily into the air...

[journal reflection]

phrasing class- sarah wately

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZUQ6_C9CPg&feature=BFa&list=UU8aaCcpIDdScTef7x1wjWTg&lf=plcp

This is another phrase that I enjoy dancing not because of the beauty of the movement but because of the way it travels through my body and because of the connections that I am aware of while moving.

• skull floating upwards into the ceiling
• lenghten into the spine
• balance
• skull leading
• spaces and air between the bones and vertebrae
• suspending

As feedback from sarah : wider lounge-having the sense of a grounded dancer and before going up side down feel the spine straight, having the sense of suspendfin the skull in the air.
Very useful feedback as it helps me to dance through images, to visualise myself in motion and wakakes my body awareness in relation to the space around. Also this phrase was designed for a line.

I also thins that all this principles are actuallu related to the SRT classes, as they encourrage the suppleness, the economy of the movenet, the multi directional alignement. I do believe that they are somewhere in my mind when I perform these set phrases and they do have a stong impact over my dancing.

Phrase Class- Sarah Wately

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qpteBt4Fyg&feature=BFa&list=UU8aaCcpIDdScTef7x1wjWTg&lf=plcp


A very valuable and rich class, full of enegry and again my whole body sais YES to movement...
While teaching us this class Sarah dropped the attention over the music and she chose very well the song and together we found some characteristics of this song:

• determination
• driving
• power
• insisting

A few words that can describe the movement of this phrase and associating words/characteristics to a movement is very helpful to really embody the movement/the style/the path...
This phrase also reminds me about Pina Bausch...and a lot of 'body connections' that we have learned during the first year: skull floating, skull to tailbone connection, lenghten into the spine, etc...

ceramic installation art IPP2

I have found an impressive artist working with ceramic ...

http://heppypots.blogspot.com/

IPP2 hanging

I have found a very interesting website about art, installation art

http://introductiontoartsandculture.wordpress.com/2009/01/07/m5-web-based-art/

hanging upwards IPP2

Walking around Kenilworth with my senses opened made me think about all the materials around us, whare they are, their shapes, colors, position...and everything is actually hanging upwards...

What si that force that makes us hanging upwards? why is everything evolving uprads?

IPP2 - research

Installation art in the new millenium

• works by artists who crtitically engaged with the experience of human perception, who tested limits and expanded its possibilities ----> modernization of European thought
• awareness of a double-sideness of perceptual experience: external techniques and practices and capabilities of the observer's own body and nervous system
• the use of machines, media and technologies---->creating unanticipated spaces and environments where our visual and intellectual habits are challenged or disrupted.
• if art is about technology, this means that my brother is witnessing every day art form by making the RMI of thousands of people who come into the clinique with serious distorsions, transformations, mutilations...
• investigating the relationship between artist and audience
• public-private spaces

IPP sketch

I was thinking now to do a huge map with all my ideas and to have them on the same piece of paper just to be able to follow it's progress...

Crossing Borders

Ros Warby – Creating work from the practice of performance

   Making , not attaching to anything, eliminating any task...taste what I haven't taste before (I find this challenging)

•  Her key for identifying her interest- in relation to sound (composer, designer) is self observation in relation to different moments that just happen and again not attaching to any set idea. The composer and the designer just do what they do and at some point the dialogue becomes common. The music fixes the piece and the dance goes flexible around the design and sound, so teh dance represents the most flexible element of her performances.
•  She thinks that the question is not about the relation between dance and sound (I don't agree with this afirmation at the moment, as I respond naturally to music, I think this is a challenge for me).
• Trying to find tricks to sustain those moments of attention, a person who thinks through ideas, phrases, communicate verbaly what you are making, being able to say it out., it is tricky because you need not to limit your ideas in order to giving it a certain shape.
•  Dealing with inside and outside as a choreographer.
•   How do I start into a studio without having any idea? This is a question to myself as I enjoyed all workshops we have done, it's not about picking up a certain path?
•  It's about trusting the intelectual management?
•   Allow the ideas to come from the body...imaginitive capacity...give yourself the possibility of happening by trusting yourself.
•   Her performances are not shaped, but they have pathways...the voice is part of the body, so it is not fixed
•   Including the audience in her visual field
• I am lucky to study in this university, to have these teachers, I learn from them, I get experience, this frames me, prepares me for being a performer/dancer...I do celebrate that!
•  The idea of performance as a practice, and learning from it! You don't need rehearsals or warm-up, you just experience. I feel a bit scared of it as I never thought of a performance like that, without ideas or rehearsals, but I think it will be challenging for me to try, but then I would feel like "it" is not developed, there wouldn't be extended and clear enough...
•  Being a solo artists ( exactly what we have to do for the IPP2) underlines the possibilites

IPP research [H2]

1. Trinity

I don't even know if this can be considered as an art work, but I found some interesting connections with the last hand-out (the cycles). The film is called "Dexter" and he is investigating a killer who commits a cycle of murders: he kills 3 people every year in the same location, in the same way, as a ritual for those who he has lost many years ago. His sister was killed in a bathtub, her mother jumped from the top of a massive building and his father got beat to death. The ash of his family motivates him to do this ritual and to choose his victims according to his dear and lost family and to kill them in a simmilar way, in simmilar locations, so that he accomplishes a full cycle every year: firstly he kills a young girl in a bathtub, than he pushes a married woman who has 2 children from the top of a building and then he beats a father of 2 children untill he dies. This is his code, his ritual, the expression of his feelings, his "art work". The art is considerated as a NEED, not a luxury, but a need that may haunt and push someone to non-existent boundaries.
The stucture of his work is progressive and the theme and the variation are very obvious. I looked more attentive to his movement while making his ritual and I can say it has a natural pattern, progressive rhythm and it definately has a narrative.
2. Species

 I was looking more carefully at Gemma's piece's structure. The creative process that I have been through is more easy to understand now that I have the hand-outs about the structure. I enjoyed the way we all developed the movement from little gestures, we amplified it and the addition process is more clear for me now. The narrative was not clear, or maybe inexistent, but there was definately a very interesting collage of ideas in this work. Saying out words with no sounds, moving from the heart, using all senses, climbing walls, being up-side-down and moving like a creature- all came out from a simple observation of some tarantulas.

3. Salsa

 My third piece of art is the salsa culture. This week-end I have been researching about how salsa came to life and it is incredibly interesting. It is actually a fusion of manifestiations of different african sclaves that have travelled from their tribs ( Yoruba, Bantu and Efik) to different places like: Cuba, Dominican Republic, Miami, Ney York, etc. This dance represents different rituals toward many Gods that belong to old religions like Santeria. It keeps changing by adding intruments, by playing with rhythms and by repeating some lyrics/words/sounds. The duration of any song is for about 3-4 minutes and it has a clear narrative, as the lyrics talk about love stories. During my research I have noticed the development of this culture, the way it travelled and what transformations it had suffered, its relation to the gods and people. The slasa is danced all over the word by people who don't even know each other but they use the same language: dance.

Form and compositional structures

This study is for the IPP2 final "sketch"...I will post some quotes that I found interesting.

• "form is present throughout nature, in all the forces of the universe, in all stages of life"
• "forming devices: cycles, progressions, stages of development" (water cycle, evvolution of species, structure of the stars and galaxies)-this one gave me some ideas about [H2].
• process of developing material and process of giving it a structure
• "choreographic devices are ways of developing nuggets of movement, enriching and extending an initial movement in order to build a greater body of choreographic material, by manipulating and amplifying the main material"
• "developing and filling out movement seeds"
• organic form- natural growth patterns, like a flower that progresses from seed, to sprout, to plant, to blossom and them to seed again...
• AB form- contrast and variety---> unity
• narrative- the use of stories
• collage- assorted bits and pieces of material (juxtaposition, etc)
• theme and variation- movement phrase repeated a number of times with different shadings.

{ The Intimate Act of Choreography, Blom and Chaplin, 1982}

Card for Katye Coe

My aim for this module of the second term is to allow the movement to simply happen, to arrive rather than making it happen, by searching deeply for the "essence" of myself, "it's all in there", as Kirstie Simson said. I need to listen to my body and to follow my curiosities.

Another thing I'm feeling keen about is the creative process, how to "compose" work, I have already started to read about the compositional process and I feel it is the time to experience that on my own body.

I also feel like even I have this aims, when you lead the session, they just happen, I don't even need to think about them, you simply make them be present!

Thank you!

Oana

Letter to my IPP2's [voice]

Dear IPP2,

First of all I want to say that I am very sorry I missed the last 20 mins of our last session and it won't happen again! As I didn't have the chance to share with you my thoughts about our explorations, I'm writing now a few lines:

Julia- I think that your exploration crossed over my expectactions and the power of your voice and the quality of your input feelings just amazed me. It was interesting to notice the connections between your voice/sounds and the movement and you remembered me of the voice as a part of the body, as a limb, by using it in relation to your moving body or your still body. I believe you are about to discover yourself, your essence and to let go all "self-judging"...

Fiona- A very misterious character who, in my opinion plays a theatre role by using the voice as well as the body. I also appreciate the naturaless and honesty that comes out of yourself and I noticed a very interesting composition of your exploration (using repetition and different volumes, tonalities, feelings, levels). I was actually thinking now of how you could link this type of work with exploring frames (maybe it won't work, but maybe you can find your own way to connect your ideas somehow)....Well done!
Joana- As usually a very powerful and funny artist who just captures me everytime she creates something. I could see how comfortable you are with using your voice in a creative way and I also noticed the "playfulness" of your work. This makes me think that for future you might be challenged to create something out of your "comfort zone", which I believe is "not a funny work", but I still think your voice can transmit a lot as well as your moving body.

I feel like the focus of this little group makes me a very inspired "creator" and our development process is so clear, I can see it through all of us!

My own exploration- I felt attracted by the sounds rather than saying our words, and the way that the sound travels through my body, bones, muscles, eyes and then gets out through my mouth and then maybe it goes to you (my little audience) ...my curiosity is actually what happnes with my sounds next? how do you perceive them? do they tell you something? do they make you feel something? or do you just ignore some of them? endless questions ...Travelling wth my sound, physically and emotionly, experimenting some sounds again, and again, and again, going back to them, or just letting them go... I think it's a continuous journey...

Thank you Amy for this session, I feel like so many doors open every session you deliver to us, and the Body Space Image hand-outs lead me towards making a little "something" , acutally frame a way of working, of exploring , developing some curiosities.
Thank youuu!!

P.S. I wish I knew your impressions about our explorations :( Sorry I've missed them:(

Much love,
Oana

SRT [2nd year-term 2]

[the use of the mist image travelling along your bones, tissues, skin...]

Readings....
"Releasing is discovered in the doing"
This little phrase makes me think of how I see SRT now, after I have already been through all this material once again, theoretical as well as practical. Now I feel like it's there, it's sort of set into my body and now it makes more sense. Even if I was used to "no pain no gain" I can admit that this type of work changes the phisicality and the mentality of my whole self. It even made me aware of another sense of the human being, the "kinesthetic sense", maybe at the end of the day, we are not who/what we think we are...as Kirstie Simson has said.
I just like this definition: (it makes sense for me anyway)
"SRT can be described as  a system of kinesthetic training which refines the perception and performance of movement through the use of imagery".

 Principles:

• suppleness
• suspension
• economy of movement
• autonomy
• multi directional alignment
• balance
• disorientation
• effortlessness
• immersion
• disori

The Art of Listening [Moved...by Decoda]

WOOOOOOW!!! simply amazing!
know I understand what we are talking about!
At the beginning I felt very stiff and tensed because I was working with my own teachers ( what a great opportunity) but at the beginning of the day my aim was to be free...
I think this workshop can't be described in words... it simply happened, it changed me!
Thoughts

• simple
• natural
• follow the instinct, the interest (rather than making it happen)
• listening to the body intelligence
• the GOOD NEWS is that we are NOT what we think we are... it is a lot more there...
• To blieve is what matters...

7 hours/day of moving with Kirstie and that amazing group didn't feel like 7 hours . Why? ... maybe because it was just about listening and reacting, following rather than thinking about moving or trying to show my skills...
How important is to LISTEN...in dance and in life, that's what I realised these 2 days.
Kirstie amazed me with her generosity and modesty, but in the same time with her power and energy, she was fantastique!!!
I have also learned some "hands on" exercises that really worked on my body and made a simple but useful introduction to the workshop and leaded directly into it, rather than changing the mood.
It was also a good reminder to move through breath...to listen to the breath, to feel my partner's breath into my hands and body.
She kept saying that is not about what we achieve, what we demonstrate we can do with our bodies...but it's about going really deep and finding the essence of myself, that is a spource that never dries...it's always there!

Kirstie Simson

Tomorrow is the big day!!! Kirstie Simson's workshop and lateron in the evening, her performance (film)

Energy Sculpting [part 1]

Kirstie Simson biograpghy

Kirstie Simson is one of the legends of British Dance and one of the greatest exponents of Contact Improvisation Time Out Magazine, London

Kirstie did a three year dance training at the Laban Center, London. After completing college she became interested in pursuing contact improvisation and the art of improvisation in performance whilst working with the Rosemary Butcher Dance Company in 1979.
Over the course of the next twenty-five years she has worked extensively, performing and teaching throughout England, Europe and the USA. She has collaborated with many dancers and musicians who share a common interest in working with the freedom to explore ever new and exciting ways to go beyond limitation. These performers include Julyen Hamilton, with whom she worked in close partnership for some years, Steve Paxton, Nancy Stark Smith, Simone Forti, Pauline de Groot, Alessandro Certini, Andrew Harwood, Chris Aiken, Katie Duck, Philip Hamilton, Peter Jones, Russell Maliphant and others.
She has been seen at the Dance Umbrella Festival in London, at DTW in New York City and many other performance venues worldwide. Kirstie has been a regular guest teacher at the School for New Dance Development Amsterdam, Dartington College England, the Laban Center London, P.A.R.T.S. School in Brussels, New York University, George Washington University Washington DC, Oberlin College Ohio, and Movement Research NYC. She has also been teaching dance companies all over the world, including Sasha Walz and Guests Berlin, Siobhan Davies Dance London, Felix Ruckert Company Berlin, and DV8 Physical Theater Company. She teaches classes and workshops at many other colleges and centres throughout the world.
Over the past 4 years Kirstie has worked collaboratively with dancer / choreographer Christian Burns who is a classically trained dancer from the US. They have presented their work in Europe and the US. Their research is bringing a synthesis of ballet and modern / postmodern dance through their mutual interest in improvisation, which they are interested in sharing with students from diverse dance backgrounds. Kirstie has just taken a job as an associate professor at the University of Illinois, USA. She will be working there full time from January 2008.

what an amazing person...

White Man Sleeps- by SD

I feel surprised and honored to read one of my teacher's articles about choreographic developments and the contemporary dance in Britain in a great book. She even gives some tasks at the end of ther chapter that I am definately intending to try.
After Siobhan's trip in America her attention droped on the "body in much smaller units- in terms of tiny joints, subtle placing of the weight and what the focus of the eye could do to the face"- fact that raised to my attention in ny first year of study.
Another interesting idea in this chapter was the piece "Make Make" (1992), where the dancers were set to find out how a phrase performed in the upper body could be performed with a phrase made for the lower body, which is an unusual place to be, and represents performing less simply co-ordinated material.
It might be useful to my FMP

"Make Make" piece by Siobhan Davies [videos]