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.