Thu 13 Jul 2006
Had a second session with Strut improvisation community this morning. Working on sighted/unsighted work once again – but this time with an eye
to increasing the “independence” of the duetting individuals.
We completed two iterations:
1. Baseline – locating/relocating the sighted person. Initially with sighted dancer “passive”, and then introducing tone for the second part of the improvisation. (some tone, some action, some “teasing” of the relationship).
2. Keeping “sight” of the other. A longer improvisation focusing on the following:
i) increasing activity/dynamic level.
ii) teasing and pushing separation.
iii) independence/interdependence – particularly by considering degree of physical proximity.
iv) For the sighted person there was a reminder to keep electing to “assist”, “resist” and “rupture” (or contaminate) the situation.
Some questions:
What can you find out about this person’s state & body?
Does their location always have to make sense?
Are they safe?
What comes in and out of the field of view ?
How are you locomoting – beside, around and next to this person?
How do you “find” them?
At the end of the session, David asked, “Are you looking to stimulate risk?”. It resonated strongly with me, and now I think that it is both perceived and real risk that I am drawn to in this work – in searching/provoking for moments of the unknown or of extreme surprise.
July 13th, 2006 at 10:11 pm
this second session had more parameters than the first and, for me, this provided a clearer focus in the dancing.
i particularly was interested in the locate/relocate terms and how the first, locate, for the unsighted person is about gaining information (of course the sighted person receives tactile information as well) and then by relocating the other body they are providing information (and of course receiving further information about the architecture of the other body – and perhaps their own). so, by engaging in this simple task there is an interdependent development of awareness.
also as the unsighted person i got a lot out of locating and relocating my own body – in relationship to the other body and through my own impulse. it’s a simple score for moving, locate then relocate.
having contact improvisation as a base practice, i found that even while keeping away from the contact vernacular (as part of the task) there is always a wealth of information that is transmitted through contact… and, even when not consciously processing it, that information provides spatial and vectoral information.
in dancing this way there were moments of complete surprise when having moved out of touch coming back into touch unsighted and sensing the other body they would be not where i may have expected. but, even then this quckly lost it’s surprise because it became the known. that is, i knew that in those moments i was coming back into contact (when unsighted) there could be unknown connections, which enabled me to actually be a little unaffected by the lack of ‘sense’.
more to write about stimulating risk… but it will have to wait until the next day.