We started the session focussing on different body parts in detail. We did this by lying on the floor while Kayla was talking through the different body parts. For example, thinking about the ball of the foot, each different toe, and the top of the foot, instead of just the foot in general. This enabled me to start thinking about how many different body parts we all have and also made me more focused to start the lesson.
We then started to improvise with a partner. There were three different stimuli that we had to experiment our movement with, involving thick skinning and impulses. The first one was to embody kittens, so Georgie and I did playful movements and soft contact work to portray playful animals. The next theme was wrestling, so we did stronger movements with sharper dynamics and stronger contact work. The last theme was seaweed, so for this I did movements, which had a soft and natural dynamic to them, and let my body move more freely. I believe the wrestling movements were more effective and exciting, as I really put myself more into the movement and was not afraid to move in a sharp and aggressive way.
Afterwards I then participated in a score. Before the score, Becca was on my back as I was giving her a piggy back, but after I put her down Kayla liked the idea and wanted us to start the score with the idea of piggyback. I thought this was an interesting start to the score because we have never started the score with a comical movement before. Near the end of the score I tried to recreate the movement again, however as a solo, so I did movements such as deep plies in second and wrapping my arms round in a circular movement from front to back. This represented me holding Becca’s legs into place in the piggyback position. Because of the score, I feel like I have improved my improvisation, in the sense of getting rid of habitual movement week by week. I also feel like I am getting more confident when thick skinning someone, because I feel like the movements are beginning to feel more natural. I believe this is because I am beginning to get out of the mind set that partner contact work is unnatural and sometimes awkward.
We then went onto a different score, which was based on Thomas Lehman theory. This involved five different roles, which were; creating new material, interpreting, manipulation, observer and the mediator. At first I thought all of these roles were overwhelming and would confuse me whilst doing the score. However I started to understand and get used to the idea of having roles within the score, and it made it more exciting, opening up new thought patterns. The first role I played was the creator of material, which I found thrilling as I started the score with my own material. I then went on to play the observer role. This enabled me to ask questions to the dancers to find out why they were doing certain movements or why they were choosing to do the decisions they were doing. For example “Why are you manipulating the dancer in that way?” I found this interesting to understand the background thoughts on why each role was doing the particular action they were doing at the time.
In this weeks jam, the main topic was to look back on our life and to create maps on a piece of paper, showing the journey and the ups and downs. I therefore drew a plan on my piece of paper, which involved shapes and lines representing the experiences in my life so far. I found this interesting to look back on my life and to establish what I could remember. I performed movements to fit the certain events of my life, however I found it hard to interpret the experiences into movements and to make them clear to an outside audience. This being said, I enjoyed how this score had a personal background behind it, as I felt more connected to the score.