First class, limon technique

In our first class back after summer I was apprehensive about how my body would feel.  Whilst I had been dancing during the break I had not been dancing to my full capacity.
The technique which was studied in this class was the Limon technique. This technique concentrates on connecting the breath with the movement and how the breath actually influences the movement. When in class it felt like the movement had to have a sense of weight behind it, allowing me to feel grounded.  I felt that gravity was taking me and making the movement feel natural rather than forced. It was made clear not to get bogged down by the exact steps or counts of the exercises but let your body flow through the movement rather than staying rigid to the counts.
For me to dance this technique felt quite strange as this was my first experience of studying this technique.  It was hard to move away from staying to the counts and just to let my body flow through the movement. My dance training has drilled me to count and when you practice a very different technique and move away from counting it is difficult to achieve. By the end of class and during the final sequence I felt like I was starting to get to grips with it; when I did it felt relaxing and although the sequence was hard work it was freeing and felt lovely to dance.
   I realised within this class and within the Wednesday morning class that to use your breath makes dancing easier, it gives a deeper sense of my body. When learning the Limon technique it was interesting as it allowed me to see how breath gives a different dynamic to the movement, it was interesting to be able to play around with this myself and although the exercise was a set exercise it was interesting to play with the breath when to breath in, how fast to breathe out etc.
   My goals in this techniqe are: to be able to let myself relax; stop thinking about the music and the counts and just let the breath and the movement take me. I know that this will be hard for me to achieve but if I am able to accomplish this it will not only be useful in other classes and techniques such as 'release technique' but it will also be a useful way to choreograph dances and add more dynamics to the movement I have created. To enable me to achieve this goal I need to stop worrying about what people around me might think, I am quite self-conscious when it comes to doing things out of the ordinary for myself. I need to forget about people around me and stop worrying about what people are thinking and just dance for me.

Introduction

Hi my name is Lucy Richardson and I am currently a third year student at Northumbria university studying Dance Choreography. My goal for this assignment is to be able to take a reflective view on my technique classes in more detail and realise what I can improve on, what I have achieved in each class and what different feelings arose that were significant or interesting to me.

    
"I don't want people who want to dance, I want people who have to dance."  ~George Balanchine

This quote by Balanchine expresses how I feel about my dancing, although I want to dance I have a feeling inside me that I HAVE to dance, just for myself and I have always known this to be true.

A few more succinct goals for this assignment and technique classes are to;

• Take all corrections given to me and work and practice with them so the week after I can show I have listened and I am starting to put it into practice.
• Work on the flexibility in my back, especially my middle back and try to work positions to the best of my ability
• In classes in the past I have been told to use breath more, so to be less self conscious about it and take the correction and the idea's on board.

To be able to achieve these goals is going to take practice not just in class but in my own personal time as well, one technique class in each technique is not enough just to use that for practice so I will go away and use studio's when they are free to practice. I also aim to complete these goals by videoing and taking pictures of myself in class so I can evidence my work and can see first hand my strenths and weaknesses in certain sequences etc. The pictures and video's will also help me see improvements from week to week.

Technique classes in dance allow you to become focused and also build strength and stamina, a lot of the techniques are obviously based on different choreographers.  I find it very helpful to learn about their different styles, how they work individually and compare similarites and differences between their techniqes. Research into why techniques are successful is also interesting.