Graham and Cunningham 14/10/11

In today's technique lesson we did a mixture of both the Graham and Cunningham's technique. We rushed through the Graham bit on the floor so we could concentrate a bit more on the Cunningham side of things.

Personal Goals and Improvements for Graham:

• Contractions - I feel like I have Improved on the contractions of the Graham technique, although these are not perfect yet, I am starting to understand more about where the initiation of the contraction comes from.
• Curves - when I'm curving over from a second position I need to be able to keep my hips on the floor, if this means I cant curve over as much then I need to compensate this.
• Awareness - Also when sat on the floor I need to make sure that I am always sat in an exact upright position and not slightly leaning forwards.

When doing this technique It feels quite un-natural to do and also it hurts my hips. I think this is because I am trying to sit upright and on top of my sits bones all the time which feels slightly uncomfortable.
     I like this technique because I can feel it working in my core.  The technique only works if you hold everything especially when pointing and flexing your feet, I have to point them to the maximum so my heels are actually off the floor. I know that every muscle in my leg is then working to the maximum.

Cunningham technique
The Cunningham technique was initiated by Merce Cunningham, he has been a driving force in modern dance and has been so for more than 50 years. Cunningham works on the basis that music and dance exist independently of each other. Cunningham also uses the idea of chance when creating dances, he wanted to challenge the way in which choreography was made. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't.  This was a risk taking approach which example enables me to feel free to try things now.

For this technique you need a strong sense of the movement capability in your spine. This is one thing that i find very hard as I feel that I don't have a lot of movement in my back and spine. I am starting to be able to understand this more and be able to adapt e.g. in a middle back curve, I need to not plie as much from the hips and initiate the curve from my core.

Choreography:

Its interesting to look at Cunninghams work for choreography ideas; the idea that music and dance don't need to fit together. In some cases Cunningham didn't bring the music and the choreography together until the dress rehearsal where he would find out if worked or if it didn't. In human minds we 'like' things to fit together but I find that in some strange way there is a sense of comforting when things don't fit together, it makes you look at things in a different light.
I would love to be able to choreograph in ways that Cunningham did, using chance etc.It would take a lot of courage to be able to do this as it would be a very different style to what I am used to but it would be interesting to experiment with this.